OAKLAND,
CALIFORNIA, SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 1945
Allies
Push 5 Miles Into
Ruhr on
30-Mile Front
1200 Big Guns, 11,000
Planes, British and U .S. Navies Join in
Mighty Assault on
Last Great Barrier Before Berlin; Four
Crossings, Paratroops
Join to Form 12-Mile Bridgehead.
By AUSTIN
BEALiMEAR
PARIS,
March 25 (Sunday)—(AP)—
Four
Allied armies crossed and broke Germany's vaunted Rhine line on a 30 mile front
yesterday, plowing five miles into the flaming Ruhr and the North German plain and
today General Eisenhower's forces stood at the threshold of final victory.
Backed
by 1200 guns and 11.000 planes, with British and U.S. navies manning
fleets
of landing barges, the long-awaited end-the-war offensive across the Rhine in
the most massive operation since D-Day last June 6, ripped the historic Rhine
barrier wide open.
The British Second Army and parts
of the Canadian First Army struck in concert with the Allied First
Airborne Army. spilling out on the North German Plain within 290 miles of
Berlin, and gouging out a bridgehead of more than 15 miles
stretching east to Wesel,
Northwestern gateway to the Ruhr.
_____________________________________________
Assault
Long Planned
TWELFTH ARMY GROUP
HEADQUARTERS March 24,(AP)—
The U.S. Third Army crossing of
the Rhine Thursday night was no fluke. It. was planned three months ago for the
very place where it occurred.
Lieut, Gen. George S. Patton
Jr., got. the go-ahead from the group commander, Lieut. Gen. Omard N. Bradley, at
a conference on an air field Tuesday.
_____________________________________
Crossing Was
Amazing Task
Newsman Tells How
Three Armies Were
Put Across Rhine
By WES
GALLAGHER
ON THE RHINE, March 24—(AP)—
Fighting the most intricate
battle ever planned by American and British soldiers, elements of three Armies
were making amazing
progress today after crossing the
Rhine by a combination of blood and guts.
To get a ringside view of the greatest
co-ordinated attack ever staged on the western front I followed the doughboys
and Tommies from their secret assembly areas to the Rhine over moonlit, roads, watched
the attack develop from a front line regimental command post, went across the
river, and finally took a flight in a cub airplane for a 3000-foot-high seat
over the great Rhine for the air drop by thousands of parachutists and glider
troops.
I will try to draw into one view the
tremendous overall significance of the attack by the ordinary men of Britain
and America turned soldier.
END
BELEAVED NEAR
There is not a man, American or British,
from generals to privates, who does not feel that this is the beginning of the
last major battle that will bring the war to a quick end.
It is the first time that this
feeling has permeated into the hearts of the always pessimistic GI's who have
to do the .fighting.
Everything the Allies, amateurs
to begin with, for three
years of war has been thrown into
this battle against the most powerful German fighting force left on the western
front.
German defeat now means loss of
the Ruhr, opening up the gateway to Berlin, an eventual linkup with the Russian
Armies and loss of the war for the Germans.
Despite thesestakes, German
resistance at, first, was spotty
Navy
Blasts
Jap
Islands
Battleships, Plant*
Attack Ryukyut,
300 Miles Off Nippon
My
MORR1E LANDSBERG
U.S. PACIFIC FLEET HEADQUARTERS.
GUAM. March J5.—
United States battleships
bombarded the Ryukyu Islands Friday and Saturday in the closest surface action of
the war to the Japanese mainland, while carrier planes of Vice Admiral Marc C.
Mitschers Task Force 58 struck co-ordinating blows.
The Navy in a communique
disclosed the latest phase of the most extensive carrier task force of the war.
Mitscher's two-way strike of the Ryukyus, destroying enemy Shipping and
smashing airdromes within 300 miles of Japan, was delivered with only a day's
interval — likely for refuelling— between it and a heated four-day operation
against Southern Japan.
Thus for six out of seven days Mitscher's
task force was in action, crippling Nippon's home fleet in inland land Sea
hideouts of Japan, cutting deep into the enemy's homebased airforce and
neutralizing enemy air bases in the very heart
of the empire over a stretch of more than 300 miles.
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