31-Wynford Vaughan Thomas

This chase after the Germans flying in confusion from the banks of the Rhine has been one of the strangest experiences of the war. Our tanks have long ago left the torn and shattered landscape around Vaisal and Zenten where we first forced the crossing.

They are now out in undamaged country, racing through villages which have never seen war. villages from which the inhabitants haven't been forced to fly to the woods. As they were in the little places we captured near other bank.

And for the first time I think we are getting the real feeling of conquest. When you can drive as I have today for 30 miles along undamaged roads with not a sign of the enemy and no sound of gunfire and not the slightest trace of snipers or guerrilla fighting or any last-minute defense, then the end can't be far off.

Occasionally little groups have tried to hold us up. The airborne boys told us of one such group composed of Hitler Youth, or about fifteen, who formed a bazooka team at a roadblock. But they were quickly swept aside, and our tanks and guns are rolling ahead through this level well-tilled country, past the big red brick farmhouses, everyone with this

little white sheet hanging from the windows, and on through the woodlands pressing eastward mile after mile without pause. And everyone is moving faster because out here we can see the end to it all now. And it's the strangest possible sensations to be driving almost at will, utterly unmolested, to the heart of your

enemies country. It just doesn't seem possible and yet somehow, here we are.