ARMED FORCES: Defense on the Rhine

Most of the American troops in Germany, about 160,000 strong, were in the field last week. In "Operation Combine," the largest postwar U.S. maneuvers in Europe, the Seventh Army was testing the defense of the dangerous 85-mile front where the border of the Soviet zone swings west toward Frankfurt.

In the early morning, armored combat teams of the crack American Constabulary thrust westward in a surprise attack. Paratroops dropped near Frankenthal to secure a Rhine bridgehead. Partisan guerrillas closed in near Kaiserlautern and "destroyed" a supply dump. Threatened on their flanks, the 1st and 4th Divisions reeled back until units...