HUGE LOSSES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 60, 11 March 1944, Page 5

HUGE LOSSES

RETREATING ENEMY

Reds Liberate Hundreds Of

Inhabited Places

N.Z. Press Association —Copyright Rec. 1 p.m. LONDON, Mar. 10. To-night's Soviet communique says: "The Russians, heating off counter-attacks, continue to fight street battles in Tarnopoi. The Russians, in the direction of Proskurov, continued the offensive and have fought their way into several inhabited localities, including some large ones. The Russians southwest of Kasatin have occupied Khmyelnik, a district centre in the Vinnitsa region, as well as over 30 inhabited places and also four railway stations." The communique, after repeating Marshal Stalin's Order of the Day, says 300 places occupied included Svenigorodka. The Germans left over 20,000 dead on the field and 2500 Germans were taken prisoner. The prisoners named the divisions to which they belonged, including the Adolf Hitler and the Storm Troop Tank Division, which were entrusted with the task of staving off the Russian offensive. These German divisions, as a result of the mobile infantry formations' swift blow, were forced to abandon all their equipment and escape. Other places captured include Kalinivka, a railway junction on the Berdichev-Vinnitsa line, Iyulints.y, 25 miles south-soutn-west of Berdichev, Yanov, 17 miles north-west of Vinnitsa, and Novgorodka, 20 miles south-east of Kirovgrad . The Russians on the Third Ukrainian Front continued the offensive and occupied a district centre in the Kirovgrad region, also a district centre in the Nikolayev region as well as over 150 other inhabited places. The Russians have also captured six railway stations, rhe Germans retreating under the Russian blows are suffering enormous losses of men and material.