RAIN OF STEEL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 154, 1 July 1944, Page 5

RAIN OF STEEL

STRIKING GERMANS

Many Surrendering Before Ammunition Runs Out

N.Z. Press Association—Copyright

Rec. 1.30 p.m

LONDON, June 30.

"Some little spring has broken in the Wehrmacht," says a war reporter of the Soviet newspaper Izvestia. "German soldiers, armed to the teeth, are now surrendering while they still have ample ammunition for many days of resistance."

The Exchange Telegraph correspondent, after a tour of the Vitebsk area, says crack German troops who a week ago were solidly manning the Vitebsk zone defences, now look as though they have been hit by lightning. "Our party, in a tour of the district," he adds, "had to swerve our car along every few yards of the road to avoid the remnants of proud German motorised divisions. We halted outside a city to drink with the Russians a toast to Vitebsk and Cherbourg, and one Russian remarked: "These two bastions are almost equidistant from Berlin." Berlin Radio Version Berlin radio to-day said: "The Russians are literally deluging the battlefield with a rain of steel. The German soldiers are subjected to a ceaseless aerial bombardment while packs of tanks and hundreds of heavy guns in multiple batteries attack on the ground. The Red Army's best troops are being hurled against the central front to transform the White Russian plain into a vast mortar in which to grind the German divisions to the dust.

"To strengthen this plan a wide screen of guerilla forces is in the German rear. These te'oops now engage large German forces. This all-out summer offensive imposes gigantic tasks on the German High Command." GERMANS REORGANISE TO MEET FURY'OF ATTACKS Rec. 2 p.m. LONDON, June 30. A German spokesman to-day told neutral correspondents in Berlin: "We are engaged in reorganising the whole distribution of our forces in the light of the fury of the great attacks which are being directed against our armies from three directions. We must be content to fight vigorous holding-down actions until our reorganisation has been accomplished."