Seventh Full Scale Offensive

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 170, 20 July 1944, Page 5

Seventh Full Scale Offensive

SECOND BALTIC FRONT

Deep Penetration By Red Army Over Latvian Border

(N.Z.P.A. —Copyright.—Rec. noon.) :'£SfSl LONDON, July 19. The seventh full-scale offensive has been launched against the Germans' eastern front. Marshal Stalin, in an Order of the Day, addressed to General Maslennikov, who previously operated in the Kuban, reveals a new break-through south of Ostrov, fringing the north-eastern frontier of Latvia. The Order says: "Troops of the Second Baltic Front, after piercing Velikayaßiver, penetrated deeply-staggered enemy defences south of Ostrov, and in two days' fighting advanced 25 miles and extended the breach to a width of 43 miles. They captured 700 places. The British United Press correspondent points ont that the new offensive further increases the threat to the German 16th and 11th Armies under Lindemann holding the northern Baltic States. A considerable portion of these armies is m Estonia, holding Pskov area, just north of Ostrov. Meanwhile, to the south masses of Russian tanks are pouring through the 120-mile gap torn by Marshal Koniev's Army in the Germaun defences covering Lwow, and the retreating enemy forces are being subjected to the most heavy and continuous shelling of the war. The German news agency commentator von Hammer reports that the Russians have reached the Bialystok-Brest Litovsk railway, which is the Red Army's most westerly advance. Reuters Moscow correspondent reports that the Russians to-day are battling into the suburbs of Brest Litovsk.