OVER LAST MILES TO EAST PRUSSIA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 181, 2 August 1944, Page 5

OVER LAST MILES TO EAST PRUSSIA

CHERNYAKHOV DRIVE Soviet Artillery Shelling Approach Roads N.Z. Press Association —Copyright Rec. 12.30 p.m. LONDON, Aug. 1. Russian guns are shelling apE roaches, roads, forests and enemy ide-outs as General Chernyakhov's tanks advance over the last remaining miles to East Prussia, says Reuters correspondent. A considerable Soviet advance has been made west of Grodno, where the Russians are now within striking distance of the East Prussian border. Longbarrelled Russian guns are shelling all roads as the Russians advance over the last miles between them and the Reich border.

Russian forces south of Przemysl are pushing a long spearhead into the Carpathians, threatening to cut off, the road and railway junction of the Sambor oil centre, the Drohobycg railway junction, and Stryj, all of which are within between 30 and 40 miles of Czechoslovakia's mountain border.

The German news agency commentator, von Olberg, says the Russians are making the strongest efforts to push through the passes leading to Hungary. The Russians along the whole front are now putting into effect the strategy which, according to the Army newspaper Red Star, Marshal Stalin evolved after an analysis of the trends of warfare in the first and second world wars. Speed and mobility are the essential basis of this technique, which involves the use of all kinds of "cavalry," from Cossacks to motor cycles and tommygunners. The .Russians have cut all roads leading from the Baltic States to East Prussia. To-night's Soviet communique says that Russian forces west and south-west of Pskov captured 60 places and north and west of Dvinsk captured 200 places. The Russians north-west and west of Jelgava captured Tokums, a district centre of the Latvian Republic, and 100 places. Troops of the third White Russian front, after the capture of Kaunas, the communique adds, took 300 other places. The Russians west and south-west of Bielsk occupied 100 places. The Russians west of Siedlce captured Kaluszyn and 30 places. They took prisoner LieutenantGeneral Franke, commander of the 73rd German Infantry Division, and his staff.