BIG BLOW IMMINENT IN SOUTHERN SECTOR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 92, 19 April 1945, Page 5

BIG BLOW IMMINENT IN SOUTHERN SECTOR

REDS SHELLING BMO Important Arms Centre In Czechoslovakia Rec. 10.30 a.m. LONDON, April IS. Correspondents in Moscow say that Marshal Malinovsky's forces driving into Moravia from the south are well within gun range of Brno. Russian artillery has opened up against the city's outer fortifications. A large-scale assault is imminent. Brno is an important Czech arms centre, as well as a communications junction. . , The Moscow: communique says-the Russian' offensive, in Czechoslovakia is within 12 miles of the arms town of Brno. To the south the Russians defeated a powerful German force to capture the big Austrian oil centre of Zistersdorf. In the drive up the Danube Valley the Russians have stormed several places about a third of the'way from Vienna to Linz in:Upper'Austria. ' ' . To-night's • ; Spviet . communique makes no mention of the offensive against Berlin. ' The communique says troops of the Third White Russian Command continued to battle for the annihilation of the German remnants pressed against the port of Pillau, on the Baltic, near Konigsberg, and 8730 prisoners were taken : in this ar'eav yesterday, also' 80 tanks and self-propelled ■ 69 armoured carriers, 544 field guns, 416 mortars, and 4000 lorries. Colonel Templehof, commander of the 28th German Infantry Division, was captured. Troops of the Fourth Ukrainian Front, south-west ' and south of Ratibor, fought their way into and captured 30 localities. '. On the' Czechoslovak territory troops- of- the Second Ukrainian Front occupied- Ivancice, and fought their way- into several othei places. Troops of this front north of Vienna occupied the town of Mistelbach, besides- a number of other places. A naval' and air communique states i»at eight enemy transports, totalling 46,000 tons,-one .trawler, 14 patrol cutters and two torpedo boats were sunk in the port of Pillau and the open sea on April 15 and 16.