FIERCE BATTLES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 97, 20 January 1944, Page 5

FIERCE BATTLES

LONDON, January 19. A great new Russian offensive west and south of Leningrad, which was anriouncfed last night from Moscow, is now in full swing. The Red Army troops have made deep breaches in the powerful German defences, and are now pouring through. They plastered the Germans from deeply-dug concrete fortifications with a stream, of shells, clearing up a maze of trenches in bayonet and grenade fighting. The Germans are fighting grimly for every yard of ground, but prisoners are coming in dazed and scared by the Soviet artillery barrage. The Russians have found quantities of equipinent and weapons abandoned by the enemy troops.

The 'Moscow communique last night said the Bed Army in the Oranienbaum area several days ago launched an offensive and penetrated strongly fortified enemy defence lines which had been constructed over a long period. The Russians are successfully developing the offensive and are advancing. The Russians north of Novgorod several days -ago also went over to the offensive, and penetrated strongly fortified German defences. They are successfully developing the offensive. The Red Army north of Sokolniki captured more than 40 inhabited places, ipcluding the railway station of Shufolno, five miles north-north-west of Sokolniki. / South-west of Novogra'd Volynsk the Russians captured Slavuta, a district centre and large railway station 13 miles northwest of Shepetovka, the communique adds. Reuter says the

capture of'Slavuta cuts the railway from Shepetovka to Kovel, leaving the German armies only the OdessaLvov line through Zhmerinka and the smaller lines, in to Rumania. Hardest Fighting. Front-line messages show that the fiercest fighting in the new northern offensives is in the area south of Oranienbaum, about 20 miles west of Leningrad. The Russians have : always held this beach-head, covered by the great naval base on the island of Kronstadt, and now naval guns are bombarding the enemy, and sailors and marines of the Baltic Fleet are fighting side by side with the Red Army men, while bombers under low cloud pounded the German positions. The German fortifications on this front are described as the deepest and strongest ever built on any part of the Russian front. At many points the Russians had to fight their way through 10 lines of barbed-wire entanglements with trenches in between before reaching the Germans’ main strongpoints. The whole of the Soviet Union is cheering Leningrad’s offensive. It has opened a year to the day since the breaking of the German blockade, and the Russian people have awaited the present-moment ever since the first mild frost of this freak Russian winter, eagerly discussing the prospect of an offensive. Now apparently, the ground is hard enough for the tanks, mobile guns and great masses. of supplies to go on the move. The Red Army’s next aim will probably be to free the German-held network of railways round Leningrad. The other new offensive on the northern front has wider implications. The Germans say their line has been, breached about 12 miles north of the ancient fortress city of Novgorod. It )8 clear the Russians are driving to cut the enemy’s communications with the Leningrad front. ■ ,

The third offensive in the north, which started a week ago north of Novo Sokolniki, is developing well. IMannstein Prepares.

Field Marshal von Mannsteiri, who is back on the eastern front following an emergency conference with Herr Hitler and the German High Command, is preparing for his last throw to save the Odessa-Lvov railway and the Bug River line, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. After incessant counter-attacks east of Vinnitsa and north of Uman, Mannstein has concentrated his mauled panzer divisions for a final blow against one small narrow sector. The next 48 hours should show whether the panzers have any real punch left. Mannstein’s last order before leaving was: “Halt the Russians at any.cost on the approaches to the Odessa railway.” The enemy tank onslaughts in the meantime have checked the -Russians, but at great cost. It is obvious that Mannstein cannot much longer stand the rate of loss suffered in the last few days east of Vinnitsa and north of liman. Already there are'Signs that he has been forced to modify his tactics by trying to break through' on a much narrower front. The Russian threat to the Odessa-Lvov railway, though it has been warded oft for a week, is in no way removed. North-west of Kalinkovichi the Germans are withdrawing to the central Pripet Marshes in an attempt to reach a railway further to the west, which runs to Bobruisk.

Waves of Stormoviks have turned the German retreat through the marshes into a rout, says a British United Press Moscow correspondent. Guerrillas in the Pripet Marshes are calling squadrons of fighters tp points where the German resistance is stiffening. The German columns moving westward over the few distinct roads are providing ideal targets for low-level attacks by the Red Ait Force planes. For miles along these highways there 'tire burnt-out vehicles, dead horses, and dead men. The Germans have nowhere brought up sufficient air strength to give adequate protection to their forces. The Storinoviks are not hampered when destroying bridges in front of the Germans retreating from' Mosir and Kalinkovichi, Moscow correspondents State that Generals Vatutin, Koniev and Rokossovsky, on the Ukrainian and White Russian fronts, are overcoming enormous difficulties in supplying their armies before correlating their offensives. Red Army sappers are laying planks over halffrozen rivers and pouring water on the planks till layers of ice form thickly enough to bear the weight of tanks. Heavy tanks require an ice bridge 36in. thick.