RED ARMY DRIVES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 99, 22 January 1944, Page 5

RED ARMY DRIVES

Blows Being Exploited

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright.) LONDON, January 21.

Tiie Red Army forces which captured Novgorod; the German bastion on the Volkhov front, are fully exploiting their victory. The German forces, which retreated to the forests west of the city, are being mopped up in isolated units.

The latest reports from the Leningrad area state that the Russians pushing southward from the city are 10 miles from a vital railway junction through which supplies go to the German forces to the south, south-east and east of Leningrad. The German force on the shore of the Gulf of Finland east of Peterhof is isolated and is now being systematically wiped out. J LONDON, January 20. A Moscow communique says: "The Red Army on the Leningrad front continued to develop the offensive and captured. Ligovo, 12 miles south-west of Leningrad, as well as a number of other inhabited places. The Red Army troops advancing from Pulkova joined up with those .advancing from the area south of Oranienbaum. Some groups of routed German units are encircled and are being wiped out. , „ 1 “The troops on the Volkhov front, as a result of an outflanking movement, today carried Novgorod by storm. The .Russians fought successful battles to liquidate German troops surrounded in the forests west of Novgorod. . “The Russians north of Khristinovka repelled infantry and tank attacks.” So irresistible is the new Russian offensive that Moscow officials, though renowned for their conservatism, are forecasting the imminent capture of Pskov, despite the fact that it is 120 miles away, says the British United Press Moscow correspondent. The Russian victory south of Leningrad, continues the correspondent, is overwhelming. The entire enemy forces between Krasnoye Selo and the Luga River are facing an imminent yrisk of encirclement. Endless columns of Red Army tanks and infantry are inexorably pressing~on across the shell-pocked country through the gaps which the tremendous barrage originally blasted. Once through the gaps, the tanks are fanning out in every direction, conjuring up the prospect that the three-year-old threat to Leningrad will be finally lifted. It is unofficially estimated m Moscow that 300,009 German troops are. facing disaster as the result of the Russian advances between Leningrad and Novgorod. The Columbia Broadeasting System s Moscow correspondent says that the offensive is one of the greatest yet, while the National Broadcasting Company’s representative says that the new offensive has power and promise equal to anything during the war. The sounds of war are now receding from Leningrad. Most of the heavy artillery which subjected the city to its long ordeal has been captured. Fresh Soviet forces have landed at Oranienbaum from warships and advanced along the Baltic coast toward Uritsk, says a Moscow correspondent. They are supported by fire from a Soviet battle-cruiser from Kronstadt which has joined the offensive. In the first onslaught 1700 Germans were killed. Others have clung stubbornly .to the shrinking strip of coast in their occupation. Finns Report Battle. A Finnish communique, reported by the German news ageney, says: “Hard fighting occurred on the central sector of the Karelian Isthmus front. The Russians. after violent artillery preparation, attacked one of our strongpoints. We threw them back, and also repulsed a later attack.”

The German news agency’s commentator, Hallenslebcn, says that the Russian winter offensive has entered, upon the second phase with the shifting of the centre of gravity to the northern sector and the Ryechitsa (Pripet Marshes), area.

21 Berlin radio correspondent says: “Even after the withdrawal from Novgorod the German forces are still being attacked from three sides. The German soldier remembers the fighting on tne northern sector, last year —with a numbed hotly and frozen face—and the situation is even more difficult now.”. Paris radio says a terrific battle is raging along the southern coast of the Gulf of . Finland. Reports from Berlin state that the Russian, pressure is extremely lively and has increased during the last 24 hours. Berlin radio says that an unending stream of Russian forces is pouring into the front line south of Leningrad. Moscow reports that on all fronts yesterday Soviet troops destroyed or dis- ~ abled 94 enemy tanks. Seventeen German planes were shot down in aerial engagements and anti-aircraft fire. NOVGOROD COUP Immense Importance LONDON, January 20. The first Russian announcement of the capture of Novgorod was made in an order of the day by Marshal Stalin, addressed to General Meretskov. It stated that troops on the Volkhov front, having launched an offensive in the direction of Novgorod, crossed the River Volkhov and the upper part of Lake Ilmen, broke the strongly-fortified and long-prepared German defence line, and today, as the result of a skilful by-pass manoeuvre, stormed the city. It describes Novgorod as an important industrial and political centre and also an important centre of communications and German defence. It is commented in London that the importance of Novgorod cannot be overestimated. It was the southern anchor of the German defence line on the v olkhov River, and it is the junction of five railways and highways and railways linking Leningrad with tne south and west. Before the Russians launched their new offensive on the Volkhov front at the end of last week, the crack German troops in Novgorod seemed to have everything in their favour —a broad river in front, the great lake a couple of miles to the south, first-class rail and road communications to the rear, and their concrete defences strengthened over more than two years’ occupation. The Russian solution of this tough military problem was artillery. They opened up on the defences of north Novgorod with a .barrage that went on, non-stop, for two hours. Then Russian infantry followed under a creeping barrage that left the enemy lines a mass of twisted ruins. The Russians surged down from the heights above Lake Ilmen, and the swiftness of the attack caught the Germans unprepared. In the succeeding days the River Volkhov was forced, and the Russians, battling through the powerful defence zone, took most of the roads and railways running frbm the city,l all but isolating it from the west.

Back in the ninth cent,ury, a time when Moscow was an unknown village and Leningrad (.st. Petersburg) had not been thought of, Novgorod was the capital of the Russian prince Rurik, and It remained, the Russian capital till displaced by Kiev. Built like a fortress, Novgorod fought many battles against roving western invaders in the Middle Ages. Its many old buildings included (up to the Nazi occupation) the Kremlin or citadel, the Cathedral of St. Sophia, the' palace of Catherine 11, and a monument celebrating the expulsion of Napoleon’s forces in 1812 Because of its position the town was historically a trading centre for grain, timber, salt and iron. The pre.-invasion population was between 30,001) and 50.000.