DWINDLING ARMY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 115, 10 February 1944, Page 5

DWINDLING ARMY

Mannstein’s Forces LONDON OPINION

(By Telegraph.— Press Assn, copyright.! LONDON, February 8. The capture of Nikopol is a disaster for the Germans,, states Reuter’s military correspondent. The Germans hung on to the town because of its important manganese mines and also partly to block the Russian advance towartl Odessa and Bessarabia. The size of the bridgehead the Germans held on the opposite shore of the Dnieper from Nikopol showed the importance they attached to it. This bridgehead was at least 10 times the size of the Allied beach-head at Nettuno and was held by seven divisions of Germans, which were either annihilated or flung across the Dnieper-to join the broken forces retreating toward Nikolaev and Odessa. •. . It,can be reckoned that with the divisions'smashed or surrounded the Russians have accounted for at least half of Fiela Marshal von Mannstein’s army, lhe whole Russian front is now in a state of disintegration, and it looks as though the Germans haven’t a possibility of making an effective stand anywhere east of the Bug and the Dniester. ■ - • ■ General Tolbukhin, who eliminated the German bridgehead, is also a hero, of Stalingrad, Taganrog, Mariupol aud Melitopol. Big Gennan Bridgehead. Marshal Stalin’s order of the day on the result of this battle stated: ‘’On the Fourth. Ukrainian Front troops broke through the strongly fortified German defence south of Nikopol on the left bank of the Dnieper and inflicted a, heavy defeat on seven enemy infantry divisions. The Soviet troops reached the Dnieper on the entire length of the bridgehead. This operation has completely liquidated the enemy’s operationally important base on the left bank of the Dnieper which extended to a width of 75 miles and a depth of 25 miles. Soviet troops occupied the town of Kamenka, a district centre, seven miles south-west of Nikopol, and more than 40 other places.” A second order issued an hour later ptated: ‘‘Troops of the Third Ukrainian Front in co-operation with troops of the Fourth Ukrainian Front, developing tfle