MAY ESCAPE TRAP

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 117, 12 February 1944, Page 7

MAY ESCAPE TRAP

Germans East Of Luga (British Official Wireless and Press Assn.) RUGBY, February 10. It seems less and less likely that the Germans east of Luga will be caught in the trap set for them. The shrinking pocket there has probably been reduced to an arc at a distance of a dozen miles or so round Luga from the north-west to the east and south.. Because of the exceptionally mild winter Lake Peipus is probably not frozen hard enough to bear the weight of_ the opposing armies, and the Germans fore have excellent natural positions aloia= the somewhat precipitous banks of tne River Narva. Red Army columns continue to converge on Luga, the key to the enemy s position between Lake Peipus and Lake Ilmen. The Germans are trying to get their troops out of the rapidly shortening sack east of Luga, and their communique today says that they disengaged and shortened their front on some sectors in this area. , . The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press says that three Russian columns are nearing Luga, the only big German base remaining on the LeningradVolkhov front. Bitter fighting is raging as powerful German forces retreat behind strong rearguard screens and suicide squads of tommy-gunners. A Soviet communique says that m the Luga sector the Russians continued the offensive and occupied a number of inhabited places and the railway station at Tolmachevo, nine miles north of Luga on the Leningrad-Pskov railway. West and south-west of Novgorod they captured several inhabited places.