GERMAN SALIENT LIQUIDATED

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 118, 14 February 1944, Page 5

GERMAN SALIENT LIQUIDATED

Capture Of Shepetovka (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received February 13, 9.30 p.m.) LONDON, February 12. The Russians yesterday announced the capture of Shepetovka, a junction of the Korosten-Tarnopol and Berdichev-Koyel railways, and 35 miles east of the 193 J Polish border. , , Reuter says that the captures which the Red Army have made south and west of Shepetovka have already largely neutralized the importance of the town as a railway junction; nevertheless, its fall means the liquidation of an obstinate German salient ■which was holding up

General Vatutin’s advance. A railway from Shepetovka known to be under construction, and almost certainly now completed, runs south to meet the vital Odessa-Lvov trunk lines 40 miles away. The German commentator von Hammer today talked of “fluctuating fighting” in the Shepetovka area. The trend of enemy comments suggests that Vitebsk and Krivoi Rog will be the next important bastions to fall. Von Hammer said that the full-scale Russian attack against Vitebsk has entered the eighth day, and grim and violent battles had been fought in the past 24 hours north-west and south-west of the town. The capture of Shepetovka, says British Official Wireless, has nottonly given the Russians control of an (important railway all the way from Kazatin to Lutsk, but has deprived the Germans of the link connecting this part of the front with the junctions of Proskurov and Tarnopol on the main Odessa-Lvov-Cracow line. Possession of the railway is more significant in an exceptionally mild winter like the present than, in the usual Russian winter conditions. The country is still wet and covered with mud from unseasonable thaws and the roads are virtually impassable to heavy traffic. Normally the Russians have great advantage at this time of the year because of their skill in manoeuvring armoured formations across deeply frozen country. As things are, however, both armies are largely dependent on railways.