ON BALTIC FRONT

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 280, 23 August 1944, Page 6

ON BALTIC FRONT

Huge Battle Impending (Received, August 23, 1.20 a.m.) LONDON, August. 22. “One of the greatest clashes of the. war since .Stalingrad is looming up on the Baltic front,” says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. “The German force, including the relief expedition, is believed to approximate a quarter of a million men, and new reinforcements arriving at the front are being thrown straight into tile battle. “The German command is concentrating the maximum forces in a desperate effort to attain at least a temporary turn-ing-point in the campaign. “Two .Soviet armies further south, advancing from opposite ends of the vital Warsaw-Bialystok railway, are now within 30 miies of joining up and completely clearing the Germans from the line. Moscow radio's war reporter states that German counter-attacks in the area cast of Riga have been going on continuously for three days. The Germans, iu spite of heavy losses, continue desperately to resist on their fortified positions. “Izvestia,” in a front-line dispatch, says: “The gunners are not. the only Russians striking against German territory. It is being hit from an advanced area by mortars and machineguns, aud is being thoroughly combed by patrote. Fierce battles are going on on the approaches to German soil. The enemy is throwing in large groups of tanks aud self-propelled guns into counter-attacks, which, however, are all being repelled. After Russian self-propelled guns reached the Scsupa River units dislodged the enemy from his last positions, and threw him over the frontier. “Battles of extreme ferocity are raging by dav and night on the approaches to Warsaw. East of I’raga hundreds of batteries are thundering from both sides over fields criss-crossed with tank-tracks. The Germans, drawing up all the available strategic reserves, formed powerful assault, forces in nn attempt, to'wedge our lines. They are launching counter-at-tacks in which they throw as many as 120 tanks at a lime with powerful artillery and air support.. The Russians, faced with 10 or 12 such attacks in a day are not only repelling the Germans but have been considerably improving I heir positions.