GERMAN FORCES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 4, 6 January 1944, Page 6

GERMAN FORCES

IN PRECARIOUS POSITION

fcec. 2 p.m. LONDON, Jan. 5. The German Command, after the fall of Belaya Tserkov, is in a precarious position from Smela to Nikopol, report Moscow correspondents, quoting last-minute front-line dispatches: The Red Army has bitten deeply into the German defence system in the Ukraine with as its target, the railway network on which, the safety of the Germans in the Dnieper bend depends. The latest reports indicate that General Vatutin has decided to consolidate his positions in the Novograd Volvnsk area and secure his rear between Belaya Tserkov and the west bank of the Dnieper before pushing on towards Rovno. says the British United Press. Most of the German "colonists" settled around Rovno have already moved back to the Reich. ' The German commissioner Koch used Rovno as a headquarters from which he organised the pillage of the Ukraine. All the original Russian inhabitants of the town were expelled and the town completely turned over to the Nazi settlers, ' Russians and Czechs, side by side, fought their way through a quagmire to seize Belaya Tserkov after a furious Red Army barrage had disrupted the 'first line defences.' The Russians and ■Czechs, when the Germans regrouped on- their second defence line, changed their dispositions, launched a surprise attack from another quarter,' and •swept the Germans out of the' town.