Untitled

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 15, 19 January 1944, Page 5

GERMAN LINE PIERCED

LONDON, January 18. Tonight's Moscow communique confirms the enemy reports that the Russians have started an offensive on the Leningrad front. It says that the German line has been pierced. The communique states the break-through was made south of Oranicnbaum, on the Baltic coast, west of Leningrad. At the same time, Moscow says that the Eussians are developing their offensive on the Volkhov front north of Lake Ilmen. Tonight's dispatches from Moscow say it looks as if the great "battle of the Vinnitsa is going to flare up again. After a week's heavy German counter-attacks and a big lull, the German general, yon Mannstein is reported to have re-formed his badly mauled tank divisions ready for" another desperate attempt to save the trunk railway down to Odessa and to stop the Russians in the Bug area. One correspondent says the renewed German attacks are likely /to be made on a narrower front, and that the next 48 hours may rdeeide the battle.

While powerful Russian and German armies are facing each other in the southern part of the great Kiev Bulge to the west, Soviet spearheads are thrusting rapidly towards Rovno across the 1939 Polish frontier. 3 'An earlier report said that Russian troops massed on the southern fringe of the Ukraine bulge had fought the Germans to a standstill in the sector east of Vinnitsa. It is here that yon Mannstein has besn endeavouring to keep the Russian spearheads from the River Bug, and he has lost more in wrecked panzers and shattered infantry than on any other southern sector for a month past. Further east, grim fighting went on all day yesterday in the sector north of Uman, where the Germans are trying to keep their hold on the important railway supplying the front north-west of Krovograd. Here the Germans are putting up strong resistance, but Moscow messages say the Russians are again showing that they have the upper hand ih defence as well as in attack. s Further north, on the Pripet front, Russian troops are keeping up their pressure beyond Kalinkovichi, and Russian, bombers are pounding the retreating Germans and the bases on which they are falling back. ADVANCE ON BALTIC FRONT. On^ihe Baltic front, the new Soviet offensive is making good progress north of Novo Sokolniki, where the railway junction is now three-qu^f-ters encircled. The German communique again speaks of heavy Russian attacks still further north from Lake Ilmen up to the Gulf of Finland. It is just a year ago since the Russians broke the blockade of Leningrad. The city has been in the front line ever since, but its overland communications with the rest of Russia 'have been firmly held. Dealing with the fighting west of Leningrad, a- German military correspondent tonight spoke of large-scale battles, and said that the Russians were. throwing in large masses of tanks which they call "rolling fortresses."

and Lake Ilmen. The Russians round Novogorod threw in six or seven rifle divisions with tank formations and managed to press back the German front a few miles, it was said. Vichy radio says the Russian offensive on the northern sector is steadily growing in importance. The, main attacks are centred south of. Lake Ladoga, north of Lake Ilmen, and also in the vicinity of Oranienbaum, where local breaches have been made in the German defences. The Russian divisions are remarkably well equipped and are superior in numbers. Violent fighting has also flared up near Vitebsk, Vichy radio says. Russian tanks west of Mosir penetrated the 'German lines at some points. A correspondent of the Germancontrolled Scandinavian telegraph bureau says the Russians are flinging in hundreds of planes and tanks and masses of infantry into the Vitebsk battle. There is no respite for the Germans. The Russians still come on as their dead pile up before the German lines.