NAZI COUNTER-BLOWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 16, 20 January 1944, Page 5

NAZI COUNTER-BLOWS

BLOCKED BY RUSSIANS

Ilmen where the Russians, in a single sector, are attacking with six infantrydivisions and numerous armoured units. All the Russian attempts to encircle Vitebsk so far have failed. The violence of the fighting further south is undiminished, but it seems that the focal point of the entire Eastern Front has shifted northwards. The London "Evening Standard" says that today is a great day for the Soviet Union, a day when their northern city is being relieved not merely by breaking the Nazi ring, but by decisive attack. Leningrad may claim to have achieved the highest feat of endurance in the whole war. There has been hardly anything like it in the long records of human triumph and remarkable trials. Moscow correspondents say that it seemed that nothing short of an earthquake could sjvift the Germans from their strongholds west of the city. Now the earthquake has happened. UNDERGROUND DEFENCES. The German defences were deep underground. They were concrete shelters which ordinary artillery fire could not touch, and in front of them was a network of deep ditches, mines, and barbed-wire. The Russians smashed a way into them, by means of tremendous artillery concentrations, systematically blotting out one fire point after another. Today's German communique says that the Soviet attacks are growing in violence both to' the west and south of Leningrad. The whole northern front is now alive. North of Nevel the Red Army has occupied a good part of the 20-mile stretch of railway running up from Novo Sokolinki junction, which is now threatened from three sides. On the Ukraine front General Vatutin's forces on the south-western fringe of the great bulge have driven a wedge between the German bases of Shepetovka and Rowno. On the southern fringe, where the enemy has been throwing masses of tanks into a coun-ter-drive, the German High Command says it is the Russians who are now attacking.

Rec. 11.45 a.m. RUGBY, January 19. In the area of Novo Sokolniki all German attempts to restore the situation have failed. Soviet troops are repelling counter-attacks with heavy losses to the enemy, says Moscow radio, which underlines the great part played by Soviet ski detachments which in several instances penetrated the enemy rear, occupied strongholds and then held them successfully against repeated counter-attacks.

The report adds that fighting in this

area is continuing with unabated fury. It is too early to judge what weight is behind the simultaneous Russian offensives westward and southward of Leningrad. Both appear to have broken into the crust of the longstanding defences in this area, but the defences are likely to have been built in great depth. The same applies to the position around Novo Sokolniki where the Russians have been gradually wearing down the enemy positions at a crucial point on the northern front. In the south the Germans have achieved rather precarious stability all the way from near Shepetovka to the Black Sea, while at the western end of the Ukrainian front the Russians are still pushing on. Shepetovka is in danger of being outflanked from the west and the still more important centre of Rowno is only a few miles from the front. BEING BROADENED. Thus the extreme western front of the Russian advance across the Pripet-Rowno-Lvov line is being broadened and at the same time the threat to the south Ukraine is increasing. 'The German counter-offensive apparently has failed to dislodge the Russians either from the railway northward of Uman or from the neighbourhood of Vinnitsa. Meanwhile ' the Germans announce renewed Russian pressure near Kirovograd. One Moscow correspondent says the new offensive is the preparation for the final liberation of Leningrad from partial blockade and artillery bombardments. The offensive southward of Oranienbaum from the Soviet's Baltic beachhead, 16 miles west of Leningrad, also threatens the main railway southwest to Pskov.—B.O.W.