The Trapped Divisions

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 30, 5 February 1944, Page 7

The Trapped Divisions

LITTLE HOPE LEFT

LONDON, February 4,

There is little chance of escape for the ten German divisions which have been trapped in the Dnieper Bend. The armoured division in the trap is the famous Viking S.S. Division. The doomed Germans are fighting desperately in some sectors. Front-line reports describe them, as like wild beasts caught in a trap. In places they have charged blindly at the Russian armour in the forlorn hope of breaking through, but the Red Army is splitting them, into pockets and smashing all attempts to assemble a strong force.

Already the Germans are short of ammunition and supplies. They appear to have no airfield in service, and they have to rely on what Junkers transport planes can drop by parachute. Russian aircraft are bombing and shooting up the shattered German troops night and day, and powerful long-range Soviet guns are pressing ever closer to the heart of the pocket, pounding the enemy incessantly. The country consists of forests and steppe farm land.

A correspondent sends grim accounts of the state of some of the German troops who are coming in from the front. Infantrymen cut off from units were wandering dirty and ragged about the rain-soaked fields, looking in vain for a way of escape. Some German groups have changed into disorderly bands after five days of defeat. Many wandered into the forests, abandoning their arms and ammunition and their dead, and they are already being mopped up by Soviet infantrymen.' The correspondent says the Soviet generals have left nothing to chance. Their forces are adequate for the job

and they know the enemy has no force near enough or strong enough to ward off the inevitable disaster. He says this may well prove to be the beginning of the end in the Dnieper bend. The Germans, in their communique today, report heavy fighting in the heart of the bend near Nikopol. The Germans also report a new battle up in White Russia around Vitebsk, which is already half encircled by the Russians. A Soviet communique states that on the Ukraine front 60 enemy transport planes were shot down.