HELL OF FIRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 82, 6 April 1944, Page 5

HELL OF FIRE

SKALA ENCIRCLEMENT

Eec. 11 a.m. LONDON, April 5. The whole encirclement area at Skala is one hell of fire from the Red Army guns, mortars, and planes. The encircled Germans are' the remnants left behind in the Vinnitsa and Proskurov areas. (Skala is on the Dniester north-east of Cernauti.) The German commanders moved them so late that the Russians cut around between them and the Dniester and held off the enemy until they could wipe them out. The whole Skala' encirclement area is within artillery range, and the enemy casualties and captives are mounting as the Red Army guns drill the pocket through and through. The correspondent quotes a front-line report saying that the trap is already cut up into a number of isolated areas, with German tanks rushing helplessly from side to side in a futile attempt to break out. The Moscow correspondent of The Times" explains that Marshal Zhukov brought about the Skala trap by ininterrupting the flow of the enemy's forces from Vinnitsa and Proskurov. The enemy found all the main roads to the south barred and the resulting heavy traffic jams were targets for ceaseless attacks. by low-flying Stormoviks and damaging raids by a mobile artillery group. The weather made the minor roads impassable for wheeled traffic, and the Germans who reached the Dniester did so afoot or on horses taken . from abandoned vehicles. The main ' forces were trapped half-way between Proskurov and Kamanets Podolski. Red Air Force pilots, flying over the retreating Germans, saw what resembled a huge Gipsy caravan rather than an army on the march.