DEFENCE OF BUDAPEST

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 November 1944, Page 5

DEFENCE OF BUDAPEST

ANTI-TANK MEASURES

RUSSIANS ADVANCE CLOSER LONDON, November 6. The full strength of the Russian armies concentrated in Hungary between the Danube and Tisa Rivers is being brought to bear against Budapest. According to correspondents the Russians, made a mass crossing of the Tisa and Marshal Malinovsky’s main forces are moving up at speed. In spite of bad weather Red Air Force bombers are making heavy attacks against enemy communications around the capital, which is stated to be under Russian shellfire. The German News Agency says German panzers, grenadiers, and S.S. units, along .an anti-tank ditch which surrounds Budapest in a wide semi-circle, are engaged in a heavy struggle against three . Red Army tank brigades, including heavy Stalin tanks, which forced their way along the Szeged-Kecskemet-Buda-pest road to the cicv’s confines. “The latest Russian advances in the Budapest area indicate that the Red Army is planning to outflank the city’s defences,” says the British United. Press correspondent in Moscow. “The Germans used four tank divisions and one motorised division in an endeavour to halt the Russians south-east and south of the city, but were pushed back. The Germans have turned the extensive network of canals around the city into.substantial anti-tank defences.”

LAST PANZER RESERVES.

(Rec. 11.55 a.m.) LONDON, Nov. 6. The Germans to-day threw what are believed to be their last Panzer reserves into the great battle raging at the gates of Budapest, as Marshal Malinovsky intensified his pressure, reports a Moscow correspondent. With the Red Air Force battle planes as the spearhead launching a dawn to dusk bombardment of the German communications radiating from Budapest, the Red Army is slowly ringing the capital from the north, the east and the south. A leavening of crack S S. troops is trying to stimulate the main German and Hungarian forces into a fanatical stand on the outskirts of the city. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says that only by swinging in four Panzer divisions at the eleventh hour, the Germans averted the fall of Budapest, but it is only a temporary delay. A Budapest radio report suggested the Red Army may outflank Budapest. The report said the Russians, after the seizure of Ujpest, two miles north of Budapest, advanced 12 miles beyond the city.

“STALINGRAD” SAVAGERY LONDON, November 6. Moscow correspondents say that a titanic battle is raging in East Prussia in biting cold over aesolate terrain under a leaden sky. There is a kind of “Stalingrad” savagery in the struggle which is being fought out in trenches, chambers of steel and concrete forts. To-day’s German High Command communique claims that the Germans captured Goldap, after three days’ furious fighting. FRONTIER RE-ESTABLISHED (Rec. 1.40 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 7. Mr Stalin, in a special order of the day, on the occasion of the twentyseventh anniversary of the Revolution, declared: “Our territory has been cleared of German invaders and the Soviet frontier re-established from the Black Sea to the Arctic.” The order added that in honour of the liberation of Soviet soil salutes be fired this morning in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tallinn, Riga, Kishinev and Lwow. A Stockholm message reports that Russian light naval units yesterday arrived at Mariehamn, capital of the Aaland Islands. ’ A Soviet communique says there were no essential changes to-day along the whole front. FINNISH ADVANCE. LONDON, November 5. On the Arctic highway Finnish fi oops are engaged in hard fighting with strong German detachments, acceding to a Helsinki communique. The advance continues.. After heavy fighting between Finnish ana German forces on the Swedish frontier, the Germans are retreating nortnwards without offering any serious resistance.