DNIEPER BEND

Grey River Argus, 11 January 1944, Page 5

DNIEPER BEND

ENEMY’S RISK Russians Cutting it Off STRONGER PUSH INTO POLAND. [Aust. & N.Z. Press Assn.] LONDON, Jan 9. A Soviet communique reports Russian occupation of Yahushpol, 15 rniles west of Berdichev, and several district centres in the Vinnitsa ■■region. It also stated: Troops of the Ist Ukrainian Front continued the offensive and captured the important rail station of Polonnoye, 20 miles east of Shepetovka, and also Kagarlyk, 45 miles south of Kiev Buki 90 miles south of Kiev, and Krinnits 30 miles north-west of Uman. Troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front captured Alexandrovka, a district centre in the Kirovograd region, besides over 40 inhabited places. The British United P ress correspondent stated: The fact that Red Armv forces are thirty miles northwest of Uman shows tha't Vatutin is driving clear across ithe German Dnieper Bend army's communication lines from the rearThe “Daily Telegraph says: Polonnove is situated in the KamenetsPodowsk region near the Rumanian border, indicating the beginning of a drive towards Rumania Another commentator says: Not. pausing to rest on thejr laurels General Koniev’s forces which burst into Kirovograd have fanned out from the break-through point and are now streaming westwards over the <u rniles front, leap frogging forward without a pause, in order to give the enemy no chance to regroup and make a stand. Moscow correspondents describe Kirovograd as one of the decisive battles of the war. Another observer comments: inn capture of Kirovograd and the Russian advance beyond the town in the general direction of Nikolayev, place the Germans holding the Krivoirog and Nikopol positions in extreme danger. It is still pointed out in London that there is no sign yet of the Germans abandoning these positloThe Red Army! has advanced closer to the important junction of Vinnitsa, which is strongly defended. A strong Russian column has broken through to the east of Vinnitsa, and yesterday captured a junction well to the south-east of the town. The Russians are also almost within striking distance of Zhmerinka, on the main railway to Odessa. If they cut this railway! and the railway through Vinnitsa, the position of the Germans in the Dnieper Bend will be untenable. The “Sunday Times.” says. The Battle of the Ukraine is not yet over. Von Mannstein must have more troops or he is finished. The whole scene recalls strongly- moments in battles of the past, when fate hung poised betwen defeat and disaster. It seems to the onlooker that with a little more pressure, the German defence will fall to pieces. It has happened on the borders of Poland, and is not far away, so far as one can judge from a distance, in the vital area of Vinnitsa and Zhmerinka. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says Red Army infantry, tanks and artillery are pouring through Kirovograd in a neverending stream to continue the battle against the retreating Germans. Ihe Russians’ Kirovograd break-through threatens to drive one half of the German Dnieper Bend army to the Black Sea and compress the other half against the southern side of the Russians’ salient in the Kiev bulge. The Red Army column fanning out south-west from Kirovograd has already progressed 25 miles. Another tank column, striking fpr Noyukroninka, will have completely outflanked the German position at Krivoi Rog when it gains that town. The correspondent concludes: Thus far there is no sign of firm German resistance west of Krivoi Rog. A dispatch from Moscow to the 8.8. C. says that the Germans have not evacuated the Dnieper Bend because theyl dare not risk the consequences of a disengaging movement with such strong Russian forces on both sides of them. Russian forces are 14 miles south-east of Kirovograd, half-way to the rail centre of Dolinsk, which feeds Krivoi Rog. .10 the south, they are driving against, a big road centre of- Bobrinets. and to the south-west along the railway to Novo Ukrainka. These movements are placing a stranglehold on Germans in the Bend, Another comment is as follows: Assuming the Germans retreat from the Lower Dnieper, they presumably will now have no alternative but to do so towards Rumania, relying chiefly on a mediocre railway across the Dniester, where the front would be deviously supplied through Hungary. The most immediate and crucial question is whether the Germans, while holding Vinnitsa, will be able soon to amass sufficient reserves to deliver another icounter-offensiye from Rovno and Tarnopol along the main railways eastwards. A London commentator says: rhe sector where that disaster threatens is still in the direction of Kiev and towards Northern Rumania. Here the advance has been broadened to well over 100 miles from the Dnieper near Kanev to the approaches of Vinnitsa. In two days Russian forces made 15 miles progress east ot Vinnitsa and are within 10 miles east of that place. Ilyintsi, which they have captured, is 35 miles east and slightly south of Vinnitsa. The vital railway from Germany through Southern Poland to Southern Russia, therefore, is under 25 miles ahead. Directly south of Kiev the Russians are within 35 miles north-west, and north of Uman. The westward drive on the northern flank has almost reached the Sarny rail junction by the capture of Czudel, eight miles south-east, North-west of Gorodinitsa the Russians are a dozen miles across the 1939 Polish frontier. Hardly anywhere has there been a slackening of the pace of the offensive. One part of this carefully shored-up Dnieper Bend front, with’ its dangerous salients and unmilitary looking angles, has collapsed in the the centre and the weakest part. It is scarcely conceivable in these circumstancs that we do not stand on the eve of great events. To bolster uo prestige and keep the enemy from the Balkans, the German High Command took big risks in the south of Russia. There is no indication that the German armies there are anything like trapped, but at any rate something greater than another defeat seems in store for them. A gruesome account of results of the German occupation of Kirovograd comes from Moscow. The Germans destroyed great factories an dhigh schools, blew up entire blocks of residential buildings, '* and destroyed monuments. Factory installations were sent to Germany. Tens of thousands of civilians were executed, starved to death, or transported to Germany. The first mass executionjwas in October 1941, when 500 men and boys over ten years old were murdered by automatic riflemen. Only a third of the original population remains. The treatment of war prisoners in camps nearby was monstrous. In two camps alone tens of thousands died, yet despite the terror the population carried out underground work, helping the Partisans, supplying them with arms and food, and distributing leaflets. A large bridge built by the Germans was blown up and a big house the Germans were building for themselves collapsed before completion.

, Russian Drive TO CUT ODESSA RAILWAY. AND ENCIRCLE ENEMY’S BEND FORCES. (Rec. 1.10.)- LONDON, Jan. 10. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent states: Powerful Red Army forces are driving hard from the Kiev bulge to cut the Odessa-Warsaw railway, which is the main escape rout for Hitler’s crumbling Dnieper Bend army. Russian forces advancing in two on either side of the big junction of Jmerinka, and tne southern arm of this drive, which is outflanking the strongly-fortified railway junction of Vinnitsa, is now only tiwenty-seven miles from tne Odessa railway. A gap of only forty miles separates units of General Vatutin’s and General Koniev’s armies, which are driving to trap German forces in the Smyela Salient. General Koniev’s troops, with the capture of Alexandrovka, are a little over 20 miles south-east of Smyela. Russian forces are rapidly throwing pincers round Jmerinka. All road communications to the town of Smyela from the north, and east, and south-east are being severed as a Russian armoured spear-head thrusts forward. This squeeze intensifies pressure against. German forces that are caught between a Soviet hammer and anvil in the Smyela Salient. GERMAN COMMENT. LONDON, Jan. y. The German News Agency’s commentator, von Hammer said that a Red Army thrust back south-east from Bvelaya Tserkov against the remaining German bridgehead on the west bank of the Dnieper south of Cherka'sy was making progress. He said: The Germans disengaged from Kirovograd after heavy, bitter street fighting. The Russians south of Cherkasy shelled the German positions for hours with a drumfire barrage from massed artillery. The Germans, however, had 'already evacuated their positions, thus the Russians’ efforts were foiled. The enemy’s thrusts west of Ryeehitsa were beaten off and the few penetrations sealed off.”

The Moscow radio says Hitler has sent fresh divisions to the Ist Ukrainian Front. It added: “These reserves will fare no better; they will be splintered, even wiped out.” The German-controlled Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau quotes a German military spokesman as saying that from all fronts and storm centres it is confirmed the present great retreat may be followed by an even greater one. The Russians are throwing in all thir forces, not only to make territorial gains, but to crush and liquidate the whole front. Speculation in London Sunday newspapers is that Hitler is not concerned so much now with the loss of the iron from Krivoi Rog .or the manganese as with the disastrous effect of the wholesale evacuation from Southern Russia on the morale of his Balkan satellites and the possible loss of the Ploesti oilfields. Swedish correspondents report that German newspapers by tacit consent avoid comment *on the situation on the Eastern Front, and confine themselves to leaders on the spread of Communism in North Africa. Correspondents add that Hitler is re- , ported to have sent a message to Ger- , man officers from his headquarters: “I order you not to yield a single inch of ground without making the enemy pay a terrible price. Every inch yielded brings the enemy an inch nearer German soil.”

There are persistent rumours that King Michael and his Ministers want peace at any price. Informed diplomats in London believe the Balkan countries ‘will not remain in the war vdr v long. Reports reaching London state that political turmoil in tne Balkans is bordering on panic. The “Observer” says that in Southeast Europe, the Russian advance has created nolitical turmoil and conditions bordering on panic in the satelite countries—the puppet Governments and their followers are now watching the Russian advance towards Bessarabia and Bukovina as a shipwrecked mariner on a reef would watch the rise of tide which will inevitably sweep him away.

Over Polish Border RUSSIANS NEARING SARNY.

LONDON, Jan. 9. ’ A Soviet communique stated: — Troons of the first Ukrainian front have captured Klesov, a district centre in the Rovno region, 25 miles from Sarny. ■ A correspondent says: The Red Army is only a few miles from the great north-south railway from the Baltic to Roumania.

Reuter’s Moscow correspondent stated: General Vatutin’s troops, striking 45 miles south-west of Novograd Volinsk in the past 24 hours, have surged six miles over the Polish frontier and are now thrusting across marshes on the left flank of the main drive towards Sarny. A second Polish division, including a women’s battalion, shouting “On to Warsaw-” has gone to' the front for an offensive in Poland. The United Press says: A year ago the Red Army was fighting its main battle at Stalingrad, 1000 miles from the border of East Prussia, which is the nearest German territory. To-day Russian forces stand before Rovno, only 250 miles from East Prussia. General Vatutin’s westernmost spearhead is closing on Sarny. One' group is five miles east and another eight miles south-east of the town. A diplomatic correspondent of ‘‘The Observer” says: The Germans have ordered a total black-out of country areas and towns in the Baltic States, as they fear big Russian thrusts towards them. Civilian population is being evacuated from the Estonian and Latvian coastal regions, which are being strengthened to meet any Soviet attacks from the sea. The Russian Air Force is reported to have resumed heavy attacks on Baltic ports, including Riga and Tallinn. The “Daily Telegraph’s” diplomatic correspondent says: All indications point to the Russians beginning a. big thrust towards the Baltic States. The Soviet First Baltic Army Group will soon be supported by offensives opened up by the Second and Third Baltic Groups. These groups have been waiting for a chance, to punch wide gaps in the German lines north of the Pripet Marshes similar to those already punched in the south. '■ One London commentator considers that the German decision to stand in the Dnieper Bend regardless of the consequence?; will compel von Mannstein to choose between defendin'- Southern Poland and defending Roumania, and that the Russians intend to compel him to choose the Roumanian alternative, leaving a gap of 200 miles between, the Pripet Marshes and the Carpathians.

A “Sunday Express” diplomatic correspondent ' stated: It is believed Hitler haq given orders that the Russians must be prevented at all costs from breaking into the Balkans. He is determined to keep Roumania in the war, even if it means new Russian gains in Poland. Apart from the desire to prevent the Russians taking the Balkan airfields and Roumanian oilfields, the Germans hope the penetration of Poland by the Russians will make mischief between the Allies. LONDON, Jan. 9.

Moscow messages stated: Capture of Sarny would mean that German transference of troops between the northern and southern halves of the

fronf would have to be via BrestLitovsk, round the western end of the Pripet Marshes. The Russians south-east of Shepetovka have had to fight for ever v village height and copse. In the northern part of Rovno Province, resistance is weak. German Surrender URGED IN MOSCOW BROADCAST. (Rec. 1.10.) LONDON, Jan. 10. A free German broadcast was made over the Moscow radio to the German army. It stated: “Cease hostilities! Come over to the National Committee of Free Germany in Moscow! There may be sixty divisions still struggling in the Dnieper Bend. How manv will struggle their way across the great Ukrainian Steppes to the Roumanian frontier? These divisions are meeting the fatq r Napoleon’s Grand Army. Russian armies are moving to. force a trap. German armoured divisions. and infantry are being cut to pieces Soviet armies.”