MINSK BY-PASSED

Grey River Argus, 4 July 1944, Page 5

MINSK BY-PASSED

NORTH AND SOUTH

Enemy Likely to be Caught

[Aust. & N.Z. Press- Assn.] (Rec. 10.5.) LONDON, July 3. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Moscow correspondent says: “Russian strategy of annihilation appears on tne eve of its biggest success. In a frontal advance against Minsk, Russian forces reached Sl.oboda, twelve miles north-east of the city. Having by-passed Minsk, both north and south, and cut two main German escape routes behind the city in the swiftest advance of the whole war, troops of the. Third and First White Russian Fronts are within seventy miles of one another, representing a gap through which the enemy in the Minsk area must try to The capture of Smoleviclu, which is on the main road to Minsk, represents an advance of twenty-two miles in twenty-four hours. A supplementary Moscow communique says the enemy is flinging in fresh reserves of infantry and tanks but is nowhere able to stem our advance. The communique adds thiit. an enemy group of four hundred officers and men encircled south-west of Polotsk surrendered without firing a shot. In an order of the day M. Stalin announced that troops on the Third White Russian Front, to-day, captured Vileika, thereby, cutting off communications from Minsk to Vilna and Riga. They also captured S'tolbtsi, thereby cutting German communications between Minsk and Luninets. A Soviet communique states: Russians between Lakes Onega and Lodoga captured a district centre in the Petrozavodsk region Over 250 other inhabited places were taken including Smolevichi, twentyfour miles north-east of Minsk, and Krasnoye, thirty miles north-west of Minsk, on the main line to Vilna. The Red Army in the Baranovichi direction, captured Cherven, thirty-seven miles south of Slutsk, besides threehundred inhabited places. The Soviet Information Bureau stated: In the first week of the Soviet offensive in White Russia 158,930 Germans were killed or taken prisoners ano 3,653 guns were captured or destroyed. On the First White Russian front; Marshal Rokossovsky’s troops killed 50,000 Germans, took prisoner 23,(?80, destroyed 216 tanks and 1322 guns, and captured 150 tanks and 1342 guns. On the Second White Russian front: General Zahkarov’s troops killed 30,000 Germans, took prisoner 3250 (incluaing two generals), destroyed 60 tanks and 250 guns, and captured 20 tanks and 11 guns. On the Third White Russian front: General Chernyakhov’s troops killed 32,000 enemy officers and men, took 20,000 prisoners (including 30 officers), destroyed 126 tanks and 76 guns, and captured 35 tanks and 652 guns. Another report says: Von Bosch’s German armies on the White Russia’ front, after losing 195,930 men in the first week of the Red Army’s summer offensive, are still falling back to Minsk without a sign so far of a German counter-attack of the dimensions necessary to check the Russians’ headlong progress. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says the Germans in Russia have one fear greater than the Red Army’s Katusha, which is a multi-barrelled, electrically operated rocket-gun; it is an overriding fear of encirclement, which has) grown since Stalingrad. Rokossovsky’s tanks and shock troops, sweeping on south of Minsk, are already less than 180 miles from the Reich border in East Prussia. Rea Army mobile artillery on Sunday night, was shelling the approaches to Minsk, the capital of White Russia, and the last first-class military centre left to the Germans in Russia proper. Generals Rokossovsky, Chernyakhov, Zakharov and Bagramyan, the four men controlling the tremendous Russian assault, have given .all the field commanders the widest initiative in carrying out local encirclements as part of a total plan to strip the Germans’ north-eastern border naked, not only of fortifications but man-power. A British Press correspondent stated: There was a terrible massacre when Russians forced the Beresina River. After Rokossovsky smashed the German lines at Bobruisk, there was an inextricable mass of rnen m ’tanks, or lorries, and even on guns, fighting to get back across the Beresina. Lorries in the melee collided and rolled into the ditches. Chernayakhov’s cavalry, with speciallyweighted sabres, rose up in the stirrups, and slashed a way through the fear-maddened Germans. Another sign of demoralisation was the discovery of a large number of epaulettes and decorations which the Germans had torn from themselves in the attempt to hide identities. Another report stated: One weeks fighting cut in half the Germans' shield protecting the road to Koenigsberg, Warsaw and Berlin, and only further withdrawls from the enemy s pool of strategic reserves, which are already heavily tapped can hope even to delay the Red Army’s advance. The German infantry, are now becoming afraid of their own tanks. Fleeing panzers, after the rout at Bobruisk, over-ran the retreating troops who crowded the roads. Between the Beresina and Prut Rivers many scattered Germans are hiding in the forests trying to slip through the tightening Russian cordon, disguised as peasant women with embroidered blouses and homespun skirts. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says that thousands of Germans who lost touch with their units and hid in tlje forests, met their fate b v the hands of partisans who had been waiting three years for just such a situation to mop them up in hundreds. The whole spirit of Russia’s intention is summed up by “Pravda”' which says: “To kill or capture—that is our aim. The Red Army’s task is to use extreme mobility as one of the most decisive factors for military success.” FALL OF POLOTSK. RUSSIAN CLOSING OF MINSK GAP (Rec. 10.55.) LONDON, July 3. The German radio admits that Polotsk has fallen. The British United Press correspondent in Moscow says two Russian armies, which are racing, to join up and complete the encirclement of two hundred thousand Germans in the Minsk area have 1 now closed the gap between them to fifty-five miles. There is little hope of the Germans pulling out from the trap, .as the Russians have cut all the main escape routes and communications. The Red Army’s latest captures represent huge advances in the last twenty-four hours The capture of Vikeika ifieam an advance of fifty-two miles in a single day, while, in the advance to Krasnoye, the Russians covered fortythree miles in a day. LATER. Correction —The report of the fall of Polotsk is not confirmed.