MENACE TO BERLIN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 84, 8 March 1945, Page 6

MENACE TO BERLIN

:3.45 P.M. EDITION

RUSSIANS' NEW DRIVE. ; CROSSING OF RIVER. (N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright.) (JKec. 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, Mar 7. Soviet assault troops captured, a vital bridge intact in tace or nerco opposition and columns of lorries, tanks and heavy guns are now pouring across aii undisclosed river "on the Berlin front".

Front-line reports add that, to protect the bridgehead, the Russians huv* concentrated on one' sector 500 yards long 120 heavy guns and mortars, 18 heavy machine-guns, and 90 anti-air-craft guns. The German News Agency last night said that Marshal Zhukov's forces are now launching a great number of local attacks at the bridgehead which they hold at Lebus, on the west bank of the Oder, only 33 miles from Berlin, and at two bridgeheads north and south of Kustrin. The German commentator (von Hammer) "stated that the Russians had penetrated the north-east section of the German fortifications at Kustrin but had been thrown back. Another German report said the Russians launched as many as seven attacks against Kustrin yesterday, whi.e.' yet another said Marshal Zhukov was attacking Kietz, on the west bank of the Oder, two miles south-west of Kustrin on the main Kustrin-Berhn motor road, which appears to have been ctst. Reuter's military correspondent points out that the caoture of Gollnow, Massow and Stepenitz indicates that the east bank of the Oder Estuary, along the Stettin Lagoon, is virtually cleared of Germans except for a few small isolated pockets, from the sea near Kammin, which was captured yesterday, to just east of Stettin. German reports in the past few hours indicated that the/Red Army also holds the east bank of the Lower Oder from the Schwedt area to Aitdamm, opposite Stettin. Thus, adds Reuter, the Soviet and German reports mean that the Germans are cleared from the whole of the east bank of the Oder from the Baltic to the far south, m Upper Silesia, south-east of Oppeln. Reuter's Moscow correspondent reports that Rokossovsky lias opened a general converging movement against Danzig, and the rumble of Russian guns can be heard in the city. Marshal Rokossovsky's troops are 20 miles south-east, 30 miles south, and 50 miles south-west of the city. Butow, a highway centre, is the main objective of the thrusts from the south-west and west. It is now under fire. " Troops on the First White Russian Front completed the destruction of the German group encircled south of Schivelbein, 28 miles south ot Kolberg. Eight thousand prisoners were taken, according to preliminary data, including Lieut.-Genera'l Krappe, commander of the 10th German Armoured Corps, and his staff. A Soviet eommuniqii/, in- announcing this, adds that a large quantity of arms and material was aiso captured. The Russians north-east and south of Lake Baiton < Hungary) warded off attacks by major forces of tanks and infantry. The communique repeats the Orders of the Day and says that,'besides Starogard and Gniew, 200 other places were occupied, while besides GoLnow, Massow and Stepenitz 50 other places were occupied.