Awaiting News of Drive on Berlin

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 58, 9 March 1945, Page 5

Awaiting News of Drive on Berlin

German Northern Flank Now in Ruins Last Pomeranian Fortress Crashing United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.*—Copyright. Received Friday, 12.54 a.m. LONDON, March 8. Agency correspondents in Moscow say that as new Melon of the eastern front flare up, ushering in a new phase of the Russian winter offensive, Moscow observers believe an irninnns.m«it indicating a renewal of the offensive against Berlin is immiMnt. The situation is increasingly favourable now that ths Germans’ northern flank is in ruins. Zhukov’s forces are fanning out along the Oder Estuary forming a solid mass opposite Stettin as concentrations of artillery beat down the port defence arc, state Agency correspondents from Moscow. Russian guns are striking- against the Danzig fortified seme from two directions and Red Army troops are well under 20 miles from the city. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says the Germans apparently fear an outflanking push across the Oder Estuary. Fanatical German groups are putting up a suicidal resistance and sowing minefields with the speed of an unrolling carpet, transforming every village into a fortress. There are networks of trenches, dug-in tanks and pillboxes. The Germans are launching endless counterattacks with a proportion of armour. Red Star reports that the Russians have cut off a German group in Northeastern Pomerania from their direct line of retreat towards the mouth of the Stettin Lagoon. The Germans are left with only one road along the Baltic coast and that is under very heavy shellfire, The last German fortresses in Western Pomerania are crashing another Russian frontline dispatch says. Rokossovsky’s front is aflame from the Vistula to the Baltic shores.