ADVANCE BROADENED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 10 January 1944, Page 5

ADVANCE BROADENED

NO SLACKENING OF OFFENSIVE (Rec. 11.15 a m.) Rugby, Jan. 9. The new Russian break-through on a 75-mile front in the middle of the Dnieper bend, threatens.to accelerate the disaster which is already beginning to stare the German armies ill the face. The sector where that disaster threatens is still i in the direction of Kiev northern Rumania. Here the advance has been broadened to well over 100 miles from the Dnieper near Kanev to the appoaches of Vinnitsa. In the last two days the Russians | have made some 15 miles’ progress east of Vinnitsa and are within ten miles east of that place. Ilyintsi, which they captured, is 25 miles east and slightly south of Vinnitsa. The vital railway from Germany through southern Poland to southern Russia is therefore 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 almost reached Sarny, a rail junction, by the capture of Czudel, eight miles to the south-east. Northwest of Gorodinitsa, the Russians are a dozen miles across the 1939 Polish frontier. Hardly anywhere has there been a slackening in the pace of the offensive. The Dnieper bend front, with its dangerous salients and unmilitary looking angles, has collapsed in j the centre and weakest part It is scarcely conceivable in these circum- | stances that we do not stand on the eve of great events To bolster up prestige and keep the enemy from the Balkans the German High Command took very big risks in south Russia There is no indication that the German armies there are anything like trapped, but at I any rate something greater than another defeat seems in store for them. ! DEFENCE OF POLAND OR RUMANIA? One well-informed London commentator considers that the German decision to stand in the Dnieper bend regardless of consequences will compel General von Mannstein to .choose between defending southern Poland and defending Rumania and that the Russians intend to compel him to choose the Rumanian alternative, leaving a gap of 200 miles between the Pripet Marshes and the Carpathians. Assuming the Germans retreat from the lower

Dnieper, they presumably 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 at Vinnitsa, are able soon to amass sufficient reserves to deliver another counter-offensive from Rovno and Tarnopol along the main railways to the east. SIGNS OF GERMAN ROUT (Rec. 11.30 a.m.) Rugby, Jan. 9. To-day’s Moscow messages report a continued advance on all sectors from the southern fringes of the Pripet Marshes to the Dnieper, south-east of Kiev. In some places, particularly south-east of Shepetovka, the Russians had to fight for every village, height and copse. Elsewhere, including the northern paiflt of the Rovno province, re- | sistance was weak. The German retreat southwards from the Dnieper pocket south-east of Kiev shows signs of turning into a rout. The rapid westward drive seems on the point of severing the north and south railway running west of the 1939 Polish frontier. When Sarny is captured, any transference of troops between the northern and southern halves of the front will have to be via Brestlitovsk, round the western end of the Pripet Marshes. % A gruesome account of the results of the German occupation of Kirovograd comes from Moscow. The Germans destroyed great factories and high schools, blew up entire blocks of residential buildings and destroyed monuments. Factory installations were sent to Germany and tens of thousands of civilians were executed, starved to death or transported to Germany. The first mass execution was in October, 1941, when 5000 men and boys over 10 years old were murdered by automatic riflemen. Only a third of the original population remains. Treatment of war prisoners in camps nearby was monstrous. In two camps alone 10,000 died, yet, despite terror, the population carried out underground work, helping 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.