ODESSA-LWOW RAILWAY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 13 January 1944, Page 5

ODESSA-LWOW RAILWAY

GERMAN DEFENCE London, Jan. 12. Latest frontline dispatches indicate that German resistance is stif'ening against the Red Army’s drives in Southern Russia says Reuter's Moscow correspondent. The Germans in an attempt to protect the Odessa-Lwow railway, managed to 'bring up reinforcements to the northern bank of the river Bug. Big tank and infantry battles are being fought out there. The Russians are approaching Ulanov, only 12 miles from the Bug on the main road south of Berdichev. Germans on the western edge of the Kiev salient failed to make a stand on intermediate defence lines west of Novograd Volynsk and Russian tank forces are driving them back westwards. The di- j rection of this new Russian thrust is towards the old Polish frontier at a point about 60 miles south of the original penetration to Sarny. The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press says German counter-attacks in the Sarny, Novograd Volynsk and Berdichev areas are increasing in size and frequency but thus far all have been beaten back and fresh Red Army masses continue relentlessly to advance NEW OFFENSIVE Vichy radio reports that the Russians launched a great new offensive between Krivol Rog and Zaporozhe. The Red Army carried a new landing north-west of Kerch, the Russians using seven divisions in a break-through attempt south-west of Dnepropetrovsk, according to the German Overseas News Agency. Fighting here has created another point of gravity on the eastern front. An extraordinarily heavy artillery barrage lasting several hours preceded the attack while Russian planes divebombed the German positions. Fighting north-west of Kirovograd is occurring on ice which is causing difficulties. The agency added that the Russians made a few local breaches in the German positions in the Kilinkovichi area but the breaches were cleaned up. The Red Army forced another breach north of the Ryechitso-Mosir railway where heavy battles are progressing. The Moscow correspondent of the “News-Chronicle” says he doubts whether the Germans have had time to build really substantial defences along the banks of the Bug, and he does not think they have sufficient men to defend the whole river line in strength. Also, if the Russians to the west keep up their progress they will soon be able to turn the whole of the river line. Moscow radio declared that since January the armies of General Vatoutin and Koniev have disposed of more than 60.000 Germans and liberated more than 1700 populated places. “FIGHT FOR TIME*’ The German public is busily being prepared for worse news in the future. Large-scale German withdrawals on the eastern front were foreshadowed by the High Command spokesman. General Dietmar, last night in the gloomiest broadcast yet. “The volume of power the Russians are hurtling into their attacks is rising steadily. It drowns the opponent, specially when his numerical -strength is markedly inferior. This need not prevent the German defence from proving successful, but grave and most painful decisions have to be taken in which geographical considerations are of but secondary importance. Above all, the German armies must fight for time, because they have to consider the situation on other fronts as well.” The Germans had now been fighting for six months against an almost ceasetless Russian offensive, he said, and there was no sign of it coming to a halt. He called on the Germans to face the situation with the same uncompromising attitude as was shown by the United Nations. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Stockholm correspondent says that General Vatoutin’s forces are reported to have occupied a 40-mile stretch of the east bank of the River Bug south-east of i Vinnitsa. “General Vatoutin’s spearheads are only a dozen miles from the vital Odessa-Warsaw railway, and should the Red Army seize it half a million German troops in the Dnieper bend, weary after the 20 days of tremendous fighting, will find themselves at the mercy j of big Russian armies, prepared to fall | on them from all directions,” says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. He points out that the Russian frqpt h' - eachc 1 a point a little over 300 miles from the Ploetsi ailfields, which is much nearer than any Allied air base. FUTILE COUNTER-ATTACKS The correspondent quotes the annihilation of five enemy divisions north and , north-west of Kirovograd as a typical example of the way the Germans are j wasting men in futile counter-attacks. | These encircled forces assembled their I tanks first and tried to punch their way i out of the ring. They failed, resulting I in the annihilation of thousands of Ger- 1 mans who might have been withdrawn j in time to help defend Odessa. A similar wastage of men in a hopeless attempt to hold on to doomed posi- . f ions i going on in other sectors west, and north-west of Kirovograd The British United Press correspon- 1

dent in Moscow says that the progresI sive collapse of the German front in the western and southern Ukraine does not mean that the enemy resistance is flagging. On the contrary, the enemy is counter-attacking vigorously wherever he is i*bl3 to manoeuvre his forces. The Germans are resisting particularly strongly west and south-west of Berdichev, where they are trying to prevent the Russians from pouring down behind Vinnitsa.