DISORDERLY GERMAN RETREAT

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24826, 24 February 1944, Page 5

DISORDERLY GERMAN RETREAT

LAST DNIEPER BEND STRONGHOLD By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright , (Received February 23, 8.34 p.m.) LONDON, February 23 Krivoi Rog, the last German stronghold in the Dnieper bend, has fallen to the Russians. Marshal Stalin, in an Order of the Day, announced that troops of the 1 hird Ukrainian Front, as the result of their offensive, yesterday carried by assault the town of. Krivoi Rog and the area of the Krivoi Rog iron mines. The Berlin radio had stated earlier than the last Germans were withdrawn from the town on Monday afternoon. A supplementary Soviet communique states that the Germans retreated from Krivoi Rog in disorder, abandoning many guns and other equipment and leaving thousands of dead in the approaches and streets of the town. The Russians are chasing the Germans well away from the town, and a Moscow correspondent says to-day that at some points the chase is becoming a rout. The British United Press points out that Krivoi Rog, besides being a g reat iron °re centre, was a model city with a pre-war population of 150,000. Ten million tons of ore were mined at Krivoi Rog in 1939, which was roughly three-fifths of Russia's output. The Germans captured the town in August, 1941. Hitler, in the course of his last speech, boasted of the importance of Krivoi Rog as an industrial centre. There can be little doubt, adds the British United Press, that the Germans effectively wrecked the city before their evacuation. The News Chronicle correspondent says that with the fall of Krivoi Rog goes the last fortress of major importance between the Russians and the two great Black Sea ports of Kherson and Nikolaev. He adds that these two places may soon be in the front line of' battle.