JUNCTION FALLS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24851, 24 March 1944, Page 3

JUNCTION FALLS

FATE OF PERVOMAISK GERMANS DRIVEN INTO BUG FRESH ENCIRCLEMENT LIKELY (Recti. 11.10 p.m.) LONDON. March 23 Soviet forces on the eastern side of the Dniester have occupied Pervomaisk, an important railway junction and strongpoint of the German defences on the middle reaches of the River Bug. This has been announced by Marshal Stalin in an Order of the Day addressed to the commander of the Second Ukrainian Front. Pervomaisk was evacuated by the Soviet on August 15, 1941. Railway lines lead from it to Odessa and Balti, and from there into Rumania. The old name of this town is Olviopol. The fall of this junction greatly endangers Voznesensk, an important barrier between the Russians and Nikolaev. Other Russian forces are coming up from the south almost to within shelling distance of Nikolaev and it looks as if the battle for this naval base will soon start.

Ring of Fortifications The capture of Pervomaisk, 100 miles north of Odessa, has dashed the German hopes of making a long stand in that area. They had ringed the town with fortifications and made every house into a pillbox. The Russians, however, broke in from two directions and in fierce street fighting the German garrison was pinned against the River Bug and wiped out. Hundreds were drowned and many more were taken prisoner. Large quantities of war material were also captured. Pervomaisk, with Nikolaev, constituted the main German outer fortress covering Odessa, says Router's Moscow correspondent. Its fall threatens to trap 100,000 Germans between the Bug and Odessa. Twelve German divisions in this area are now threatened on both flanks. The British United Press states that the elimination of Pervomaisk leaves the Germans with a bridgehead of about 68 miles on the east bank of the Bug River.

Significant Victory The correspondent adds that the cutting of the Balti-Cernauti railway on Tuesday is regarded in Moscow as of the greatest significance. The conservative Red Army newspaper Red Star calls it "a very great achievement" because it was carried out against new, full-strength units which were brought up to stem the Russian thrust. The severance of the railway means that over half the distance between the Dniester and the Pruth Rivers is covered, and with the paralysis of the enemy's last good lateral communication line in Bessarabia goes his last glimmer of hope of prolonging the fighting east of the Pruth River. Cossacks are within a day's ride of the Pruth, and leading Red Army columns are 20 miles from the river.