AT ALL SPEED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25426, 6 January 1944, Page 3

AT ALL SPEED

RUSSIAN DRIVE WEST LIGHT ENEMY RESISTANCE RUGBY, Jan. 4. The Russians are taking full advantage of the comparative lightness of the German resistance and tha fact that the Pripet Marshes guard their right flank to drive westwards at all speed, states a London military commentator. Von Mannstein, who as yet shows no sign of withdrawing from the Dnieper bend, is evidently retaining a powerful cover for Berdichev and Vinnitsa. Nevertheless, these places will probably fall within the next week. The fact that the Germans are still trying to retain all their positions in the Dnieper bend strengthens the opinion that von Mannstein contemplates mounting a powerful counter-attack, although his difficulties must be greatly increased by tha loss of such obvious advanced bases as Novograd, Volynsk, Ovlesk, and Baranovka. The capture of Novograd Volynsk is important because, as most of the fighting in this area is on roads and railways, possession by the Russians of this large junction has given General Vatutin a choice, bv greater mobility, either to drive on westwards or switch units towards the south-west to throw freater weight against the Berdichev’innitsa positions.

The Red Army column advancing along the railway from Novograo Volynsk is menacing the Sheptovka railway junction and, according to the Russian Army newspaper Red Slav, most of the. line between Novograd Volynsk and Sheptovka is now in Russian hands. Reuter’s says the perspective opened up as the result of General Vaiutm’s great advance south and south-west ol Kiev means the cutting off of at least 500,000 Germans in the Dnieper bend and the Crimea. The Germans’ railway communications between the Dnieper area and their westward bases are already thoroughly disorganised. With the river Bug no real obstacle to the Red Army, the Germans may be forced back as far as the river Dniester, from which General Vatutin’s forces are only 100 miles, which means that the Germans are saying good-bye to all contact with their Dnieper bend forces and facing abandonment of Odessa. The Germans had converted Byelaya Tserkov, which they captured in August, 1941, into a bolt position guarding the left bank of the German forces in the Dnieper bend. Its capture means that these forces are directly exposed to Russian pressure from the north and west. Byelaya Tserkov was outflanked for days by the Russian wedge between Byelaya Tserkov and Berdichev. The German-controlled Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau, quoting a report from Berlin, says bloody battles are going on along the old Polish frontier in miserable thawing weather over terrain J mostly consisting of deep marshland. The Polish frontier which the Cossacks have crossed was the outcome of the Polish-Russian treaty of March 18, 1921. A new demarcation line between Russia and Germany was drawn up as the result of the Russian-Ger-man pact of 1939. The Germans crossed this line on June 22, 1941,- and crossed the old frontier about six days later.