NOTABLE MILESTONE

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

NOTABLE MILESTONE

CROSSING OF POLISH FRONTIER GRIM REMINDER TO GERMANS RUGBY, Jan. 4. The crossing of the 1939 Polish frontier is a most notable milestone in the Russian advance, and is expected to bring further home to the German people the catastrophe their armies have suffered. “This,” says the Evening Standard, “is the worst moment for Germany since her leaders had to turn their back on the Volga. That was barely a year ago. Now they must look to the Dniester and Polish Rivers. Surely here is the mightiest transformation in military history.”

Nor are General Vatutin’s armies likely to stop. They are moving westward on a 70-mile front towards the next great north-south railway. On the northern flank they are 40 miles from Sarny junction and in the centre 50 miles from the equally-important junction of Rovno. On the southern dank the Russians are 25 miles from Shepetovka. The southern edge of the great Russian westward drive is only a few miles from the ShepetovkaBerdichev railway. A Red Army column, advancing from Korosten towards Sarney, is 12 miles beyond Olevsk. The Russians have thus advanced four miles into the Polish Ukraine. A second Russian column is advancing along the JitomirRovno road, on which big clashes are occurring between Novograd Volynsk and Korzar, The latter place is 15 miles inside the Polish Ukraine. This road is of exceptional importance and constitutes approximately the dividing line between the marshes of the forests of the lowlands to the north and the hilly country to the south. General Vatutin’s forces, in a sweep to the south-west from the Kiev bulge along a 70-mile front, are approaching the Bug-Odessa railway, which is the main German supply artery. The front stretches from the Kazatin-Vinnitsa railway eastwards to Krivyets, which is 25 miles south of Belaya Tserkov. The Russians firmly hold all the ground between Krivyets and Byelaya Tserkov. Their grip on the Berdichev railway junction, another German bastion, is also steadily benig tightened. Berdichev is now cut off on three sides, without railway communication. The indications are that the Germans intend to make a determined stand at Berdichev. The Berlin radio says the Russians are already fighting on the outskirts of the town. The Russians are nearly halfway from the Kursk sector, where their offensive began less than six months ago, to German Silesia. 370 miles west. East Prussia, however, is actually the nearest to German territory, being 250 miles away to the nortlvwest ot the Olevsk area. Hungary is 200 miles to the south-west. Rumania is 130 miles ahead of the advancing armies, but at the mouth of the Dnieper the Russians have long been only 120 miles from Rumania.