KEY JUNCTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25427, 7 January 1944, Page 3

KEY JUNCTION

ASSAULT ON BERDICHEV FIVE-DAY BATTLES (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 5. Marshal Stalin, in an order of the day addressed to General Vatutin, said the troops of the first Ukrainian front, after five days of fierce fighting, today carried by assault the large railway junction and key centre of the enemy’s defences, Berdichev. The feat will be recognised in Moscow with 20 salvoes from 124 guns. “ The latest reports indicate that General Vatutin has decided to consolidate the positions in the Novograd Volynsk area and secure his rear between Byelaya Tserkov and the west bank of the Dnieper before pushing on towards Rovno,” says the British United Press. “Most of the German ‘colonists’ settled around Rovno have already moved back to the Reich. The German' commissioner, Herr Koch, used Rovno as his headquarters, from which he organised pillage in the Ukraine. All the original Russian inhabitants of the town were expelled, and the town was completely turned over to Nazi settlers.

“Russians and Czec! ;, side by side, fought their way through a quagmire to seize Byelaya Tserkov after a furious Red Army barrage disrupted the first-line defences. The Russians and Czechs, when the Germans regrouped on their second defence line, changed the dispositions and launched a surprise attack ’ from another quarter, sweeping the Germans out of the town.”

The Dnieper battle has reached a stage nearer its conclusion, and the battle for the River Bug has come into closer perspective by the capture of Byelaya Tserkov, states a Moscow message. The Soviet victory has made the position of the Germans, who have been holding the right bank of the Dnieper from the southern environs of Kiev to the small Soviet bridgehead south of Perevaslavl, more critical. Byelaya Tserkov was the centre of a fortified zone with permanent ferroconcrete defences and steel pillboxes of a portable type. The Germans had built up similar areas at Kanev and Rzhishehev, on the right bank of the Dnieper, but their military value slumped after the loss of Byelaya Tserkov. South-west of this sector the,Russians have accelerated their advance towards the River Bug after the capture of Pliskov had disorganised the German defences.