SMASHING BLOW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25456, 10 February 1944, Page 5

SMASHING BLOW

RETREAT TO KHERSON PRECIPITATE FLIGHT LONDON, Feb. 8. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says that the Germans, who are hastily retreating south-westwards, face a tremendous blow from the armies of Generals Vatutin, Koniev, Malinovsky, and Tolbukhin, striking as one force. The Russians are fast turning the German retreat towards Kherson into a disorderly rout. The roads along which the Red Army are advancing everywhere show signs of precipitate flight. They are littered for miles with enemy equipment. Reuter’s military correspondent says that the size of the bridgehead that' the Germans held on the opposite shore of the Dnieper from Nikopol showed the importance that they attached to this centre. The bridgehead was at least 10 times the size of the Allied beach-head at Nettuno, and was held by seven divisions. The Germans comprising the divisions haye either been annihilated or flung across the Dnieper to join their broken forces retreating towards Nikolaev and Odessa. It can be reckoned- that with the divisions smashed or surrounded the Russians have' accounted for at least half of General von Mannstein’s army.

With the entire east bank cleared of Germans and Kamenka, six miles south-west of Nikopol, captured, it was obvious that the fall of Nikopol, where bitter street fighting was going on, would be practically simultaneous. Nikopol fell less than 40 hours after Marshal Stalin announced the opening of General Malinovsky’s 100-mile offensive launched to the north-east of Nikopol and Krivoi Rog. General Tolbukhin, who eliminated the German bridgehead opposite Nikopol, was also the hero of Stalingrad; Taganrog, Mariupol, and Melitopol. The first order of the day issued by Marshal Stalin, announcing the new victory, states that troops of the fourth Ukrainian front broke through the strongly-fortified defence line south of Nikopol, on the left bank of the Dnieper. A heavy defeat was inflicted on seven enemy infantry divisions. Soviet troops reached the Dnieper along the entire length of the bridgehead. As a result of this operation the enemy’s operationally important base on the left bank of the Dnieper has been completely liquidated. This base extended to a width of 75 miles and to a depth of 25 miles. Soviet troops occupied the town of Kamenka, a district centre in the Zaporozhe region, and over 40 other places; The second order of the day states that troops, of the third Ukrainian front, in co-operation with troops of the fourth Ukrainian front, developed their offensive. They routed the enemy, and to-day they carried Nikopol by assault. , , , . , Fighting raged throughout the night in the streets of blazing Nikopol as Russian tommy-gunners stormed enemy-held buildings, states Reuter's Moscow correspondent. The hardpressed Germans littered the main streets of the town with mines, and many fires lit the sky as they blew up their stores.