GERMANS FACING DOOM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25458, 12 February 1944, Page 5

GERMANS FACING DOOM

SMASHING RUSSIAN BLOWS DESPERATE LAST STAND (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, Feb. 11. Seven Russian columns are moving in to destroy the Kanev pocket, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. Two of these are thrusting from the south-west and one from the north-east, and they are making direct for Korsun, in the heart of the pocket. Three more Red Army columns are converging to cut off the south-eastern bulge of the pocket, while the seventh is moving up from Gorodische. Compressed within an area of less than 250 miles with m 90-mile front to defend, the German Eighth Army faces its doom, says the Moscow correspondent of The Times. All the trapped German divisions, except two, are crack veteran groups, the loss of which is likely to have important repercussions when General von Mannstein has to defend the Dniester River line and the Carpathians. “ These are the last grey days for the 10 German divisions trapped west of Kanev,” says the Moscow correspondent of the British United Press. “The two Red Army groups entrusted with the cutting in two of the German ‘ island ’ are now only six miles apart.” An official map of the Kanev trap, the correspondent says, shows that the width of the corridor separating the encircled forces from the Red Army’s front line running south to Zvenigorodka from Shpola is in its narrowest part about 25 miles. Seven Russian columns are hammering the entrapped forces. The heavy guns of the forces commanded by General Vatutin and General Koniev have been linked and are pumping thousands of shells into the wavering German positions. General Stemmerman left picked rearguard detachments to hold strategic points, the correspondent adds. Tough German machine-gunners and tommy-gunners, covering all the crossroads and heights, are pouring a crossfire into the advancing Russians, hoping to trick them into believing that big forces are lurking about. These suicide squads are hanging on to the last, hoping that German armoured divisions, will break through from the west and relieve them. The" Germans are now digging their mobile guns into the muddy earth, preparing for a last stand.