FORCES SPLIT

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

FORCES SPLIT

GERMANS IN KANEV POCKET WITHERING RUSSIAN FIRE HRec.' 2 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 11. * The Russians last night split the 10 German divisions trapped between Shpola, Boguslav, and Kanev Into two groups, reports Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. To-day is the beginning of the end for these Germans, adds the correspondent. The Red Army last night continued their smashing thrusts across the centre of the trap. General Stemmerman is reported to have been forced to move the German headquarters to a village north-west of Korsun, which is under fire from some Russian guns. The Germans are refusing to surrender and are being mowed down at point-blank range. Thousands of German corpses and mounds of destroyed enemy war material litter the ground. The Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press says the Russians storming the Kanev trap were forced to withhold the fire from heavily entrenched artillery because of the fear that they would hit their own troops closing in from opposite sides. The whole area of encirclement has been reduced to a corridor 15 miles long and 5 miles wide. There is every indication that the Germans delayed too long in the Krivoi Rog area, where they may have lost additional thousands in a new trap. The Vichy radio reports that heavy fighting is raging around Vitebsk. The Russians are again attacking from the south-east, after a heavy artillery preparation.