GRIM ORDEAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25625, 28 August 1944, Page 5

GRIM ORDEAL

GERMANS NEAR KISHINEV DESPERATE POSITION (Rec. 10 p.m.) RUGBY, Aug. 26. • The Germans held in the Russian iron ring south-west of Kishinev are undergoing a grim ordeal by shellfire and sweeping burses of cannon shell and machine-gun fire from the air, according to a Moscow message. It seems that they do not realise the desperate position they are in. Attempts to break out are weakening under the massed fire of Russian artillery. Meanwhile, far in their rear tanks and Cossack cavalry are pursuing the Germans in swift thrusts across their communications.

Now that the Rumanian armed forces have been ordered to oppose the Germans and assist the Russians, London observers find it extremely difficult to give an exact account of the military situation. Up to last night it appeared that the Russians were advancing in generally a southward direction on a

150-mile front between the Black Sea and the Carpathians, and their advanced troops were some 20 miles from Galatz and the Danube below it. At Tecuci, in the Seret Valley, they are 115 miles from Bucharest. The Moscow radio now states that Bucharest is firmly in Rumanian hands. To what extent the Germans or the Rumanians control those parts of the country not occupied by the Russians is impossible to state. There is no doubt that the situation is changing with great speed.

It is believed in London that the 12 German divisions surrounded near Kishinev are probably more than half the total German forces in Rumania. This being so, the German chances of holding the line from the Danube Delta through Galatz to the bend of the Carpathians do not seem good. Indeed, the enemy may soon be unable to hold anything east of Bucharest. Inability to maintain communications with the rear and panic on the front are working havoc with the Germans and Rumanians on .the eastern front* who in some places are fighting against each other, says a Moscow message. The Red Army is advancing in Moldavia and Rumania with such speed that even motorised enemy units have not time to retreat, with the result that they have very heavy losses in manpower and equipment. Russian tank formations and Cossacks are hunting down German units among the disorganised masses of Rumanian troops in one of the biggest mopping-up operations of the war on the eastern front, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. The Red Air Force is attacking German garrisons and other points under German control. Organised resistance on some sectors of the Rumanian front appears to have ceased as the Red Army, exploiting the

confusion, pushes on, but the Rumanians are so used to obeying German orders that no real armistice can be assured until the German southern army is destroyed.