NEAR BELGRADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25659, 6 October 1944, Page 5

NEAR BELGRADE

RED ARMY’S SWEEP SPEARHEADS CONVERGING JUNCTION WITH JUGOSLAVS (Rec. 10 p.m.) • LONDON, Oct. 5,_ According to the Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press, Red Army spearheads are converging on Pancevo, nine miles from Belgrade, the liberation of which will possibly be only a matter of hours. The Red Army has joined up with advanced patrols of Marshal Tito’s forces near Petrovgi’ad, says Red Star. Large mechanised Russian forces are closing .in on Belgrade from the north, the north-east, and the east in a scythelike movement over open country. Scattered groups of Germans are being chased among low hills by Russian machine gunners in jeeps. The Germans are rushing up emergency reinforcements for the defence of the city. German garrisons in the sector west of Negotin, where Russians and Marshal Tito’s partisans have linked up, are being pincered and smashed by the combined forces, says Reuter’s' Moscow correspondent. According to the Red Star, in the sector south-west of Turnu Severin, crack German alpine troops are battling with the Russians, whose supply columns are moving over most difficult rocky terrain, and are sometimes forced temporarily to abandon trucks and tractored vehicles, and carry on with horses and mules, even, oxen. The historic meeting between the Russians and the partisans occurred as the partisans swept down from the mountains and attacked from the west a village the Russians were storming from .the east.

A Bulgarian communique states that Bulgarian troops advanced considerably in the Eelapalanka sector of Jugoslavia. The Bulgarians took important local points and considerably improved their positions. They are advancing to the north-west. According to the German Overseas News Agency, there is no real front line in the Eastern Carpathians. Russian groups in some cases have got in the rear of German strengpoints without a fight. The Russiails by such infiltration tactics try to gain dominating heights from which they can cover by their fire pass roads for German supply lines. The Russians have thrown in fresh formations in the battle of the Iron Gate, and are pressing forward with strong forces. The Russian attacks in Northern Serbia have been halted near Petrovgrad, but they? were able to advance to the south-west to Novoselo, where hard street fighting is still going on. The Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press reports that the Russians are under 15 miles from Belgrade. Nearly all Jugoslav territory east of the big river bend formed by the confluence of the Danube and the Tisa has been swept clear of German resistance by Russian units pouring like, a flood from the foothills of the Transylvanian Alps. Scouts from Marshal Tito’s army were ferried across the Danube to greet the Russians on the northern bank and to lead them to the west. • . . ■ Front-line despatches tell of Germans fleeing to the Tisa after their counterattacks near Petrovgrad were broken up. The Russian drive on the map is like an arch, one end hinged on the Danube, several miles west of Balaerkva, the other reaching nearly to the Tisa, west of Petrovgrad. Jit appears that it cannot be long before the German garrison at Belgrade is caught in the jaws of the Russian pincers. The Red Army’s sweeping progress into Jugoslavia is a blend of triumphal march and mobile battle, says Reuter s Moscow correspondent. Civilians are running out with flowers to strew the Russi&ns’ path, then scattering for cover as shells crash into village streets from the German rear artillery. * The correspondent quoted Lieu-tenant-general Tersic, leader of the Jugoslav military mission in Moscow, as saving: “Co-ordinated action between our two armies began as, soon as the Red Armv crossed the Jugoslav border.” General Tersic revealed that the Russians had already penetrated, the districts'of the Maidenpek gold mines and the Bor copper mines southwest of Turnu Severin (the Bor mines hold the second largest deposits of copper in Europe). Reuter’s Agency points out that Moscow did not give the usual salute, for the break-through into Jugoslavia, and expresses the opinion that the Red Army’s present movements,, not' only in Jugoslavia, but in Rumania and on the Czechoslovak border, are regarded as only preliminaries to the big final battle for the elimination of Hungary, Germany’s last partner. The German News Agency commentator, von Olberg, admitted that the Germans, to avoid encirclement, had withdrawn south-west of Negotin. He added that the battle for Hungary’s second city, Szeged, had reached its climax.