DOUBLE DRIVE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25801, 23 March 1945, Page 5

DOUBLE DRIVE

VIENNA MENACED FIERCE RUSSIAN ATTACKS GERMANS APPREHENSIVE (Rec. 1 a.m.) LONDON, Mar. 22. While Moscow remains Silent with regard to Marshal Malinovsky’s and Marshal Tolbukhin’s twin thrusts against Austria, Berlin reports to-day are clearly apprehensive. A German military spokesman reports that the Russians north-west of Tata have broken into Banhida, 18 miles south-east of Komarno. Further south the Russians launched a fierce assault west of Kaposvar, south of Lake Balaton. The British United Press says the recent German abortive attacks in the Lake Balaton sector were attempts to forestall this double drive menacing Vienna, Graz, and the great Styria industrial basin. The Gel-mans’ failure to reach the Danube and hold the Drava bridgehead leaves them no natural barriers before Vienna and Graz. A climax is fast approaching in the long-drawn-out battles for Gdynia and Danzig. Advances in the last 24 hours have effectively cut off Gdynia from Danzig and chopped out another big slice, roughly 13 miles long and 7 miles deep, from the Danzig pocket. Red Army forces are massing outside Danzig for the kill, while Soviet planes bomb the town all day and night. Marshal Vassilevsky’s troops around Koenigsberg have over-run three more German defence lines and the German pocket has been compressed into such a narrow space that at no point is it deeper than three miles. A Red Star war reporter says: “ The battle for the liquidation of the Koenigsberg grouping is nearing the end. An infantry division and so-called battle groups are melting away, completely exhausted. Dead Germans litter the streets, fields, and ditches in such numbers that Russian sappers in one village were compelled to clear the streets before vehicles could pass.” Following, the capture of Altdamm, Stettin is under fire from all types of Soviet weapons, and has been put out of commission as a first-class industrial base for the Germans, states

Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. All the east bank of the lower course of the Oder is now cleared, and also the eastern shore of the Stettin Lagoon. The Russians captured more booty in Altdamm, in addition to torpedo aircraft factories.

The British United Press correspondent in Moscow reports that the Germans opened the flood gates of irrigation canals south-west of Koenigsberg in an eleventh-hour attempt to stem Marshal Vassilevsky’s assault against the outer defences. A considerable area of land is inundated, but it is doubtful whether it will have much effect on Russian plans. It was earlier reported that Russian tanks and cavalry south-west of Koenigsberg. sweeping on after the capture of Braunsberg, were in the south-eastern outskirts of Heiligenbeil, the last railroad junction in East Prussia in German hands. The Germans were . attempting to evacuate picked divisions and selected officers from the pocket south-west of Koenigsberg in the past few days, but the Russian artillery and air force were shelling and bombing the port to prevent escape. The Russian Air Force in greatlyimproved weather has flown 5000 sorties in the past few days spreading destruction among tanks and lorries and sinking transports and barges.