ADVANCE ON RIGA

Southland Times, Issue 25482, 30 September 1944, Page 5

ADVANCE ON RIGA

STRONG GERMAN DEFENCES DAMAGE TO ROADS (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 29. The Russians are advancing against Riga, from where they are now less than 20 miles distant, and are meeting increasing rearguard resistance. The Russian Army newspaper, Red Star, says the Germans north-east of the capital have taken advantage of numerous rivers and swamps to erect a deeply-staggered defence system. Russian troops have now entered an area of dense forests and swamps extending to the outskirts of Riga to which all roads have been heavily mined or destroyed by the enemy. Moscow radio says that the Red Army has almost completed the liberation of Estonia. Roads and fields along the route of the Russians’ advahce are littered with enemy dead and abandoned equipment. The Germans are assembling a fleet of every kind of vessel that can be requisitioned for the evacuation of Estonia, which the German News Agency commentator, von Hammer, says has been carried out “strictly according to plan” and is being followed by a systematic withdrawal from Latvia. The correspondent reports that the Russians have swung the powerful mechanized forces which swept across Estonia to Latvia. The best autumn weather for years is enabling the mechanized forces to use remote roads which would generally be impassable at this time of the year. PENETRATION OF HUNGARY Moscow radio announces that the Yugoslav National Committee of Liberation has agreed to the Russian request that the Red Army should be allowed to enter Yugoslav territory to carry on the fight against the Germans and Hungarians. This announcement coincided with the Hungarian radio’s admission that the Russians have made a new penetration of Hungary north-east of the points where fighting was earlier reported.

The Hungarian radio said that heavy fighting was going on at Mazoehegyes, which is a rail junction three miles inside the Hungarian border, and also at Kungaota, eight miles beyond the border.

The Moscow correspondent of Reuter’s reports that the Russians and Czechs in bitter fighting have forced the Germans back from the Stryj valley and mountain.

Tonight’s Soviet communique says north-west and west of Pamu the Russians have cleared the enemy from the western shores of Estonia and occupied 200 places, including the railway stations of Lihula, Caruse and Virtso, all on the railway line from Tallinn to the coast opposite the Oesel Isles. In the Riga direction the Russians in stubborn fighting have captured over 50 places. The Russians south-east and south of Sanok, operating in difficult wooded hill country, captured, more than 30 places, including Wolamichowa, three miles from Slovakia.

A Berlin military spokesman reports the resumption of Soviet activity in the Sewalki sector in the corner between Lithuania, Poland and East Prussia where the Red Army is within a few miles of the German border. The spokesman says that the enemy has begun to pound German positions with heavy artillery and the Russian Air Force is also bombarding the. German lines. HUNGARY’S POSITION The Associated Press of America correspondent at Moscow states that Hungary’s defensive position has never been darker than today with strong Russian forces pressing forward in a 100-mile arc along the Rumanian-Hungarian frontier and utilizing Marshal Tito’s permission to cross into Yugoslav territory to strike at the Hungarians and Germans on the southern flank.

Yugoslav partisans are on the approaches to Belgrade where they routed a force of Germans and Chetniks, says the Free Yugoslav Radio. The Chetniks, members of the so-called home guard, are coming over to the liberation army en masse. A total of 55,000 of them responded to Marshal Tito’s call to September 16 and more are still joining. New units of the liberation movement are being formed every day. The radio announced the liberation of the port of Jabalaac, which is an important centre of communications to Fiom.