BIG ATTACK NEAR

Southland Times, Issue 25641, 7 April 1945, Page 5

BIG ATTACK NEAR

RUSSIANS MASS BEFORE VIENNA FIGHTING ON FRINGE OF CITY (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) LONDON, April 6. Fierce fighting is going on in the outskirts of Vienna and the Russians are massing big forces for a heavy assault on the city. An important highway running due west from Vienna has been cut. North-east of Vienna, Marshal Rodion Malinovsky’s forces

have battled their way to the Austrian border and are prepar-

ing to make a move that will result in the encirclement of the city.

The capture of one Austrian and three Czechoslovakian towns is announced in an Order of the Day by M. Stalin, addressed to Marshal Malinovsky, commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. The Austrian town is Bruck, 20 miles south-east of Vienna and five miles north of Lake Neusiedler. The Czech towns are Malacky, Prievidza and Banovce, of which the first is 33 miles north-east of Vienna and the other two respectively 82 and 65 miles north-east of Bratislava.

With the capture of Bruck, Marshal Malinovsky has burst clean through the gap between Neusiedler Lake and the south bank of the Danube en route to Vienna, says the military correspondent of the British United Press. Bruck is on the main railway from Budapest and controls the gap and its possession allows Marshal Malinovsky’s forces south of the Danube to join in the assault against Vienna, which has already begun by his forces north of the river and by Marshal Tolbukhin’s forces in the south. RAILWAY JUNCTION Malacky, which, was also taken by Russian troops, is an important junction on the railway from Bratislava to Brno and Moravskaostrava, 20 miles north-west of Bratislava. The railway from Vienna to Brno and Moravskaostrava is only eight miles ahead of this force.

Vienna is already leading the life of a city besieged, with the roar of guns mingling with bomb crashes and an increasing volume of machine-gun and small-arms fire. The noise of battle is punctuated all day and night by the wail of sirens as Russian planes fly in at roof-top height to spy out German troop movements. German civilians are hastily evacuating the Austrian capital. It is evident that Hitler has decided to sacrifice the beautiful capital of his native land, which will have to suffer the fate of all fortresses.