Tremendous Clash Of Arms

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVII, Issue 23181, 20 April 1945, Page 5

Tremendous Clash Of Arms

German Reports of Battle in East (Rec. 11.55 p.m.) LONDON, Apr. 19. The security silence on the tremendous clash of arms east of Berlin is still not lifted, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. Frontline reports reaching Moscow of enemy tank and aircraft losses indicate the intensity of the armoured and air battles raging on the Eastern Front. The Berlin radio last night admitted that the Russians had reached Wulkow and Sieversdorf. respectively 24 and 17 miles east-north-east and east of Greater Berlin. The German News Agency reporting Marshal Koniev’s break through west of the Neisser River added that the Russians had also broken into Forst. Germany's most powerful radio transmitter at Kongiswusterhausen, 18 miles south-south-east of the centre of Berlin, has been silent since 4 p.m. yesterday. Moscow radio says that the time is now at hand when the Allied and Russian armies shall unite. Once they are linked up they will unleash a final assault as a single force, smashing Hitler’s Germany to pieces. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent states that Russian dispatches to-day almost confirmed reports of substantial gains in Czechoslovakia, where the Russian pincer drive to squeeze out the huge German salient in the eastern part of the country is going well. Both Ostravia and Brno are already outflanked, the former from the north-west and the latter from the south-west. Marshal Malinovsky’s forward troops are only eight miles from Brno and are shelling the city outskirts, while another column bypasses the city along secondary roads to Prague. The German News Agency announced that the Russians established a bridgehead across the Spree River, 12 miles from Kottbus.