STORMED AND CAPTURED BY RED ARMY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 January 1944, Page 3

STORMED AND CAPTURED BY RED ARMY

Threat to Germans in Dnieper Bend Heavily Intensified

REPEATED ENEMY COUNTER-ATTACKS , DEFEATED REPORTED SOVIET CROSSING OF POLISH FRONTIER LONDON, January 4. The Russian armies striking south-west from Kiev have stormed and captured the big railway and road centre of Byelaya Tserkov. This good news was announced by Marshal Stalin in a special order of the day. The Germans inside the Dnieper bend are now in still greater danger. The capture of By elay a Tserkov has cut one of the two remaining railways which were serving the Germans in the Dnieper bend and is a crippling blow to the main enemy defence in that area. The town was taken after a four-day battle. For several days the Germans had been pouring in men and tanks in fierce counter-attacks, but these postponed the inevitable result only for a very short time. The Russians are reported to be only six miles from Berdichev, another key railway centre. If Berdichev falls, there is nothing to stop the full weight of the Russian offensive from driving right across the base of the bend. Further north, west of Kiev, the Russians are reported to have crossed the 1939 Polish frontier at several points. A Moscow correspondent states the Russian forces were last reported four miles beyond the frontier. There is no official confirmation of this. The last official news placed the Red Army eight miles short of the frontier. The Moscow radio says that the Soviet tanks and infantry are moving with clocklike precision, smashing one strongpoint after another. Nazi commentators say the Germans are adopting well-tried elastic defence tactics in face of the Russian numerical superiority.