Evening star., 1943-01-19
British so Miles From Tripo|i>
Showdown With Romme| Near;
Leningrad Victory Spurs Reds
Russians Report
Further Gains
On Wide Front
BY the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
MOSCOW, Jan. 19.-Russian
troops fought to widen their
smile relief corridor to Lenin-
grad today after smashing
through nearly 9 miles of Nazi
Notifications to lift the epic IT.
month siege of that big indus
trial city--a feat that sent
Soviet spirits soaring and lent
greater momentum to Red
Armies on other fronts.
Izvestia, government newspaper
reported Leningrad was now in di-
rect land communication with the
rest of the nation after nearly
year and half in which it's 1000,
900 wartime inhabitants had been
supplied by air transports and by
roads and railroad over the winter
ice of Lake Ladoga.
While the Russians continued to
batter at the once-encircling Ger
man armies around Russias second
city other Soviet forces moved
farther in the direction of the
Latvian border southwest of Velikie
Luki, threatened Salsk, German
supply center for its entrapped
southern armies. frightened the wise
in the Stalingrad area and made
further progress in the direction
of the steel city of Kharkov, the
Pittsburgh of the Ukraine.
Workers Are Joyous.
Workers changing shifts in Rus
sia's armament and other war in
dustries shouted and Rugged each
other after the public loudspeaker
systems announced the lifting of
Leningrad's siege late last night
The news was flashed to all parts
of the Soviet Union, to every square
and meeting place
Dispatches related that the Lenin-
grad offensive began at 9 am. jan
uary IL with hurricane of artillery
fire on the German positions on the
elevated left bank of the Neva River.
SO terrific was the barrage, Pravda
reported. that it plowed up the
frozen soil and splintered concrete
pillboxes as though they were
matchwood The pounding lasted
hours and 20 minutes.
Izvestia said the German Army
had lost 250,000 men in the unsuc-
cessful attempt to take Leningrad
The lift which the Russian people
got out of the breaking of the
blockade of the city. named for their
revolutionary leader and considered
the home of the revolution itself,
bolstered army morale and lent new
momentum to the series of drives
against the Axis armies all along
the 1,200-mile front.
Six Places Captured.
Southwest of Velikie Luki, where
German resistance has been excep-
tionally strong, a Russian advance
captured six populated places and
added to the growing toll OF Axis
prisoners.
Gondon military quarters
pointed out that Hitler's satellite
armies had taken a particularly
heavy drubbing in the winter
drive, calculating that six of
nine Hungarian divisions on the
eastern front had been badly
mauled, seven of 10 Italian divi-
sions had been knocked out and
that Is of 20 Rumanian divisions
had been liquidated as casualties
and prisoners)
The army moving southwest from
VeroneZh in the sixth and newest
of the Red offensives in the south
was reported within lO8 miles of
Kharkov after the capture of Ara
nasievka, 20 miles north of the
railway connecting Svoboda and
Kupyansk.
AS the line of advance was
Strengthened in this sector, Russian
forces were reported to be encoun-
tering excessively stubborn resist
ance" from German and Hungarian
troops in some cases
AS the squeeze on the trapped
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