The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1943-12-20
The War On
Many Fronts

A massive Red army winter Offen-
s.ve ripped through the northern
flank OF the long Russian front to-
day and American troops and tanks
Ourst out into the broad Liri valley
on the main road to Rome, while
converging American bombing fleets
from Britain and the Mediterranean
blasted enemy targets deep in west
ern and southern Germany.
A Russian communique revealed
that the long promised winter Of
fensive had been in progress for
The past five days on a 50-mile front
below Newell, rolling toward the
Polish border and the Baltic States
at almost four miles a day.
More than 500 towns and vii
lagos were engulfed in the Soviet
advance and Swiss reports said the
Nazis had ordered the evacuation
of civilians from the Polish and
Baltic border regions in the path
of the onrushing Red army now
only 81 miles from northeastern Po-
land and 10 miles from Latvia.
Berlin, admitting its forces were
Al ASUCeho DC1OAC Vic lICW IOllooAdIl
offensive, said the Red Army had
hurled 100000 men and huge tanl;
forces into the Newell front.
Moscow reports said 10000 Ger
mans had been killed in the five
day advance and that the Soviets
had taWen 1000 prisoners and de-
stroyed or captured 106 tanks, along
with huge quantities of German war
material.
Plunged Southwark
The Soviet tanks and infantry
plunged southwark toward Vitebsk
along both sides of the north
south Odessa-Leningrad railway
striking TO within % miles of VII
tebsk, key junction point on the
rail line. The offensive appeared
designed to clear the way for an all
out blow against Riga, $50 miles to
the northwest, and the enlightenment
of perhaps hundersd of thousands
of Nazi troops drawn up below Len
ingrad and in yhe Baltic States.
At the southern end of the Rus
sian battle front, Berlin acknoWl-
edged that is troops had abandoned
their beachnead on the east bank
of the Dnieper estuary, opposite
Kherson, explaining that the river
had frozen over, making the NaZi
position on the east bank useless.
On the Italian front, American
infantrymen and armored forces
drove past captured San Pietro and
advanced two miles into the Liri
valley to throw a seige line around
the town of San Vittore.
Front reports indicated that Ger
man resistance in the area was
cracking, after one OF the bloodiest
battles since the landing at Salerno
The NaI retreat from San Pietro,
which opened the gateway to the
Iiri valley and the main invsaion
highway to Rome, was said to have
been so precipitate that the enemy
had no time to bury his dead.
On the Adriatic flank of the Ital-
ian lone, Gen. Sir Bernard L. Mont
gomery's British Eighth Army
strengthened it's hold on the Orsog-
na-Ortona lateral highway with
CIlC CdpIuIC VI SOIlSdlVl SIX IIllleS
northeast or Orsogna. Enemy cas-
ualties in their sector were described
officially as heavy.
BOmbers Lash Out
United States heavy bombers
lashed out from their bases in Brit
ain by daylight today to batter uni
Identified targets in northwest Ger
many, after Mediterranean biased
American heavies bombed Augsburg
in their second raid of the war on
southern Germany and Innsbruck,
at the Austrian side of the Bremen
Pass.
Eleven Fortresses and Liberators
were lost in the twin attack, but
some were believed to have landed
safely in Allied territory, and the
Augsburg raiders and their fighter
escorts destroyed 81 to SO of 100
attacking enemy fighters.
Augsburg, site of important Nazi
aircraft, diesel engine, machine tool
and poison gas factories, is As miles
south of Munich, which was bombed
on october / in the first raid on
southern German by Mediterranean
based American heavy bombers.