The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-12-27
The War On
Many Fronts

thinly spread sea power was revealed
by the British Admiralty as massive
Soviet Armies smashed ahead in a
double barreled winter offensive of
the White Russian and Ukrainian
fronts today and Anglo-American
forces advanced through bitter Nazi
resistance on the rain drenched
Italian battle line.
Units of the British home fleet,
guarding a Russian-bound convoy
on the Murmansk supply route above
Norways Cape North, broke radio
silence briefly to report that the
26,000-ton Nazi battleship Scharn-
horst had been brought to action
and sunk in the Barents Sea late
yesterday.
A terSe admiralty communique
gave on details of the battle, but
it was indicated the Scharnhorst
was trapped in an attempt to raid
the convoy. The battleship presum-
ably was accompanied by a cruiser
or destroyer screen, raising the pos
sibility that other enemy units may
have followed her to the bottom.
Berlin confirmed the sinking in
a communique announcing that the
Scharnhorst went down with her
guns firing, suggesting a heavy loss
of life among her 1,400 officers and
men.
Loss of the great warship prob
ably left Germany without single
battleship in fighting trim. The
only two remaining Nazi capital
ships were the 41,000-ton tTrpitz
which was crippled in Norways AL
ten Fjord by British midget subma-
rines last Sept. %, and the Scharn-
horst's sister ship Gneisenau, re-
portedly being dismantled in the
Polish Baltic seaport of Gdynia.
Pocket Battleships
If those two vessels are out of
action, Germany's major striking
power would be limited to the TO-
O00-ton pocket battleships Lutzow
and Admiral Scheer, and the Nazi
threat to Russia's arctic supply line
would be drastically reduced.
Russian counter blows against
Germanys eastern armies dominat-
ed the European land fighting. A
Moscow communique disclosed that
a great new winter drive was in
full swing west of Kiev, where pow
erfully-reinforced Soviet troops
streamed westward and southwest
ward through a 50-mile gap in the
German defense line.
General Nikolai Vatutin's First
Ukrainian Army routed force of
possibly $4,000 Germans in three
day advance that engulfed more
than $50 occupied towns and cost
the Nazis $4,000 troops and PIT
tanks.
The Russian drive regained 25
miles of the territory won by the
Germans in their recent offensive
against Kiev and placed Soviet
spearheads within rs miles of the
per-war Polish frontier.
Vatutin'S armored columns over
ran the enemy stronghold of Ra-
domisl, SIS miles west of Kiev and
plunged on toward Zhitomir, key
railroad and highway junction %
miles to the southwest
Siege Arc frightened
Far to the north, the Soviet First
Baltic Army frightened is siege arc
around Germanys White Russian
bastion of Vitebsk, guarding the ap-
proaches to the Baltic states. The
Russians advanced to within five
miles of the city from the east,
while two other attacking columns
closed in from the northeast and
north to within IA and Is miles,
respectively, chopping down 1000
enemy troops and cutting the Nazi
defenses to pieces. .
At the southern end of the Rus
sian battlefront Soviet forces seized
several islands in the middle of the
Dnieper river Estuary in an APP
parent prelude to crossing of the
river and an attack on Kherson.
In Italy, Canadian units of the
British Eighth Army fought their
way through Ortona street by street
in savage battle to clear German
remnants from the town, coastal
anchor of the eneny's Adriatic line,
Front reports indicated the Can
adams were gaining steadily, and a
communique said "the enemy is be-
ing driven out, street by street"
Indian troops on the Canadian
flank captured Villa Grande, two
miles southwest OF Ortona, while
further to the southwest Lieutenant
General Mark w. Clark's Fifth
Army forces captured two strategic
hills in the American sector of the
Apprentices. The latter advance APP
parently was north of Pietro, where
m ho ft1in1 fnranlV
to prevent an Allied break-through
to Casino and the main Rome
road.
Railroad Targets
Allied Bombers pounded railroad
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