The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-12-31

Novograd Volynski. Another was
more than 20 miles west Of the
Zhitomir -Korosten Railroad.
The left wing of Vatutin's army
was swinging southwark, its west
ern-most tip taking Kazatin, out
thanking Berdichev and placing adj
vanced elements on the road to
| VinnitSa.
CA Berlin dispatch published in
estimated that more than 100000
Russian troops were participating
In the offensive west of Kiev and
said eastern front veterans called
the battle the f1ercest of the war.
The German line at zhitomir was
said to have dissolved into hedge
hog" positions)
Marshal Fritz Erich Won Mann
STEMS battered Nazi legions were
reported in panicky retreat across
western Ukrainian fiatlands that
offered no natural defenses short of
the Bug and Dniester rivers scores
of miles to the west and southwest.
In many sectors, the Germans
were casting aside weapons in their
haste to escape the Soviet jugger-
naut smashing west and southwest
from the Kiev Bulge.
General Nigolai F. Vatutin's first
Ukrainian army, in the first week
of one of the most powerful Soviet
offenses of the war, liberated 1900
towns and villages, routed eight
tank and IA infantry divisions of
100000 men and severed the next
to-the-last double trunk escape rail-
road for hundreds OF thousands of
Germans in the Dnieper Bend
After capturing Kazatin, 80 miles
southwest Of Kiev and junction of
the Len1ngrad-Odessa and Warsaw
Odessa line, the Soviets pressed on
toward Zhmirinka, SIS miles to the
southwest on the direct Berlin Odes-
sa railroad Selling Beliloyka, seven
miles southeast of Kzatain, and only
85 miles from old Rumania.
Last Railroad
The fall of Zhmirinka would cut
the last railroad of the Dnieper bend
and doom the huge German armies
there to death, capture or a hazar.
dous escape by sea under the guns
OF the Soviet Black Sea fleet or by
inferior land communications to Ru-
mania.
The German garrison Of Kazatin,
plus reinforcements who had been
rushed to the front only few DAYS
earlier, was put to rout by the
weight of the Soviet assault, the
Russian midnight communique said.
The Germans abandoned 1O3 guns,
many trench mortars, infantry arms,
an armored train, seven locomotives,
two railroad trains and 1000 trucks
in their flight.
To the north, the Russians battled
their way through the outskirts of
zhitomir, the only strip of territory
west OF Kiev yielded by the Russians
during the past six weeks still in
German hands, and the fall of that
junction on the Leningrad- Odessa
railway appeared imminent.
Abandon Zhitomir
GA London Daily Express dispatch
from Stockholm said the Germans
WSAC dDoA4NlVAlAAlS AIllIOlIlU.J
Zhitomir already had been out
thanked by another Soviet column
that drove II miles west of the Len
ingrad-Odessa railway and captured
Chervonnoarmeisk, % miles north
west of zhitomir.
Nearly 60 miles above Zhitomir,
other Russian forces seized Ingini,
96 miles northwest of Kiev and Only
AZ miles east of the Polish border.
Soviet armies in White Russia,
meantime, stormed through the out
er defenses of Vitebsk from three
sides in an offensive that appeared
to be setting the stage for a drive
toward the Baltic. More than 1000
Germans were killed.
Inside the Dnieper bend, the Rus
slams extended their new bridges on
the west bank of the Onieper to q
depth of % miles opposite Zaporozhe
with the capture of Tomokovka, %
miles northwest of Nikopol, and 80
other localities.