Evening star., 1944-07-30
Other Red Forces
Push Toward Rigo
To Trop Germans
BY the Associated Press.

Russian troops yesterday fought
within sight of Warsaw, bonn
barded halfway mark in the Of
fensive rolling along the road to
Berlin, while in the north other
Soviet units Surged across the
southern Latvian border in their
swift drive against the almost
encircled Nazi armies of the
Baltic.
Warsaw's east bank suburbs were
under Soviet artillery attack.
Berlin said the Russians in the
north were only 20 miles from the
Gulf of Riga, fighting fiercely in the
Jelgava area in their effort to COM
plete a trap on 100000 to 100000
Germans under Col Gen. Georg
Lindemann.
Jelgava. a strategic rail junction
and Riga, Latvian capital-port on
the Baltic, both were hammered
heavily by Soviet bombers Friday
night. Several enemy troop trains
were smashed or burned out" the
communique said, indicating that
the Germans already were trying to
flee Estonia and Latvia.
so Miles Of Vistula Cleared.
Gen. Ivan Bagramians 1st Baltic
armies captured more than 200 viii
lagos in this push toward the Baltic
coast, including zagare. on the
Lithuanian-Latvian border AZ miles
south of the gulf, Moscow said.
Farther south other units closing
in on Kaunas, former Lithuanian
capital. captured Karmelava, less
than six miles northeast of Kaunas,
which is German bastion protect
ing the road to German East Prus-
sia. The fall of Kaunas was re-
garded as near.
The Moscow communique an
nounced the capture of a total of
1920 towns and villages during the
day, and said the Russians attack
ing below Warsaw had completely
cleared the enemy from a f0-mile
section of the east bank of the Vis-
tula River-last Axis defense line
before Germany itself.
The cleared area was between
Deblin and where the San empties
into the Vistula, 100 miles southeast
of Warsaw.
This indicated that Marshal Kon-
stantin K. Rokossovsky's 1st White
Russian forces were getting ready
to leap the Vistula for fianking
move ON Warsaw from the south and
also perhaps drive straight westward
toward Germany.
Russians Cross San River.
In Southern Poland Marshal Ivan
S. Konev's lst Ukraine Armies had
hurdled the San River on a broad
front in the area below the cleared
sector Of the Vistula River. Striking
west of Przemysl, fortress city taken
Friday, the Russians rolled on
through JaWornik- Polski, % miles
beyond Przemysl and 103 miles from
Krakow on the main invasion route
to German Silesia.
The Russians also captured 100
localities southwest and south of
Lwow, and 20 more west of Stanis-
laWoW in the Carpathian foothills.
West Of Grodno, where Gen.
Georgi Fedorovich Zakharov's End
White Russian Army was lunging
toward East Prussia, Soviet troops
captured Nowokamienna, % miles
beyond Grodno and 81 miles from
the prewar Prussian border.
Rokossovsky's troops attacking
near Warsaw had reached the area
after flve-week, 375-mile offensive
begun near Zhlobin in White Rus
sia, and Moscow announced that the
presidium of the supreme, council of
the U. S. S. r. had awarded Premier
Stain the Order of Victory" for
his 'outstanding services in organ
ization and conduct of the Red
Armys offensive operations, leading
to tremendous defeats of the Ger
man Army and radical change in
the Red Army's favor in the situa-
ton at the front"
American Trucks Aid Advance.
Fed mostly by thousands of Amer
lcan-made supply trucks the Rus
sian columns threatening the Polish
citadel, which fell to the Germans
September q, 1899, were more than
halfway along the road to Berlin,
which is 800 airline miles beyond
Warsaw.
Rokossovsky's troops now are
strung along a 100-mile section of
the east bank of the Vistula, below
Warsaw, after slicing up from the
southeast through the center of the
battered German forces. Cossack
horsemen now were sabering their
way through three encircled divi-
sions trapped just west of fallen
Brest Litovsk on the Bug River, lis
miles east of Warsaw.
German broadcasts said Rokos-
(See RUSSIA, Page A-4D