The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-04-01
RETREAT TURNS
 INTO BAD ROUT IN SOME SPOTS
BY HARRISON SALISBURY United Press Staff Correspondent)

BY HARRISON SALISBURY United Press Staff CorrespOndsnt)
 Moscow, April l. = UP)- Upwards of 100000 Germans in the southern Ukraine, sud- denly abandOing their stub born defense, broke and fled toward Odessa and Bessara- bia today in a race to escape a Soviet trap that threatened to cut their last land routes of retreat.
 Conveying Soviet armies, advancing up to 20 miles in "A hours in pursuit of the withdrawing enemy, closed to within 5 miles east and northeast and Az miles north of Odessa, RUssia's biggest Black Sea port. :. :. =: ..
 The German retreat in some sectors became a panic stricken rout and it seemed possible the entire Ukraine, including Odessa, would be cleared of the enemy within a matter of days.
 The long-anticipated axis withdrawal from the south ern Ukraine began without warning as the SovietS shift ed the main weight of their offensive south and west to- ward Odessa and the few re- maining railway lines over which the enemy could es- cape to Rumania.
 Marshal Ivan s. Konev's Second Ukrsinian Army deprived the Ger mans of one of their main escape lines yesterday by slaShing across the hisinau-Tiraspol-Odess railway at the Bessarabian station of Sipotyaliy, 28 miles northeast of Iasi and 1S0 miles northwest Of Odessa.
 Defenses Crumble
 With their rear defenses and communications crumbling away, the Germans began to pull back hastily from the Ukraine, where they had been making stone wall stand against furious Soviet attacks.
 More than 160 towns and villages were yielded by the Germans north and northeast of Odessa alone. In one area, Soviet tanks broke into a large town so rapidly that the garrison fled in panic, abandoning l6 guns, 100 trucks and a supply column.
 General Rodion Y. Malinovsky's Third Ukrainian Army drove 18 miles along the shore of Dnieper Bay and, aided by naval landing party, seized the sixth century fort ress of Ochakov, 38 miles east of Odessa. Tiligula- -Berezanka, 35 miles east of Odessa, also was seized.
 Konev'S Second Army captured Berezovka. a junction 42 miles north of Odessa controlling eight highways, and sent spearheads probing to within 50 to 55 miles of Tiraspol, through which all but one of the remaining German-held single-track escape lines clear into Bessarabia.
 The right wing of Konev's army in BesSarabia seized another 10- 11ile stretch of the east bank of the Prut river bodder of Rumania, along which Russian troops and tanks were massing for drive in- to Germany's jittery satellite.
 (Though a German broadcast re- ported the Russians had forced the middle reaches of the Prut this was not confirmed by Soviet dis patches.)
 The Second Army joined with Marshal Gregory K. Zhukov's First Ukrainian Army in trimming the German pocket looping north of the DnieSter northeast of Cernauti to 200 square miles.
 Zukov's forces also drove more than II miles southwest of Cernauti to the east bank of the Seret river. at or within sight of the Bucovina- Rumanian border. No further pro- gress was reported from the Delya- tin sector, where the Soviets at last reports were within sight of Hun gary'S Carpatho- Ukraine.