Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1944-10-10
Reds Reported
|At Baltic Sea
Below Menle|
Lond Escape Routes
For $50, 900 Nuzis
Severed in Drive
By the Associated Press.

|
MOSCOW, Oct. 10.-A storm
OF Russian artillery fire broke
today on besieged Memel, Ger
man-held port on the. Baltic
while to the southwark the So
Wet armies wheeled and hurled
their full weight into drive on
the East Prussian fortress city OF
Tlsit.
(Russian vanguards have
reached the Baltic Sea south
OF Memel, severing all landward
escape routes for 10000 Ger
mans in Latvia and Lithuania,
a report from Moscow said.
This would constitute an in
vasion Of East Prussia, because
the Mcneil territory long,
narrow neck of land along the
sea-was incorporated into the
Reich in March, 1889 Hitler
seized the area from Lithuania.)
so Miles From Budapest.
The great Baltic offensive OF
Gems. Ivan G.. Bagramian and War
Cherniakhovsky, ripping apart the
German coastal flank protecting
the heart Of East Prussia, matched
in spectacular success the sweep
of Gen. Rodion Malinovsky's forces
into Northern Hungary.
There. after cutting the railway
retreat routes behind the German
and Hungarian forces in the North
|ern Transylvanian salient, the Rus
sian spearhead thrust into the out
skirts of the Magyar military train
ing center of Debrecen. General
advances on the looping front put
the Russian forces within so miles
of Budapest.
Marshal Rodion Malinovskys
|northward drive across fat grazing
country appeared aimed at the
Ruthenian highlands. where a juno
ton might be made with Col. Gen.
Ivan Petrov's 4th Ukrainian Army
group on the Czechoslovak border
The advance was through country
inhabited by Magyar cowboys and
shepherds.
Cross Tisza River.
At the same time, Marshal NAL
inovsky's southern wing crossed the
Tisza River on a wide front in
Northern Yugoslavia and swung
westward In an advance which out
f1anked Belgrade and endangered
the third largest Yogoslav city OF
Subotica population IOO,0 0o) on thu
main Belgrade Budapest railroad.
Prospects were reported good fol
bottling up most of the enemy
forces in Pennsylvania and the Car
patho- Ukraine, which Hungary took
from Czechoslovakia. This woulC
permit Marshal Mslinovsky to strike
at Budapest from three sides.
fThe Berlin radio declared to-
day the Russians have launched
new offensive in the Vistula
River bend south of Warsaw. The
exact locale was not specified. but
the Russians have held bridge
head across the stream for some
time east of Kielce. There was no
immediate confirmation of the
drive from Moscow.
Berlin said the Russians were
using nearly 1000, 900 men in the
battle of the Lithuanian bulge)
Heavy Nazi Resistance.
Battling fierce Nazi resistance
the Russians jabbed two prongs Of
Ia pincer north and south of Memel
One Soviet column captured Kuliai
IA miles from the Baltic port, while
another took Vezaiciai, II miles
from Memel and only miles from
the East Prussian border as it was
constituted after the German seizure
of Memel territory in 1899.
The front of Gen. Bagramian's
list Baltic Army looped back along
the Latvian frontier and then ex-
tended northward to threaten Riga
The Russians were 80 miles south
east Of the Latvian port of Liepaja
at the top of the Baltic bulge, and
only % miles north of Tilsit, at the
bottom.
Soviet artillery raked the narrow
Memel bottleneck, making hazard
Gus any German withdrawals along
the remaining escape routes.