The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-02-01
The WorOn
 Many Fronts
fRY United Pressl

Allied Armies were reported driv- ing within sight of key objectives on two fronts today as British invasion Spearheads advanced 15 miles from Rome and Russian armies approach ed Estonia.
 In Berlin, important NaN govern ment departments were reported preparing to abandon the Germans bomb-wrecked capital.
 The British drive on Rome was made by hard-punching troops striking northward from the Fifth Arny's Anzio beachhead and pene- trating to the outskirts of Campo Leone at the foot of the Alban Hills, 15 miles from the eternal city.
 The Allied advance was pressed as the Germans were reported send ing troops and equipment down from their bases in northern Italy to meet the developing threat to Rome. It was indicated the Nazis were digging in for showdown fight along a f1ve-mile stretch of the Rome railroad between Camp Leone and Cisterna, 12 1-2 miles to the south on the Appian Way.
 On the British right flank, the Allied threat to Cisterna itself was intensified by American infantry men battling within a half mile of the enemy stronghold from the southwest in a drive that promised to cut the railroad and highway lines over which the Germans were moving supplies into their imperiled Gustav line, 70 miles south.
 There was no let-down In the German resistance along the Gustav line, meanwhile, although American, British and French troops were re- ported tfrusting into the enemy de- lenses with increasing fury and pushing the Germans back at a number of points from Cassino to the Tyrrhenian coast.
 Nazis Abandoning
 Front reports suggested that the Germans had abandoned most of their prepared positions inside Cas- sino and were withdrawing into the hills for a new stand. United Press War Correspondent James E. Roper reported the town itself had become a No-Man's Land, too well covered by the enemy artillery for an immediate occupation by the advancing Allied troops.
 On the Eighth Army front, across the Apennines, Canadian units along the Adriatic coast smashed their way northward through stub- born enemy opposition.
 Allied fighter and bomber planes hammered German positions all along the battlefront yesterday and raided enemy airdromeS at Aviano and Udine in northeastern Italy and Klagenfurt in southern Austria. Eighteen German planes were de- Stroyed in the air and a number on the ground at a csot of four Allied planes.
 In northern Russia, Red armies were reported over the Estonian border in a race to plug the narrow land corridorsaIetween the Gulf of Finland and4ke linen, last enemy escape routgsS4horth of Pskov, 100 miles to@the south at the foot of the lake.
 Speed of Advance
 The speed of the Soviet advances engulfed more than 60 towns and villages yesterday and the advanc- ing troops killed 1000 of the fleeing Germans, who were reported throw ing aside guns and supplies In their haste to reach the 27-mile-wide es- cape passage.
 To the southeast, other Russian forces increased the threat to 250,- GOO Germans facing encirclement in the sickle-shaped salient which once threatened Stalingrad.
 Luga, strategic rail mad highway junction controlling the only escape line for the pocketed enemy. already had been outflanked by Soviet units fording the Luga river at several points. Other columns simultan- eously narrowed the entire Luga es- cape gap to 37 miles with the cap ture of DivenSkaya. B miles north of the city. and Saviny Polyany, 9 miles to the east.
 Neutral dispatches described Ber- lin-hit by $500 short tons of bombs within three days-as a dying city, | literally falling apart under the | stepped-up Allied aerial pounding. | Swiss dispatches said fire hrigades | from all over Germany were being | sent to the smouldering capital.