The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-07-05

 tees encircled by the Russians since last winter, but there had been no recent reports of new Soviet as- aault on the stronghold.
 Ernst von Hammer, Nazi DINE News Agency military commenta- tor, said the Germans evacuated the ''Kowel salient" south of the Pripet marshes unobserved by the Russians '.in order to take up new positions and enable the Germans to hus- band their forces and form more mobile reserves"
 Soon afterward, the German high command cominunique confirmed that Kowel had been evacuated "ac- cording to plan in order to shorten the local front"
 The fall of Kowel would eliminate the last German stronghold east of the Bug river, 1899 Russian Polish border, on the south-central in. vasion route to Warsaw and Ber- lin at a time when other Red Armies were rolling down the north central route beyond Minsk.
 If, as anticipated. the Germans fan back another 40 miles to the west bank of the Bug river, the Russians may mount flanking att tack northwest of Kowel, on the Minsk-Warsaw railway.
 Such an attack would threaten German forces defending the Bar anowicze gap north of the Pripet marshes and roughly half way be- tween Brest- -Litovsk and Minsk.
 Marshal Konstantin K. Rokossov- sky's cavalry, tanks and infantry were less than 25 miles east and northeast of Baranowicze, 75 miles southwest of Minsk, Moscow dis patches said, and @ Stockholm re- port asserted his vanguards had penetrated the stronghold.
 The Germans rushed fresh panzer and infantry divisions into battle on the approaches to Baranowicze, but Rokossovsky continued his advance after repulsing six successive enemy counter attacks.
 Farther north, other Soviet armies rolled over the approaches to Lat via and Lithuania at a clip ex- ceeding a mile an hour in some sec- tors.
 One column penetrated to within 10 miles of the Latvian border and z6 miles east of Daugavpils tDvinsk). while another was said by the German transocean agency to be only 26 miles northeast of the Lithuanian stronghold of Wilno. Earlier Russian reports had placed the Soviets 55 miles from Wilno.
 GA London broadcast said there was evidence that the entire Ger man Baltic army group was pre- paying to evacuate by sea as result of the rapid Soviet advanceD
 Berlin dispatches published in Stockholm said the Germans were becoming increasingly nervous over the speed of the Russian advance and quoted military spokesman as saying that the center of gravity now has definitely shifted to the eastern front"
 The Nazi-controlled Scandinavian telegraph bureau said Berlin was watching tensely "the landslide roll- ing forward between the Dvina and the Pripet rivers and beginning to approach threateningly near the Battles and the Polish frontiers"
 Moscow dispatches said the Rus slans already were in contact with the outer defenses of the northern end of the new German defense line based on Daugavpils, Wilno, Grod- no, Bialystok and Brest-Litovsk and told of thousands of Red Air Force planes being shifted to advance fields to support the next phase of the Soviet offensive.
 The swift advances of General Ivan Bagramians First Baltic and General Konstantin K. Rokossov- sky's Third White Russian armies in the north brought both Daugavpils and Wilno under direct threat of attack.
 The fall of the two Baltic strong holds would open the gates to Russian smash to the sea that would trap sizeable German army and enable the Red Army to mount an outfianking assault on the remain ing bastions, Grodno. Bialystok and Brest-Litovsk.