The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-01-03
The Wor On Many Fronts

The faSt-moving Red Army's Kiev offensive threatened to chase panic-stricken German forces across the old Polish border by nightfall today as hundreds of British heavy bombers contributed to the German eemoralization by dropping another 1000 tons of explosives on blaZillg Berlin in the latest obliteration raid on the shattered German capital. Russian tanks, cavalry and motor ized infantry swept westward across the Ukraine from captured PoyaSA, 12 miles from the Polish frontier, rolling close on the heels of the fleeing German troops
 The virtual collapse of German resistance against the force of the mightiest Russian drive of the war made 1t appear likely that Olevsk, seven miles from the border and last Russian station on the Kiev- Warsaw railway, already was in So- viet hands. 8A
 SovieC advance clements were re- ported pursuing the. fleeing Ger mans so closely that warm, un- touched food was found on the tables and ovens still were lit in the military headquarters of some of the recaptured towns. German demolition squads were given no time to burn villages nor to blow up bridges to cover their retreat.
 The Soviet aovance toward Ru- mania by the southern wing of the Kiev offensive was slowed tempor- arily by bitter German stand at Berdichex, junction point of the Leningrad-O Odessa and the War saw Odessa railways. However, a Russian column already had flanked the junction town and captured Os- yanski, only 20 miles northeast of the Bug river and 85 miles above the former Rumanian border. The fall of encircled Berdichev was ex- pected within few days.
 To the north, the four-day old Russian offensive west of Nevel moved within 50 miles of the Lat vian frontier with the capture of 40 additional inhabited localities.
 As prospects for Balkans eX- plosion were heightened by the Red army's approach from the east, roundabout reports reaching Sweden said Allied troops had landed in southern Dalmatia on the Jugoslav Adriatic coast and occupied several strategic areas.
 A dispatch published in the Stock holm Tidningen under a Budapest dateline and quoting reports rem Belgrade indicated that the report ed landings were merely patrol &C., tions, possibly designed to pave the way for full-scale invasion moves later. The Allies, including Italian units, were reported to have landed weapons and ammunition at the oc- cupied points.
 The Royal Air Forces second con- secutive morning raid on Berlin CO., incided with reports from Sweden that the evacuation of 1000, 900 more civilians had been ordered from the worlds most bombed city.
 Delaying their take-off until after midnight to avoid the light of the waxing moon, the four-engined bombers dropped two and four-ton blockbusters crashing down on Ber- lin only a few hours before dawn. Thousands of incendiaries rekindled fires still smouldering from previous raids and started fresh conflagra- tions raging through the already half demolished city.
 Unconfirmed European reports said 50 trains were leaving daily for evac- uation areas intended to care for another 1000 000 women, children, aged residents of the battered Ger man capital. Other reports said an army of 10000 workers was laboring to clear the streets of the rubble of wrecked buildings and to dig out trapped inhabitants.
 On the Italian front, Canadian armored units of the British Eighth Army pushed slowly northward along the Adriatic coastal highway despite fierce German resistance and the tail of one of the worst win- ter storms to hit Italy in years. Af- ter a day of fierce hill-fighting the Canadians reached point eight miles south of Pescara, Adriatic ter minus of the trans-peninsula road to Rome.
 Meanwhile, the main weight of the blizzard-freezing rains and snow ushered in by a 70-mile gale pinned American Fifth Army troops down to their mountain positions overlooking the inland road to Rome.