Evening star., 1944-01-07
Reds Advance on175-MiIe Front,
Ripping Nozi Forces to Pieces
And Taking Big Stores Of Booty
Four Communication
Centers ImperiIed
By FunIike Drive
/Mos, IN Dopo Acl
MAP on Page Az
By the Associated Press.


lai Vatutin's forces, gaining new
momentum after smashing 10
miles into prewar Poland, sped
forward today in a great fan
shaped offensive toward life
lines vital to enemy operations
in the Ukraine and Dnieper
bend.
The gains were reported after the
Russians crushed a series of coun-
terattacks launched by the forces of
Marshal Fritz Won Mannstein.
The Nazis appeared unable to
halt the Russian machine.
Over a front of ITS miles from
the lower Pripet Marshes near
Rakitno, 10 miles inside the old
Polish border, to the fiat steppe near
Zhashkov, 40 miles south of Belaya
Tserkov, the 1st Ukrainian Army
was ripping the Germans to pieces
and capturing huge stores of booty.
To the north, in the Newell sector,
Gen. Ivan Bagramian's growing
Baltic offensive swept deep into
strong cores of resistance where the
German specter of encirclement was
the same as In the Ukraine.
Weather Aids Patrols.
SnoWfalls and blizZardS were an
aid to advance patrols cutting be-
hind Nazi lines and threatening the
communications of the German
forces before Leningrad, just as
Gen. Vatutins fast tanks and cav
airy we're a peril to the Germans
main lines leading to the Dnieper
and the Black Sea.
Gen. Vatutin's advance brought
increased pressure on the Germans
in Kirovograd and Krivoi Rog in
the Dnieper bend, but there were
few specific reports from those Sec
tors.
(Today's German communique
said 81 Soviet tanks were de-
stroyed in those sectors in in
tense fighting.
Stockholm newspapers quoted
German military spokesman as
limiting at the possibility Of Ger
man withdrawal from all Russia,
possibly because of the threat of
encirclement both in the north
and south now that the German
northern and southern armies
have been split)
Four Centers Imperiled.
Four communication centers lay
within striking distance of Gen.
Vatutin's Red forces:
Rovno, about 35 miles inside the
old Polish border and 60 miles west
of Novograd Volynski. Both the
Warsaw-Kiev highway and the War
saw railroad pass through here.
Shepetovka, 35 miles southwest of
Novograd Volynski, one of the
Ukraine's most important railway
functions.
Vinnitsa, 10 miles south of Zhit-
omir and go miles from the Dniester,
former boundary of Rumania.
And Zhmerinka, 20 miles south
OF Vlnnitsa on the Odessa Warsaw
line, which the Germans must hold
If they hope to remain any place
east of Odessa.
Capture of Rakitno was announced
In Soviet communique last night,
and Gen. Vatutin's vanguards were
said to be pushing on along the
Kiev-Warsaw Railway toward Sarny.
25 miles farther west. The fall of
Sarny would endanger communica-
tions between German forces oper-
ating north and south of the Kiev-
Warsaw line.
Drive Toward Railway.
Gen Vatutin's left wing, mean
while, was plunging south toward
the WarsaW-Odessa Railway, which
is the vital Nazi supply line to the
100000 or more German troops
massed in the Dnieper bend.
Spearheading columns drove
through Gorodnitsi, 20 miles north
west of Novograd-V -Volynski, and
Chudnov, % miles southwest of
Zhitomir, widening Gen. Vatutins
fan-ike front against the Polish
border.
Move Through Zhashkov.
At the same time Gen. Vatutin's
drive to the southwest toward Ru-
mania covered Is miles yesterday,
moving from Tarasha through
Zhashkov, eastern terminus of
railway running to Kazatin Enemy
units along the west bank of the
Dnieper were mopped up by force
in the rear.
Berlin broadcasts, recorded by
the Associated Press in London,
said German forces in the Dnieper
bend already were battling a Rus
sian pincers movement by Gen.
Vatutin's troops and those of the
I'd Ukraine Army under Gen. Ivan
S. Konev, who, they asserted, had
launched new major offensive"
from the east)
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