FALL OF MOGILEV

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 234, 30 June 1944, Page 5

FALL OF MOGILEV

Minsk Roads Cut (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.-Copyright., LONDON, June 28. Mogilev was captured by the Russians today B Marshal Stalin, in an order■ of the day addressed to General says that troops of the Second White Russian Front forced the Dnieper Rn over a 70-mile front, penetrated the Germans’ second defence line on. the west bank of the Dnieper, and carried by assault this large regional centre, wmcli is 100 miles due east of Minsk. The troops also captured Bykhov, 30 miles south of. Mogilev. Marshal Stalin, in an order of.the day, says that troops of the First White Rus sian Front, developing a swift oftensive, captured, through a deep outflanking movement, the important town and rad centre of Osipovichi, thus completing the encirclement of the German group at Bobruisk. , . Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says that more and more battered German units, driven from their positions on tne White Russian “wall,” are being beaded, off as they attempt to withdraw within the shelter of their Beresina River switchline. , . . * General Rokossovsky s movement m swinging up from the Pnpet Marshes sector below the confluence of the Beresina and Dnieper has turned the switchline at the southern end and got well behind Bobruisk. The five German divisions which the brilliant outflanking stroke has surrounded are now ngnting for their lives in an ever-shrinking space and leaving a large sector of the Beresina River unprotected. • Strongpoints Imperilled. The Germans’ prospects of putting up an organized defence on the Beresina Line, on which they have expended more than a year's labour, is dwindling hourly as its strongpoints are imperilled and the numbers of its potential defenders are reduced and cut off. The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press says that all the main roads converging on Minsk from the east have already been. cut. The Red Army’s rapid advance is severing all the German communications which might have 'been used for pulling tne enemy troops out of the noose which 1.8 fast closing around them. The fall of Mogilev means that the Germans have been cleared from their sole remaining foothold on the Dnieper, says another message. Shklov, north ot Mogilev, has also fallen. To the southwest, the Russians have now completely encircled the five German divisions, at Bobruisk. They have swung north in a deep outflanking move to take the town of Osipovichi, north-west of Bobruisk. Osipovichi is on the main road from Bobruisk to Minsk, and its capture brings the Red Army to within 60 miles of Minsk itself. . .« Hundreds of thousands of Germans are threatened with encirclement in the Orsha-Bobruisk-Minsk triangle, says Reuter's Moscow correspondent. Ibe Red Army, pursuing the broken remnants of the German forces at Orsha, has reached points less than 30 miles from Borisov, the last important station on the Moscow-Warsaw railway before Minsk. . ,_, . , South of Polotsk. Tonight’s Soviet communique states that the Russians south of Polotsk, piercing the enemy fortifications, captured Lepel and more than 100 inhabited places. On the Minsk sector the Red Army captured the district centres of Vigunichi and Krugloe, and fought its way into 400 more places. The communique repeats the order or the day on the Mogilev victory, and adds that more than 150 other places were also captured. During the fighting for Mogilev, it. says, the German 12th Infantry Division was wiped out, and its commanding officer, Major-General Wagner, was taken prisoner. The garrison commander at Mogilev, Major-General Hermansdorf, was also captured. The communique, repeating the capture of Osipovichi, adds that more than 100 inhabited places were also captured. Battles for the annihilation of the enemy group surrounded in the. Bobruisk area continued. Troops on this front.liberated more than 200 places, including two district centres, and the railway station of Beresina. ' A Moscow supplementary communique savs: “In one area south of Polotsk, more than 500 Germans laid down their arms and surrendered. In another area we and took .prisoner more communique adds that the fighting everywhere was characterized by mass annihilation of the enemy’s manpower.

SPEED OF ADVANCE

Whole German Garrison Captured (Receive*! June 29, 11.55 pan.) LONDON, June 29. Soviet Army circles report that the rout of the Germans in White Russia is developing into the biggest military defeat in history, says Renter’s Moscow correspondent. One general told correspondents that no army in the world had ever known such defeats as the Wehrmacht was suffering. “We in our gravest reverses never experienced one-tenth or what is now happening to the German Army,” he said. Soviet forces continue to advance along the whole White Russian front and one correspondent says that in their greatest reverses the Russians never experienced one-tenth of what they are now inflicting on the Germans. . Moscow radio says that the Russian advance has been so rapid that at one place 70 miles from Minsk they captured the whole German garrison intact, lhe Germans had begun to build defences, but did not have time to finish them. At Oispovich, the Russians advanced so rapidly that the Germans had no time to evacuate anything. . ~ Bobnuisk, which was by-passed, is still holding out.

DISASTER OF FIRST MAGNITUDE

Germans’ Shattered Front LONDON, June 28.. The German defeat in White Russia has assumed the proportions of a atsaster of the first magnitude, declares the Moscow correspondent of The limes. At several points the Red Army has advanced westward from 60 to 80 m i <s s, and it has shattered the Y itebsk-Orsha-Mogilev-Zhlobin line. Frout line dispatches today report that great columns of Russian reinforcements and supplies are pouring through wide gaps in the former line and pushing westward as fast as the heavy terrain will permit, and that the German forces which are able to extricate themselves are falling back in disorder. There is little doubt that the Allied offensive in Normandy is making itself felt on the White Russian front, where the Germans have been unable to bnng up reinforcements or provide anything resembling adequate air support. The Germans, though they are resisting stronglv, are unable at any point to cheek the Russian flood. The enemy no longer presents any semblance of a line or of co-ordinated action. The dispatches appear to show that the defeats have been so overwhelming _ that each German commander is fighting on his own responsibility, trying to save ins unit. Observers in Moscow think that the Russian Command is determined to obtain a very quick decision on the White Russian frout, because, as one writer puts it. White Russia is the shortest route to Berlin. Germany has no reserves for the Russian front, and a general there must manage during the summer months with the troops available on the spot, says the “Volkischer Bedbachter” and othe German newspapers quoted by the Stockholm correspondent of "The Times.” He adds that an authoritative German spokesman says that the German Supreme Command has decided to take- the German people into its confidence about the serious period ahead, with the armed forces fighting ou three active fronts, so that the people will not be dismayed when they see the German armies retreating from the east.