MAKING FINE PROGRESS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 235, 1 July 1944, Page 7

MAKING FINE PROGRESS

Russian Surge ENEMY DEBACLE BEFORE MINSK

LONDON, June 30.

The Russian offensive toward northern Poland and the Baltic States is making fine progress. The big stronghold of Bobruisk fell yesterday after the Red Army had smashed the resistance of the German army group which had been encircled there on the previous day, Marshal Stalin has announced are faUing back j n disorder on Minsk, the capital of White Russia, with the Red Army following up fast, tanks and cavalry racing along the main highway. To the north, three columns are closing in on Polotsk, and one formation has thmst on and cut the railway running from Polotsk south-west to Warsaw, taking places a mile or two from the pre-war Polish fronber The Russians estimate that in the one week of the summer offensive 110,000 Germans have been killed or captured.

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright.) The Polish Telegraph Agency states that the Germans have begun to build fortifications in and round Warsaw in order to check the Russian advance and as a security measure against a Polish rising. The Gestapo centres and police stations within Warsaw are being converted into strongpoints for street fighting. Tonight’s Soviet communique says that the Russians on the Polotsk sector captured Usaclii, 24 miles south of Polotsk, besides 150 other places', and also cut the Polotsk-Molodechno railway. Phis is a section of the Neval-Byalystok-lVar-saw trunk line, and is a lateral line supplying the Germans on the Minsk front. 'The Red Army west of Mogilev, continuing to pursue the routed enemy, advanced 20 miles and captured more than 500 places, including Behni, 30 miles north-west of Mogilev. The Russians forced the Drut River at a number of points. L Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says that while the three central Russian armies of the White Russian front are converging in the drive for Minsk two other spearheads to the north and south are driving straight ahead to. bypass Minsk and nip its communications far to the rear. . Bagramyan’s army in the north is heading directly for Vilna, 100 miles north-west of Minsk. Rokossovsky, m the south, is striking toward Baranowicze, 70 miles south-west of Minsk. The German news agency’s commentator, Major von Hammer, stated that the Russians had reached the neighbourhood of Slutsk, GO miles south of Minsk. Story of Disaster. All the reports from the Russian front tell' a tremendous story of German disaster and defeat, of countless casualties, of units beaten and destroyed, says the British United Press Moscow corresponTlie Red Army generals who planned the campaign were astounded when they saw some of the results of their assaults at the points of the worst German defeats. On one sector, for. example, a German artillery unit escaping from Orsha took to lanes across peat bogs where General Chernyakov’s tanks and tommygunners ambushed them.. Observers following up after the tide of war had passed on found an inextricable mass of

dead men. carts, horses, rifles, guns and’ lorries. The train of shattered supply lorries stretched over more than two miles. . , r _ The correspondent points out that. General Bagramyan destroyed five divisions at Vitebsk, General Zakharov broke 12 divisions at Mogijev and destroyed, the remnants of them between the Dnieper and the Drut Rivers, while Rokossovsky has encircled and destroyed five more divisions in the Bobruisk offensive, where fierce mopping-up operations are at pre* sent going on south-east of Bobruisk against the entrapped Germans. Forty Thousand Prisoners. In the face of the combined effect of these disasters it is not believed that the Germans will be able to. put up a full-fledged resistance at Minsk._ The Russian advanced units are only 35 miles from Minsk. The fastest advance is being made in the south-east and south, where an outflanking movement is beginning against-the German forces based on Minsk. Troops of the Third White Russian Front under General Chernyakhov in five days between June 23 and 27 killed 32,000 enemy officers and men and took 20.000 prisoners, including 300_ officers, and also destroyed 126 tanks. 796 guns and 290 mortars, and captured 36 tanks, 652 guns. 541 mortars and 225 dumps of material, says a special announcement by the Soviet information Bureau. On the First Baltic Front, under General Bagramyan, the Russians in the same period killed more than 20,000 officers and men. took 5000 prisoners, destroyed 269 self-propelled guns and captured 31 tanks, 374 guns, and 225 dumps of war material. In the Minsk direction the Russians fought their way to the Beresina River, north of Borisov on a 35 miles front, taking over 200 places. A supplementary communique says: “The Germans are retreating with ourtroops close on their heels. Our tanks and cavalry overtook and routed one enemy motorized division on the Minsk highway, which is littered with battered tanks, guns, motor-vehicles, and German dead.”

Soviet long-range bombers last night again made a mass raid on the Baranovichi, Polotsk and Minsk railway junctions. bitting enemy military trains and

war stores, particularly at. Minsk, where fire enveloped the greater part of the junction area. SCENE FROM THE AIR Swiftly Moving Front LONDON, June 29. The Russians are strongly supported ly low-level lighters and fighter-bombers which flew 3009 sorties yesterday against the retreating Germans, says the British United Press correspondent. Massed planes are also driving a path ahead of the Russians pushing down the Minsk highway from Orsha. The Russian fighters are already operating from airfields at Mogilev. Illustrating the speed of the Russian advance, the correspondent quotes a Russian war reporter who wrote after a flight over the White Russian front: “I have seen nothing comparable in three years of war. There was smoke as far as the horizon, with guns and tanks glittering through the red June dust. Great Red Army columns were moving in all directions.' splitting and encircling the enemy's points of resistance, and then joining up again and continuing their westward advance. "Every time we landed to refuel the pilots had to redraw their maps because the front was changing so. rapidly.” One Stormovik pilot said: “We were ordered to attack a target, but the order was called off because while wo were on route our troops had already broken into the town. All we were able to do wa.s.dip our wings to tfie infantry and ily on to the.next, target.”