ROUT OF DEFENDERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 54, 1 September 1944, Page 5

ROUT OF DEFENDERS

n . LONDON. August 31. Russian troops have entered Bucharest. Marshal Stalin announced that the Second Ukrainian Army had routed the Germans spilth of Ploesti and had swept on tp the Rumanian capita}. This, Marshal Stalin says, removes the German threat to tjie city from the north. Less than a week ago Bucharest said the Buma^ian troops had finally liberated the city from the 'Germans.

In the great Russian advance to Bucharest, over 250 towns and villages were liberated by the Soviet troops during yesterday's fighting in the Ploesti area. The Russians took more than 7000 including a general, and the body of another German-general was found among the dead. In Poland, the Russians have captured Radzymin, a railway station 12 miles north-east of Warsaw, and nine other places. Reuters Moscow correspondent says that German resistance over the whole of the southern front has broken up into a series <of scattered actions, in which the Germans, in ' varying strength, are being rapidly cleaned up, . The Russians' swift advance prevented large-scale German'destruction in. .-Ploesti, says Moscow radio, quoting a ''Red Star" correspondent. "The Germans," he said, "had little opportunity to destroy the oil refineries, stores, and industrial plants. ' Many establishments fell intact into Russian hands. "Wherever one looks. one sees columns of prisoners. Where the Germans launched counter-attacks large heaps of enemy dead can be seen even from the air, particularly in the'Buzau area." T^ c ,German ne.ws agency reports that the fighting has spread to the area between Ploesti arid Bucharest. Numbers of German strongholds have been holding out in the last 24 hours m spite of strong Russian pressure. The Russians north-east of Warsaw launched what amounts to a breakthrough attack. Major tank battles have developed. The radio says that the Germans used anti-aircraft guns as artillery in the last defence • lines round Ploesti. One Rpd Army unit captured 80 antiaircraft guns. -Reuters '. Moscow correspondent earlier lfeported that the Germans were laying W aste Rumanian towns along their line of retreat. Lakes of: burning oil were floating dpwn the Danube it was officially announced in Moscow yesterday that trpops pf the SfSßJ?^^rainiao Fmn took Prisoner I\QOO Germans, including two more generals of the encircled group ' Mizil, 21 miles north-east of Ploesti and Urziceni, 60 miles south-east of Ploesti W ere among the towns captured by the Russians, and also Cernauoda in the region south of Ismail turn? another 10° localities were capGeneral Schoener has been appointed commander-in-chief of the German arimes on the northern sector of the «i£s? Fr^\ W the Stockholm spSnt. Nyh6ter S Berlin corre"