Little Chance of Germans Holding Nikolaiev

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 63, 17 March 1944, Page 5

Little Chance of Germans Holding Nikolaiev

(Ey Telegraph—Press Assn.—-Copyright.) Received Friday, 12.40 a.m. LONDON, March 16. The Russian drive south of Um'an is .timed at Pervomaisk 100 miles north oi Odessa, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. The Red Army is averaging a steady 10 miles daily through a sea oi mud and water. A Russian column ed/ancing against Nikolaiev is now 10 miles from the town and another group pushing along the northern shores oi -he Dnieper Estuary has only a few niles to go to reach the eastern shore oi ae Bug Estuary. Describing how Russian tanks crossd the Bug the Red Star says Marshal loniev massed infantry, tanks and ;uns on the east bank. Constant fire vas opened against the Germans on the Aker side and special Russian units luring the darkness crossed the Bug ind formed bridgeheads. They widened them right and left as other troops jrossed and pursued the retreating Germans. The Moscow radio reports that 450 German planes were shot down in the Narvo area in the second week oi March. “Having broken the enemy’s resistance southwest of Uman and reached the River Bug our troops are giving the enemy no breathing space or time to re-form,” says a Moscow supplementary communique. * ‘ Our troops crossed the river on rafts, floats and pontoons. The Germans hurriedly brought up tanks and self-propelled guns ana counter-attacked in an attempt to drive our troop 3 back into the river, but oui advanced detachments withstood the enemy’s pressure and secured a crossing for the main Soviet forces who have now broken through the enemy’s Bug defences on a wide front. The retreating enemy is abandoning not only guns and other big equipment but also machineguns, rifles and numerous othei weapons.’ ’ “The new trap in the Snegirevka area is the Kanev encirclement over again,” says the Moscow correspondent of the British United Press. “The catastrophe to the Germans resulted from von Mannstein’s insistence on the maintaining of his lines when withdrawal was possible. The same pattern is being followed, with the Germans outside the ring trying to break in to the rescue. The Red Air Force and Russian mobile artillery are now pounding the encircled troops, who are pinned down in an area of 230 square miles. ‘ * The encirclement seems to have killed von Mannstein’s hopes of holding Nikolaiev. Not only has he lost a big proportion of the forces for defending the city, but Nikolaiev is on the east bank of the Bug River, and therefore the Germans have to fight with a wide river in their rear, cutting off retreat in the event of a Russian breakthrough. While the three Russian columns arc closing in on Nikolaiev from the east, a combined cavalry and tank force is moving along the north shore of the Dnieper inlet westwards, thereby cutting off Nikolaiev from the Black Sea.” The Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that the most urgent threat to Nikolaiev is from the Russians moving southwards towards the city from Shirokaya-Balka, which was captured yesterday. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent reports that the Red Army in the past 24 hours, advancing at high speed, has extended its grip on the Bug River, and now holds a 65-mile stretch in the Uman region. Powerful spearheads aro bearing down against a 30-mile stretch of the Bug above Pervomaisk, and .also against Novo Ukrainka. The attack is developing over a front of 80 miles against these two points.