STORMING FORWARD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 December 1943, Page 4

STORMING FORWARD

I RUSSIANS IN GREAT DRIVE I SOUTH OF NEVEL .

■ Hardening Ground Permitting Free Use of Tanks ATTACKS ON APPROACHES TO BALTIC AND BLACK SEA GERMANS FALLING BACK ON VITEBSK (By Telegraph.—Press Association. —Copyright.) (Received This Day, 1.25 p.m.) LONDON, December 21. The Red Army, in its great new drive south of Nevel, is still storming forward. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says the Russians are now roughly half-way between Nevel and Vitebsk. Their last reported position placed them less than 50 miles from the old 'Polish border. The Russians have retaken nearly 600 places since their Nevel offensive opened. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says the Germans south of Nevel are in full retreat as they fall back for a stand at Vitebsk. The correspondent points out that the titanic new tank battles, in which the opposed armies are engaging, show that the terrain on the Russian front is at last ready for all-out assaults. He adds that the Russian pincers are closing in against two of the toughest cores of German resistance —Vitebsk, guarding the approaches to the Baltic, and Kirovgrad barring the way to the Black Sea. The Russians thrusting towards Vitebsk on the east side of the Nevel-Vitebsk Railway, are reinforcing their northwards drive. Vitebsk is already outflanked from the northwest and is now the target for triple converging forces which are steadily reducing its defences and communications in the same way in which other great hedgehog positions; have been softened.