Hard-hitting Russian mobile forces, steadily rolling back Germany's Ukraine armies in one of the most crushing defeats of the war, smashed their way within 21 miles of the 1939 Polish border yesterday and drove a wide wedge toward the Bug River and the vital Odessa-Lwow railway.
A 6,500-foot airfield for light and medium bombers, within less than 250 miles of Rabaul and only 850 milei
from Japan's mighty naval base of Truk. now is in operation in the northern Solomons.
The airfield, at the base of volcanic Mount Bogana, is carved out of the heaviest of jungles. It is called Piva Field and is the second U.S. airdrome to be established on the island.
Super Messerschmitt
German radio said the latest Messerschmitt fighter-bomber's speed and maneuverability will equal the world's fastest fighters and will be followed by new, equally improved dive-bombers.
Germany's Defenses
Crumbling Over
Vast Sector
Hard-hitting Russian mobile forces, steadily rolling back Germany's Ukraine armies in one of the most crushing defeats of the war, smashed their way within 21 miles of the 1939 Polish border yesterday and drove a wide wedge toward the Bug River and the vital Odessa-Lwow railway.
Three deep thrusts in the Korosten- Zhitomir sector, aimed at important communication lines the Germans must hold. 10 protect their troops in the Dnieper Bend and the Crimea, gained new ground as the Red Army achieved fresh successes in the fronts around Ncvei. Vitebsk and Zaporozhe. ,
As German defenses wilted over a 600-mile front. from Nevei in the north 10 Zaporozhe in the south, the German high command was reported massing troops in Poland to prevent a Russian breakthrough. Dispatches reaching Ankara said trains were pouring supplies and fresh troops into the rear sections of
the front.
Smashing Down Railway
The Russians cut deep inio the German rear south and west of the Kievsalient, driving souihwestward down the kiev-Zhmcrinka railway toward the Bug and the Odessa-Lwow railway, the main artery feeding Odessa, the Germans in the Dnieper Bend and the whole front southcast of L'oland.
Loss of this line would force the enemy to depend on Romanian railways for all transport in this sector and seriously endanged Nazi forces in the Crimea, the Dnieper Bend, the southern Ukraine and Bessarabia. *
Zhmerinka, a great railway junction on the road to Rumania, is one of the chief German supply centers for the Nazi Sixth Army striving to hold back Gen. Rod ion Malinovsky's Russian offensive striking for Nikopol, in the Zaporozhe area.
The Russian thrust southwest of Kiev made rapid progress toward the railway junction of Kalinovka, about 40 miles from Zhmerinka. Here some advanced elements of Gen. Nieolai Vatutin's First Ukrainian Army were only 80 miles from the Bessarabian border.
One Rail Town Before Border
West of Korosten, other Vatutin advance troops pushed within 21 miles of the Polish border in a drive on Otevsk, last remaining railway town before the border. Olevsk, near the lower tip of the Pinsk marshes, is about 50 miles northwest of Korosten.
Farther south, two powerful columns from Zhitomir and Korosten drove toward Novograd Volynski, a railway town some 60 miles northwest of Zhitomir.
Latest reports placed them about 15 miles away yesterday. Their goal was highly important to the Russians, because it is through Novograd Volynski the broad, hard-surfaced highway from Kiev to Warsaw runs.
New Bougainville Airfield
Only 850 Miles from Truk
A U.S. AIRFIELD, Bougainville, Jan.
2 (AP)—
A 6,500-foot airfield for light and medium bombers, within less than 250 miles of Rabaul and only 850 milei
from Japan's mighty naval base of Truk. now is in operation in the northern Solomons.
The airfield, at the base of volcanic Mount Bogana, is carved out of the heaviest of jungles. It is called Piva Field and is the second U.S. airdrome to be established on the island.
Super Messerschmitt
German radio said the latest Messerschmitt fighter-bomber's speed and maneuverability will equal the world's fastest fighters and will be followed by new, equally improved dive-bombers.
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