Destruction of 500 German tanks and armored
cars, the equivalent of four divisions' equipment, in a big four-day battle on
the front opposite the Rumanian border
was reported by Soviet News Agency last night as Gen. Feodor Tolbukhin's
Fourth Ukrainian Army swung into action across the swollen lower Dnieper.
Four important Nazi fighter,
bomber and bomber-transport factories were either almost completely devastated
or so severely damaged by the Fortress-Liberator attack on Leipzig Feb. 20 that
the Germans have been forced to suspend production until major repairs and
plant rebuilding can be undertaken,
USAF headquarters announced after a careful study of reconnaissance pictures.
NEW DELHI, India (delayed) (Reuter)
The: highest guns in the world
have gone into action on the Assam-Burma front. .pumping more than 1.000 shells
a day into Japanese bunker positions in the Chin hills
U.S. Marines, pressing steadily
northward on New Britain toward battered Rabaul, have seized the village of
Talasea and its strategic airfield, cutting off an estimated several thousand
Japs on Williamauz peninsula, north of Talasea, Gen. MacArthur's communique
said yesterday.
Bridge Dnieper
To Threaten New Trap
Destruction of 500 German tanks and armored
cars, the equivalent of four divisions' equipment, in a big four-day battle on
the front opposite the Rumanian border
was reported by Soviet News Agency last night as Gen. Feodor Tolbukhin's
Fourth Ukrainian Army swung into action across the swollen lower Dnieper. Tolbukhin's seasoned troops, veterans of the campaign which wrested Mjsiitopol
from the enemy last fall, crossrd the river apparently near
Klikhovka and captured the town
of Bi-rislov, 40 miles from the
Black Sea
port of Kherson, in the rear of
the Germans retreating from Krivoi Rog. .„
jOnly a few of Tolbukhin's great
force appeared to have been engaged, but the mere fact that the steppes army
was on the move again for the first time since it smashed the Nazis' left bank
bridgehead opposite Nikopol a month ago indicated th|e Red Army's southern
offensive still
hdd not yet reached its climax
more than a! week after it began on Mar. 4.
Big
Trap Taking Shape
| The river crossing appeared
likely to trap possibly large forces of Germans retreating under the pressure
of Gen. Kodion Mlalinovsky's Third Ukrainian Army advancing from the Krivoi Rog
area.
Soviet News Agency gave no
details of the tank battle on the First Ukrainian Army's front, but it seemed
likely it may have been in the Tarnopol sector, where Russian reconnaissance
planes earlier Spotted 400 Nazi tanks coming up to the front lines. The Germans
brought up powerful forces, including heavy artillery and Armored trains, to
hold this anchor of their 450-mile southern front, 'but in spite oif the strength
pouring into the western section of the city Pravda said Red infantrymen were
fighting their way into the city house by house.
Red Star said the Germans,
regardless of losses, were fighting fiercely for every hilltop, stream and road
in that sector and making 'their main stand west of the city, where they
mounted a large number of big guns on hills commanding the junction.
Counter-Attack
at Proskurov
A sharp German counter-attack was .reported in
the Proskurov sector, 60 miles east of Tarnopol, where Marshal Gregory Zhukov's
men were steadily nearing the city. His troops around Kazatin, 35 miles 'northeast
of Vinnitsa, already have reached the Bug River above the Nazi defense outpost
of Vinnitsa.
On Zhukov's left flank, Marshal Ivan Koniev's
Second Army group, forging ahead south of captured Uman, advanced 20 miles in
24 hours and yesterday was less than 15 miles from the Bug below Vinnitsa, thus
threatening both that town and the Odessa-Lwow railway junction of Zhmerinka
with encirclement. Some 225 miles to the southeast, Malinovsky's cavalry
reached the Ingul River running approximately north and south, with its mouth
near Nikolaev, and
occupied 75 miles of the east
bank. At this point they were only 21 miles from
Nikolaev. Moscow dispatches said
Malinovsky's Third Army was pouring a tremendous stream of bombs and shells onto the river fords
across which the Nazis were pulling back to the Bug. In some of the muddiest country
of the Ukraine, engineers worked day and night to build corduroy roads to permit
the tanks to advance.
Leipzig Photos
Proof of Havoc
Four Important
Aircraft
Factories
Blasted Out
Of Production
Four important Nazi fighter,
bomber and bomber-transport factories were either almost completely devastated
or so severely damaged by the Fortress-Liberator attack on Leipzig Feb. 20 that
the Germans have been forced to suspend production until major repairs and
plant rebuilding can be undertaken,
USSTAF headquarters announced after a careful study of reconnaissance pictures.
In addition to the four aircraft-
factories, a Luftwaffe training station
also was severely damaged.
In the Erla Mel09 component and assembly
plant, 21 .buildings were destroyed, two partly destroyed, five severely
damaged and 14 partly 'damaged.
Other reconnaissance reports
revealed that Augsburg was heavily hit by the American daylight raid Feb. 25
and the two RAF attacks the same night. Hardly a factory of any importance in
the northern part of the city escaped damage and the great MAN factory, the
leading German producer of Diesel engines, was damaged extensively.
Toulon
Targets Smashed
ALLIED HQ, Italy, Mar. 12 (AP)—
First photographs of last
Tuesday's heavy bomber raid on Toulon showed today six vital military targets
badly smashed.
Guns 9,000Feet
Up,
World's Highest,
Shell Burma Japs
NEW DELHI, India (delayed) (Reuter)
The: highest guns in the world
have gone into action on the Assam-Burma front. .pumping more than 1.000 shells
a day into Japanese bunker positions in the Chin hills.
The first salvos were a salute
to British-engineers who hauled the artillery pieces behind? bulldozers up a
slender mountain roads which rises to nearly 9,000 feet as it twists toward the
mountain peak.
The first gun drawn by a tractor,
swung over the edge of a cliff as it rounded one :of the sharp corners and for
a moment it seemed as if both gun and tractor would plunge into the ravine
hundreds of feet below. But,
though the tractor slithered toward the brink it managed to hold the road.
For 12 hours, mostly in darkness,
the gun hung in; space while engineers put anchors in the cliff above the road
and slings around the gun. Finally, with a bulldozer and block and tackle, they
drew it back on to the road.
N. Britain Push
Cutjs Off Enemy
Marines Seize
Airfield
In Kabaul Drive;
Jap
Base Battered
Again
N. Britain Push
Cuts Off Enemy
Marines Seize
Airfield
In Kabaul Drive;
Jap
Base Battered
Again
U.S. Marines, pressing steadily
northward on New Britain toward battered Rabaul, have seized the village of
Talasea and its strategic airfield, cutting off an estimated several thousand
Japs on Williamauz peninsula, north of Talasea, Gen. MacArthur's communique
said yesterday.
U.S. nval units, escorting a
convoy of supplies, to the newly-won base 170 miles from Rabaul Saturday night,
caught a fleet of ;Jap barges sneaking from an anchorage off the northern tip
of
Williamjuiz, sinking five packed
with troops and damaging another. One as claimed by crewmen of a tank lashed to
the decks of an American supply barge.
Heavy and medium Solomons-based bombers
meanwhile blasted Rabaul with 110 tons of high explosives without loss, although
raiding without fighter cover.
American Cavalrymen on Los Negros
in the Admiralties achieved further penetrations' north and northeast of Momote
airfield gaining one section of the west coast of the island directly opposite
Manus.Island across the Leniu Straits.
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