One More Effort

On the western fringes of Russia this week the Red Army was fighting the final battles on its native soil., Three years and five months after it invaded Russia, the Wehrmacht was fighting on the moats and outworks of Hitler's Europe.

The newly captured city of Zhitomir lay midway between Stalingrad, where the Germans stood a year ago, and Berlin; Zhitomir was only 125 miles from Bessarabia, 60 miles from prewar Poland. In the north, the front line lay only 50 to 150 miles from Russia's pre-1939 borders.

One more effort would clear the Russian land. To make this effort, the Red Command threw caution to the winds. The first snows of winter fell. But the Red armies thrust and spread out without regard for enemy counterattacks. Tanks and cavalry far outdistanced the infantrymen, probably relied on captured food and fuel. At moments, the fate of the entire offensive teetered in the balance. But there was power behind the Red Army's daring; power and daring won.

The Lightning. The great sweep westward brought rich rewards. One of them was the final victory in the battle for the railroads. When the Red Army captured Zhitomir, it severed the Wehrmacht's last north-to-south railway in pre-1939 Russia, compelled the Germans to use the single-track line 100 miles to the west, in pre-1939 Poland. This defeat virtually split apart Germany's southern and central armies, will hamper the shifting of reserves from sector to sector to meet Russian attacks. Main attacks:

>> Berlin reported a major break-through near Krivoi Rog by a Russian army of 500,000. Such a thrust would end the last German resistance within the Dnieper bend.

>> After a drive across the frozen Pripet Marshes, a Russian column had outflanked the German stronghold of Gomel.

>> In the Crimea, Red troops slowly pushed their way in through two narrow corridors. For the garrison of some 75,000 German and Rumanian troops this was a futile battle: even a sea escape was no longer likely, with Russian bombers operating west of the Crimea and the Black Sea Fleet out on a hunt.

In the Ukraine, the action was old-time Blitzkrieg in reverse, with the Red Army's performance as spectacular as anything the Wehrmacht has yet shown. Thus, Zhitomir fell to a cavalry corps of three divisions under Lieut. General Victor Baranov (who, for the feat, received the coveted Order of Suvorov, First Class) and a tank army under Lieut. General Pavel Rybalko, who won fame in last winter's campaign. So fast were these generals moving (120 miles in nine days) that happy Moscow gave their chief, General Nikolai Vatutin, a fond nickname: Molnya --Lightning.

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