Imperial Valley Press

Speeds up, Led by Tanks

MOSCOW, April 13. (UP)

Front dispatches said Thursday that Soviet armies closing a trap on 100,000 to 150,000 fleeing axis troops in the Crimea were "reaching" the outskirts of both Simferopol, the capital, and the south coast port of Feodosiya in a pincers drive toward the big Sevastopol naval base.

Soviet tanks rolled over the approaches to the two cities as the Red air force and the Black sea fleet clamped down a complete air and sea blockage of the Crimea presumably bottling up the largest axis force since 300,000 troops were killed or captured at Stalingrad.

IN HEADLONG FLIGHT

Commanding officers and staffs abandoned many German and Rumanian units in headlong flight toward Sevastopol after resistance collapsed in the Ishun hills to the north and on the Kerch peninsula to the east.

Following the example of their leaders, axis troops abandoned their equipment and boarded trucks for a frantic race south and west, but a front dispatch said Soviet attack planes overtook and halted them with bombs and machine-gun bullets.

Russian tanks were credited with capturing several German and Rumanian commanders who were fleeing southward from the Ishun hills by automobile. A Rumanian division, forced to flee on foot, dispersed in the Crimean plains.

ADMIT ADVANCE

A German Transocean dispatch acknowledged that Soviet forces were continuing to "press on along two fronts in Crimea with fast superior motorized and infantry forces."

A 43-mile advance in a little more than 24 hours—believed the greatest ever achieved by a Soviet army—brought elements of Gen. Feodor I. Tolbukhin's 4th Ukrainian force within 11 miles of Simferopol and 43 miles northeast of Sevastopol at

(Continued on Page 2, Col. 1)
Russians Near Sevastopol To Trap Nazis

(Continued from Page One)

the southwestern coast of the Crimea Wednesday.

CLEAR KERCH AREA

German and Rumanian resistance at the eastern end of the Crimea also dissolved under the impact of the Russian offensive, with Gen. Andrei Yeremenko's new independent coastal army completely clearing the Kerch peninsula, smashing an intervening defense line, and advancing to within 14 miles northeast of the south coast port of Feodosiya.

The Russians also announced the killing of 26,000 Germans in the Skala salient northeast of Cernauti from April 1 through 10. Nearly 7,000 others were captured, along with 187 tanks, 121 guns and 7,483 trucks. Of 15 divisions encircled April 1, only 10,000 men and 80 tanks remained when a relief column broke through the Soviet ring Tuesday.