The Wilmington Morning Star

Minsk Falls To Red Army In 12 Hours

BATTLE SPECTACULAR

Russians Gain 150 Miles On Road To Berlin In 11 Days

LONDON, Tuesday, July 4.—(AP)—Two Red armies closing in from opposite sides crushed all German resistance in the White Russian capital of Minsk yesterday in about 12 hours, routing the Nazis from their last major stronghold on Soviet soil, Moscow said today as the mighty Russian advance engulfed more than 1,150 populated places and stabbed within 39 miles of the Latvian city of Daugavpils.

The great Soviet summer offensive covering 150-miles—or almost one-fourth the distance to Berlin—in 11 days, surged westward on all fronts in White Russia and Moscow announced that Red troops were fighting with bayonets and small arms for possession of the rail junction of Polotsk, and had begun to battle their way through the streets also in Molodeczno, another rail center farther west in old Poland.

The victory at Minsk, over a force of German defenders reported to number possibly 17 divisions, was accomplished with spectacular speed as enemy opposition collapsed under the steel pincers of the first and third White Russian armies.

The early morning supplement to the Russian communique said mobile units broke into Minsk Sunday night from three sides, the northeast, east and southeast. By 7 a.m. the Germans were cleared entirely out of the eastern part of the city and by noon the capture of the capital was complete.

A report on German losses has not yet been made by the Soviets but the supplement said many prisoners and large quantities of war material were taken.

The probing arm of the First Baltic army reached out some 50 miles west of Polotsk and captured Iody in old Poland, just 16 miles from the important city of Daugavpils (Dvinsk) in southern Latvia.

The Moscow radio, following announcement that Minsk had been taken declared: "German soldiers on the eastern front are being hurled into a monster death machine. German generals have testified to this Gen. Bauemler, captured at Mogilev, said Hitler personally gives orders to hold on to the last. These orders are backed up with reprisals."

The Moscow broadcast warned Germans that a frightful debacle will overcome the German nation unless something is done about it at once.