The Daily Alaska Empire

Reds Pushed From Bastion Of Esztergom
Russians Gain Back Twelve Miles North of Danube River

BULLETIN—LONDON, Jan. 8.—The German Command declared tonight the counter-offensive northeast of Budapest has gained up to 25 miles. Commentators in Berlin added that this is probably the beginning of a "major military operation."

LONDON, Jan. 8—Russian forces have been ousted from the key Danube bastion of Esztergom by powerful Nazi counter-attacks bent on relieving the trapped Axis garrison at Budapest, 20 miles south, but the Russians registered a 12 and one-half mile gain north of the Danube in an outflanking threat to the attacking Germans, Moscow says.

A Soviet communique said 1,400 Germans were killed and 300 captured and that 49 tanks and 16 armored troop-carriers had been knocked out before the evacuation of Esztergom. It reported the German progress checked below the city.

The same communique said the Red Army crossed the Hron River to the north and, driving along the Danube, reached a point 10 miles from the communications hub of Komarom, west of Esztergom.

In Budapest, the Nazi garrison launched 12 consecutive counter-attacks in an attempt to spring the Russian armored vise which has pressed them back to the Danube both in Buda on the west bank of the river, and in Pest, to the east.