Victory on the Baltic

Another Russian campaign pushed through to victory. Last week on the shores of the Baltic it partially destroyed two German Armies (the 16th and 18th), and even better to the Russians--it secured the Baltic States for Russia.

Marshal Leonid A. Govorov's Leningrad army, fresh from its triumph over the Finns in Karelia, swept across Estonia. Its left flank drove through from the southern end of Lake Peipus. Its right flank drove through the lake-studded swamps bordering the Gulf of Finland. At a mile-an-hour clip, this force rolled into Tallinn, last but one of the occupied capitals (according to Soviet reckoning) of the Soviet republics.*

Down Go the Ships. With Govorov's southern flank cutting toward the coast south of Tallinn, the Nazis took to the sea to escape. Many of the scratch fleet of evacuation ships were sunk by Red Fleet aircraft before they got to sea. The seizure of Tallinn (directly opposite Helsinki) was a great naval victory, for it pave the Red Fleet control of the Gulf of Finland and, after three years' virtual blockade, a chance to operate in the Baltic. The Red Fleet seized the opportunity at once, and landed marines who captured Paldiski, west of Tallinn.

While Govorov's army was wringing the last of the Nazis out of the northernmost of the Baltic States, the Second and Third Baltic Armies, directly to the south, drove through Latvia to squeeze the Germans against the Gulf of Riga. To close the trap, the First Baltic Army swung north to take Riga at the bottom of the Gulf.

But there was still fight left in the Nazis. They concentrated their strength to hold a hedgehog near Jelgava (Mitau) and thus kept open a small exit for their troops from the northeast. Even after the capture of Jelgava by tankers of Lieut. General Viktor Obukov, the Germans stood their ground, backed up against the Gulf of Riga. Until the first of this week, an escape corridor was still open, with Nazis streaming through it to fight another day.

But they had only a few more days left to fight outside the borders of the Reich. With Estonia and Latvia going and the larger part of Lithuania already gone, the Red Army would soon ring East Prussia around two-thirds of its perimeter.

*Capitals formerly occupied, now freed by the Red Army are: Kiev, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, liberated Nov. 6, 1943; Petrozavodsk, Karelo-Finnish S.S.R., June 19, 1944; Vilna, Lithuanian S.S.R., July 13; Minsk, Belorussian S.S.R., July 14; Kishinev, Moldavian S.S.R., Aug. 24; Tallinn, Estonian S.S.R., Sept. 22. There remained only Riga, Latvian S.S.R.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.