Waiting

The Allied world waited for the two most spectacular military events of 1945: the fall of Berlin, and the meeting of U.S.

and Russian armies in central Germany.

Marshal Zhukov's First White Russian Army smashed into Berlin last week (see below). The Paris radio blabbed that the U.S. and Red Army patrols had already made contact near Dresden.

At SHAEF, however, the Supreme Commander's hard-working chief of staff, Lieut. General Walter Bedell ("Beedle") Smith, made it clear that the official U S. -Russian junction would not be a haphazard patrol contact, and that it would not be casually reported. The time and place had been agreed on: the announcement would be a joint fanfare from Washington, London and Moscow.

U.S. troops on the Elbe-Mulde river lines were waiting too, and although the pause improved their supply situation, perhaps the main reason they waited went all the way back to Yalta. For the moment, the Russians were advancing into territory which they had staked out months ago. Meanwhile, the Yanks were coached in Soviet tank recognition and taught a few words of greeting in Russian. Artillery commanders were warned not to fire any farther than they could see.

This week Marshal Stalin announced that Red Army units had reached the Elbe at Muehlberg -- 30 miles northwest of Dresden and almost due east of Leipzig. Technically this was not a junction, since the U.S. positions on the Elbe were farther north. But at least the two Allies had reached the banks of the same river.

After the real junction, the Russians and the western Allies would have need of closer tactical coordination than ever before, because they would then be fighting side by side against the main German pockets in the north and south. Whether or not Yalta foresaw that situation, it will take some straightening out.

On the southeastern front, Marshal Malinovsky was gathering momentum for a push into Bohemia, and south of Bohemia Marshal Tolbukhin was thrusting along the Danube toward Linz. If Tolbukhin can meet the U.S. Third and Seventh Armies in the Danube valley, perhaps between Linz and Regensburg, then Bohemia (and the war industries of Prague and Pilsen) will be cut off from the Nazis' Alpine bastion.

In Italy, the heaviest Allied offensive of 1945 won Bologna, the great German bolt position guarding the Poplain (see below). There now seemed no hope for the Nazis to hold anywhere short of the Alps.

It only remained to be seen how many of their divisions in Italy they could pull back to the mountain bastion under the scourge of Allied air power.

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