KHARKOV

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 58, 27 May 1942, Page 4

KHARKOV

ON Kharkov, erstwhile Soviet manufacturing centre and key town to the western hinterland of the central Russian plateau are bent the full forces of the straining energies of two vast armies. It may well be said of the bitter fighting which is now going on in the rubble-strewn streets of tne provincial capital that the spirit of the fighting forces of both Russia anci Germany are striving for victory in a preliminary test of arms. Hitler's vaunted spring offensive, was as the world has now seen but an invitation for the resourceful Timoshenko to_ attempt a dramatic coup-de-etat upon, the mosi important of the captured Nazi strongholds. The force and the strength of his iron-headed thrust has so dislocated German plans that their entire offensive has been held up in order to make a hasty readjustment. Towards stricken Kharkov, to-day are winding endless lines of war supplies, endless marching columns of newly recruited infantry. On both sides of the battle ground the war lanes are converging with more and still more of the twin armies and their war machines. The battle of Kharkov may well indeed become the deciding factor in the tide of the struggle which many authorities now claim is likely to come to an abrupt close this very year. Such a possibility seems almost too good to be true, but the fact remains that from the Soviet radio comes the voice of confidence and of optimism, whilst the Nazi broadcasts in spite of the crucial days through which the nation is passing, are full of appearand are more revealing, as far as the Russian campaign is concerned than ever before. There must be. a sound and farreaching reason for this unusual candour on the part of Gcering and Goebbels, but at present it must remain an enigma until events reveal it to the world. Meanwhile ■ Kharkov, and the focus of the eyes of the world upon its battered tenements! To-day in very truth we may say that the opposing armies of Naziism and Communism born from the same set of national circumstances and both swearing allegiance to a selfmade leader, are meeting upon even ground. The test is a bloody and a ruthless one but the outcome will be the deciding factor in. the civilised course of mankind.