SLOW, STEADY PUSH

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 8, 5 October 1943, Page 5

SLOW, STEADY PUSH

Despite Floods And Furious Defence WHITE RUSSIA OFFENSIVE LONDON, October (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.! The titanic struggle in Russia has resolved itself into three mammoth battles.

Reports from both Russian and German sources emphasize that the most significant engagements are, first the Red Army s offensive in White Russia, and secondly, the battle for the middle Dnieper, including Kiev. The third feature is the Russians mighty fighting between Zaporozhe, Melitopol and the Nogaisk steppe to bottle up the Germans in the Crimea. The Russians are steadily working round both flanks of the German system of strongpoints which were built to protect Gorpel. They are also closing in on the approaches to Mogilev from three directions, being now 25 miles away in the north-east and almost as near in the drives from the east and south-east.

These and the other armies on the White Russian front have made a slower advance in the past 48 hours, partly because of the furious German resistance as the Russians bite deep into the hard core of the defences, and also because of heavy rains which have fallen, hampering communications and causing rivers to overflow. In spite of all this, the Red Army is still forging ahead almost everywhere. Reuter says that the Red Army, on the ninth day of the White Russian offensive, was inexorably penetrating “the deep defences of Field-Marshal von Kluge’s Fatherland Line.” A Russian military spokesman declared that the Russian objective was the liberating of the whole of White Russia. lie also emphasized that the autumn weather might slow down operations but would not entirely halt the Red Army’s progress. The Germans, after rushing up reinforcements, are persistently counterattacking on the White Russian front, says the British United Press correspondent. The enemy on the Gomel area forced the Russians from a strategic point they had captured. Von Kluge has assembled a tremendous concentration of fire power, including numerous 75 millimetre guns mounted on Mark 111 tank chassis. The 'Soviet columns have been making good progress in the drive toward the Pripet Marshes, which stretch right back to Poland. A Russian breakthrough here would compel the Germans to split their forces into two widely-separated armies north and south of the marshes. Russian sources are uncommunicative about the position on the middle Dnieper, Moscow correspondents emphasize that there are no Germans, except prisoners, left on the east bank. Berlin radio claims that the Russians have not succeeded in establishing new bridgeheads and that the existing bridgeheads have been narrowed.

Development in South. The enemy’s battered forces on the Taman Peninsula, last relic of the German Kuban bridgehead, are facing final defeat. The Russian breakthrough in the centre of the peninsula yesterday has narrowed down the enemy’s foothold to tw° tongues of land round the Taman Gulf, an arm of the Kerch Strait. Today’s German communique announces the loss of the town of Taman, which means that the Russiana hold the only place of any size on the southern side of the gulf. It is not clear whether the enemy is still holding out on the northern side. The Germans say they evacuated Taman unnoticed by the enemy after destroying all military installations. These German forces are the last remnants of the armies which swept through the Caucasus, and which this time last year were battling on the Terek River for the Grozny oilfields, nearly 500 miles from their present position. There are signs that the Germans are now using these troops to reinforce their lines running north from the Sea of Azov to the Dneiper bend, covering their forces in the Crimea - Russian aircraft are attacking them day and night. /The Russians are determinedly attacking over a narrow front between Zaporozhe and the Sea of Azov, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. The Red Army is only 20 miles from the Kerch Straits. Correspondents state that a Russian breakthrough between Zaporozhe and Melitopol or the capture of Melitopol, which is the chief town on the German escape line from the Crimea, would trap all the Germans who have been evacuated from the Kuban to the Crimea. d Tonight’s Soviet communique that in White Russia the Soviet forces today advanced from three to six miles on some sectors and liberated more than 70 towns and villages. On other sectors of the front there has been intense reconnaissance and artillery activity. Yesterday, on all fronts, the Russians smashed 155 German tanks and shot down 42 aircraft.