HARD PRESSED ON DNIEPER

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 14, 12 October 1943, Page 5

HARD PRESSED ON DNIEPER

Germans Preparing For Withdrawal CRUCIAL FIGHT IN NORTH LONDON, October 10. The Red Army’s related operations over the whole front from Nevel to Melitopol have reached the highest magnitude attained since the outbreak- of the Russo-German war. While the outcome of the vital battle of the Nevel sector is trembling in the balance, the Red Army is also threatening to outflank Vitebsk, Kiev, and Dnepropetrovsk from the rear, and is renewing its attacks against Zaporozhe and Melitopol to complete the cutting off of the Germans in the Crimea. The dull, red glow of hundreds of blazing villages tonight lights up the skyline west of the Dnieper. The Germans are firing villages in the desperate attempt to create a scorched earth zone which will give them time to disengage.

Red Army troops, tanks, guns and supplies are streaming across the Dnieper day and night consolidating the bridgeheads on the west bank. According to Moscow radio eight divisions, with fuli artillery and' equipment, have crossed the Dnieper.

Reuter reports that the Germans are counter-attacking ferociously, but so far ineffectively. The Russians are storming hilltop villages on the vest bank with tanks and l guns and finishing off the enemy with shattering bayonet charges. Luftwaffe Eclipsed.

The Red Air .Force has already wrested the initiative from the Luftwaffe over the Dnieper. Correspondents agree that the stvpngth of the German resistance shows that the High Command has decided to fight it out on the Dnieper line. The “Red Star” says the documents found on captured German officers prove the enemy meant to stand on the Dnieper, .but was pushed back by a superior army. The initiative is now entirely with the Red Army. The “Izvestia” asserts that the Russian advance on tlie west bank has achieved such depth in some places that the German shells cannot reach the river.

'Reporting on the (battle of the Dnieper on the sector north of Kiev, a correspondent says it is one of the greatest and bloodiest of the war. The Germans, realizing the grave danger to their whole southern forces if they should crumble here and Kiev should fall, are making desperate efforts to throw the Soviet forces back into the river. In this effort the Germans have thrown, into battle detachments of engineers and technical troops as well as battered units needing rest and reorganization after the hammering they received during the recent retreat. However, the battle may sway now, it is clear, the correspondent says, that the Dnieper is forced, the Dnieper line is broken, and the Germans are powerless to undo what has been done.

Recent Vain Effort.,

Describing the early stages of the battle, the correspondent says the Germans threw in every available aircraft in a desperate effort to save the situation. For hour after hour Junkers and Heinkels bombed the (Soviet crossings and made concentrated attacks on groups of Red Army troops. (Soviet fighters and bombers fought back. The correspondent says there have been no such air attacks since the Germans pounded Stalingrad. In one day something like 2000 sorties were flown by German aircraft.

After the Germans laboriously transferred thousands of troops from the Kuban to the Crimea the llledi Army is again making an effort finally to seal off the Germans in the Crimea. The German news agency says that the Russians between a point north of Melitopol and the Sea of Azov have launched an expected new attack and fluctuating battles are going on. Tonight's (Soviet ’ communique says that the Red' Army on the middle Dnieper, repelling counter-attacks, continued. to enlarge its west bank (bridgeheads in the same areas as before. The Russians on the Vitebsk sector advanced between four and! 7-J miles and captured the railway station of Krasnoye, 37 miles east-south-east of Orsha and Yanovichi, 23 miles north-east of Vitebsk, and also captured IRudnya and the railway station of Larislichevo. The Russians on the Gomel sector, after breaking enemy resistance, occupied Dobruzh, 10 miles east of Gomel on the Gomel-Bryansk railway. Yesterday 64 German tanks were knocked! out and 5S aircraft were shot down.