ON THE RJEV FRONT

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 242, 14 October 1942, Page 5

ON THE RJEV FRONT

S WITH S0V1ET FORCES

MEN WHO AMAZE THE WORLD u.s. correspondent's contact.

P.A. Cable.

CHICAGO, Oct. 13.

(Chicago Daily News Foreign Service Copyright). Mr Leland Stowe, in a despatch from the Rjev front, says: "At last I have seen ancl lived With the Red Army in several sectors, and have the feel of these Russian soldiers and oflicers whohave amazed the world. In the last nine days the Russian troops and Russia's battle have become a vivid reality, "We rode long and hard, bounced high and interminablv, to get to the Rjev fiont. Those who rode and bounced with me were Ilya Ehrenburg, the Soviet's most favoured wai- conespondent, Major Arapov, of the Red Star, and Captain Emma,. Twice Russian peasants gave us shelter and with their magnificent hospitality even their' humble beds for the night. "For seven days in the front sectors I never saw a single male dressod in civilian clothes. Here such villages as have not been completely burned are inhataited only by women and children. "The thunder of howitzers and mortars and the t-hud of bombs seidom cease for mere than an hour or two, either day or night. Here, within the rumble of artillery, there is also the pecuiiar cairn of men who know how to command and how to ..flght. We see great orange fires burning night after night in the city of Rjev, and machine-guns cackle and puncture the crisp midnight air. Cannon fire and exploding mortars and rockets trace a flickering pattern for miles along the front." Mr Stowe^then describes a, rough journey over shell-holes through a. great wilderness, and through stretches where hundreds of tanks and trucks gnashed and churned the earth. "Captain Emma is chatting all the while. ,She does not seem to pay any attention to the bombs — whereupon," Mr Stowe says, "my opinion of myself takes a. sharp drop. Transport, soldiers working near the road take' no notice, either. Like Captain Emma,, they have been living in this atmcsphere a long time."