GOMEL EVACUATED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 August 1941, Page 5

GOMEL EVACUATED

HEAVY FIGHTING ALONG WHOLE FRONT HITLER STRIVING HARD FOR RESULTS. BEFORE WINTER SNOWS ARRIVE. LONDON, August 22. Today's Moscow communique says that fighting was again heavy along the whole front, the main sectors being around Kingisenn, Novgorod and Gomel. The lastnamed town has now been evacuated. The Germans appear to be making no further progress in their thrust to Leningrad, the nearest point being Kingisenn. While there is no confirmation of a report that the Germans are 12 miles from Leningrad, Hitler unquestionably is doing his utmost to gain a decision in this sector before the snows, Which are due within a month, bring new worries for his already strained forces.

The correspondent of “The Times” on the German frontier points out that decisive gains .on the Eastern Front before the winter would give Nazism a new lease of life, quieting the anxiety of the German people for the promised early peace. Eighty per cent of Germany’s total military’/ strength has therefore been sent to thei east, and thousands of labour squads are building and repairing roads and railways immediately behind the armed forces. The Germans apparently have occu-

pied more areas in the real- of their

drive from Estonia, where the latest < territorial gains appear to include the Turi region. The German radio claims that the Finns are making favourable progress toward Leningrad east of Lake La* doga, and a Finnish communique says that Finnish troops captured three villages in an advance between Kexholm and Wiborg. Other sources, however, indicate no material change today in this sector or elsewhere. The battle continues fiercely in the Gomel sector, and Marshal Budenny’s forces appear to be manoeuvring successfully on the Lower Dnieper, and in particular to be holding the enemy west of Kiev, where, according to the “Giornale d’ltalia,” Italian forces are operating. COSSACKS IN ACTION. Marshal Budenny is widely employing Cossack horse forces for daring attacks into the German flanks. The cavalrymen are able to retreat across ground which would be impassable for mechanised units, and in view of the danger of their raids, the Germans are forced to adhere mainly to the roads. The Soviet central army is counterattacking strongly in the Smolensk area. The “Red Star” states that the troops under General Itoniev, increasing the weight of their attacks, captured more local centres. The Russian spokesman said that the 1 battle of Odessa is neither a Dunkirk nor a Tobruk, but one of the fiercest and most memorable battles of the war. ANSWER TO NAZI CLAIMS. The German spokesman, summing up the operations of the past two months, emphasises the large territorial gains and the great Russian losses, but the Soviet spokesman, M. Lozovsky, immediately answered this with a similar survey of the German losses. The Germans claim the capture or destruction of 16,000 Russian tanks, over 14,000 guns, 11,000 planes, and 5,000,000 Russian casualties, of which 1 200,000 are said to be prisoners, and the occupation of nearly 350,000 square miles of territory. M. Lozovsky stated that the German killed and wounded so ' far total 2,000,000, of .which half are killed. He added that mankind has not known such losses in such a short time. “The Germans,” he'declared, “have occupied only a small part of Soviet territory, and even Hitler realises that the war has just begun. We know Germany’s strength and potentialities, and we are not alarmed and are not pessimistic. We are closing our ranks still tighter. The Germans cannot conquer Russia. They will be routed.”