KIEV DEVASTATED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 September 1941, Page 5

KIEV DEVASTATED

ALL SUPPLIES REMOVED OR DESTROYED FIERCE HAND TO HAND FIGHTING. BEFORE ENEMY ENTERED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, September 21. The German news agency says that Kiev is in a state of indescribable devastation, all supplies being removed or destroyed, and water and electricity works put out of action, “cruelly endangering the lives of tens of thousands of people.” An Italian report says that the fall of Kiev was due to its complete exhaustion. The city had been without water for a week, and the market had also been empty for a month, and closed for a week. Russians who were wounded in the great battle for the eastern Ukraine were taken mainly to Kiev, where schools, theatres, hotels, and private houses were filled with wounded.

Nevertheless, the Germans were obliged to overcome the belt of concrete forts, a minefield, and defences consisting of high tension wires, and to engage in terrible hand-to-hand fighting before the city was conquered. The report adds that advanced German armoured . units were thrown back after reaching the centre of Kiev, and only succeeded in taking the city after three days’ fighting. The Germans found that the people of Kiev, including the wounded, had not eaten for three days.

A dispatch from Berne says that naked Germans stormed the inner defences of Kiev. It states that during the night of September 18 German infantry swam across a small river south of Kiev before storming concrete casements, defending the inner city. They wore nothing but steel helmets,: carrying their arms and ammunition. This bold thrust proved decisive for the capture of the city. The dispatch adds that the Germans several weeks ago previously broke through the first line of fortifications and then ordered a halt pending the union of the forces of Field-Marshals von Bock and von Runstedt.