AFTER MOJAISK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 January 1942, Page 3

AFTER MOJAISK

WAR OF MOVEMENT IN FULL SWING PURSUIT WEST OF MOSCOW. CLEAN SWEEP OF GERMANS NEAR LENINGRAD. LONDON, January 22. Correspondents on the Russian front ,say that with the fall of Mojaisk the Russian war of movement is now in full swing. In temperatures of 35 degrees below zero the Russians are driving the Germans back toward Smolensk. (Another correspondent, quoting Russian sources, says the Russians are preparing to throw in thousands of fresh recruits.

I The Stockholm correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says a strong German rearguard is fighting advanced Russian motorised units outside Borodino. The battlefield is now twelve miles west of Mojaisk and the main German forces are engaged in a race with the pursuing Russians for Viazma. If the Russians win the race 100,000 Germans will be cut off, but the whole district between Mojaisk and Viazma is strongly fortified. Colonel Gurov, writing in the “Moscow News,” says the Red Army is making a clean sweep of the Germans in the immediate vicinity of Leningrad. German losses there in the past four weeks are 18,000 men killed and 74 tanks, 184 guns, 247 mortars, 494 mach-ine-guns and a huge quantity of other equipment captured. The capture of Mojaisk is regarded in authoritative circles in London as important, as this strong bastion was the only remaining place from which the Germans could threaten Moscow. The immediate threat to the capital, therefore, appears to have been removed, but it is too soon to predict any extensive German withdrawal as a consequence of the loss of the town. REHABILITATION WORK IN AREAS DEVASTATED BY ENEMY. LONDON, January 21. The Soviet War News reports that the Soviet of Moscow is organising the rehabilitation of the liberated areas. The Germans destroyed practically the whole basis of economic life' in these areas.

Agriculture suffered a tremendous blow through the destruction of thousands of farmsteads, farm stores, cattle stalls and granaries. The same thing happened to industry. The Germans blew up all the factories which were

evacuated before their arrival, including large textile mills at Yakhroma, Naryfominsk and Vysokiei. They damaged the Volga-Moscow canal and destroyed many local productive enterprises and innumerable schools. Wherever the Germans stayed they destroyed libraries and used the books for fuel. They burned collective farm nurseries and demolished a number of hospitals.

Mr F. W. Pethick-Lawrence was unanimously elected acting-chairman of the British Parliamentary Labour Party in place of the late Mr H. B. Lees-Smith.