BLOOD & PLUNDER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 February 1942, Page 4

BLOOD & PLUNDER

ON LINE OF NAZI RETREAT CHARGE BY RUSSIAN , OFFICIAL. MURDER OF NON-COMBATANTS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.10 a.m.) RUGBY, February 22. A British correspondent ,on the Russian front west of Maloyaroslavets says the track of the German retreat is strewn with disabled tanks, wrecked lorries and abandoned field guns. ,Deep snow, which lies everywhere, is hindering the work of the repair 'crews, who are working day and night to repair damaged tanks. From time to time one comes across

big German cemeteries, which speak of the heavy toll taken by the Soviet troops, guerilla bands and ski patrols. Burned villages and blown up railway bridges are conspicuous landmarks of the German retreat. The chairman of the Maloyaroslavets district said the damage to property in his district amounted to forty million roubles. It included nearly 2,000 buildings burned down in towns and villages. Maloyaroslavets itself, however, was comparatively intact, as the Red Army had surprised the Germans two days before they planned to retreat. The Germans tried, like Napoleon, to withdraw along the Kaluga Highway, but like him had been forced to take to the old Smolensk Road. A trail of blood and plunder marked the German retreat, about 10,000 people, including fifty children, having been killed in cold blood.