SOVIET DRIVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 February 1942, Page 3

SOVIET DRIVE

GOOD HEADWAY TOWARDS SMOLENSK GAINS ALSO IN SOUTH. I AND IN THE LENINGRAD ZONE. LONDON, February 24. The Russian drive towards Smolensk is well under way. The Germans admit strong Russian attacks in the Donetz Basin and. Leningrad fronts. In the Donetz area the Russians threw in wave after wave of troops and the German defences were penetrated at some points. The Moscow radio has claimed the capture of further places, but these are not named. The Germans have suffered particularly heavy losses on the central sector, where the Soviet troops are driving on. “BATTLE GOES WELL” GERMANS BEING DRIVEN WESTWARD. RUSSIANS 45 MILES EAST OF SMOLENSK. LONDON, February 23. The Russians launhed a big attack on the Smolensk sector of the central front on the morning of February 23 after night-long preparations. Toward the end of the day it was clear that the attack _ was entirely successful. The Russian artillery at dawn laid down a terrific barrage. Russian tanks and infantry overwhelmed the Germans and put them to flight. Soldiers who were covered by tanks and who had just heard an Order of the Day by the Premier, M. Stalin, were filled with great enthusiasm. Moscow radio stated: "The battle goes well. We are driving the Germans westward.” The offensive has already resulted in the capture of Dorobug, which lies about 200 miles west of Moscow and 45 miles east of Smolensk on the road from Viazma. Describing the capture of this town, Moscow radio says the attack opened at dawn after a terrific all-night barrage by the Soviet artillery. Strong forces of infantry and tanks, which had been massed in secret were then hurled against the enemy. Today’s Moscow communique says that operations are continuing successfully. The supplement to the communique mentions one unspecified sector where in two days’ fighting the Russians liberated 10 more inhabited places and killed more than 3000 Germans. According to a Stockholm message, the Russians have captured a town 14 miles north of Rzhev as well as a number of fresh placbs on the Leningrad front. Berlin admits that the Russians are advancing in the Viazma sector and through the hilly country south of Lake Ilmen. A Russian submarine recently passed through a Baltic minefield and sank four ships, totalling 40,000 tons, including a 17,000-ton tanker. A Norwegian news agency says that the Germtns have ordered half a million pairs of skis from Norway for next winter's campaign in Russia. PARACHUTE TROOPS USED IN LARGE NUMBERS. IN EFFORT TO HALT RUSSIANS. (Received This Day, 9.40 a.m.) LONDON, February 24. The Germans are throwing in the largest number of parachute troops since the invasion of Crete, in an attempt to halt the Russian efforts to relieve Leningrad, says a Berlin military spokesman. Admitting the danger of the situation on the Leningrad front, the Berlin radio appealed to the Germans to hold out at all costs till the spring. Russia, said the radio, "has launched the biggest counter-offensive of the war. Hundreds of thousands of newly arrived and well-equipped troops from Siberia are attacking the German positions near Leningrad, in the Valdai Hills, near Smolensk, in the Donetz basin and in the Crimea. The Germans at Leningrad have been forced to take up better positions, more westward of the city. 'Smolensk, Dnepropetrovsk and Sebastopol are the theatres of the biggest and bloodiest battles in the history of mankind. The Germans cannot afford to yield another inch.” According to the Stockholm "Dagens Nyheter,” the Russians have recaptured the important village of Panino, fourteen miles northward of Rjev, also fifteen other villages in this area. The Germans have lost 2,200 men in three days’ fighting on the Leningrad front, where the Red Army has recaptured thirteen villages.