MORE GERMAN ARMIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 January 1943, Page 3

MORE GERMAN ARMIES

IN DANGER OF BEING ENCIRCLED RUSSIANS WORKING TO MIGHTY PLAN. DESIGNED TO DESTROY NAZI WAR MACHINE. (Bv Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.40 a.m.) LONDON, January 18. The Russian offensive on the Voronezh front has rolled back the German lines 50 miles west of the Don along the railway to Kharkov, says the Associated Press Moscow correspondent. At least one German division is reported to be virtually encircled between the Don and the new front line. Axis forces are hurriedly retreating, vainly struggling to mount counter-offensives to gain time and consolidate new positions. ,The Russians completely control the railway from Voronezh to within 100 miles of Rostov. The Moscow radio reports that the Germans have lost several more heavily fortified lines near Stalingrad and that their troops in the western part of the area have been split. '* The Red Army drives in Southern Russia are part of a mighty plan to destroy the German war machine, says the “Daily Express” military correspondent, Mr Morley Richards, who is particularly well-informed on the Russian moves. He adds that the weight of the Russian blows north of Rostov proves them to be no diversionary attacks. The advance which carried the Red armies across the Donetz River has developed into an avalanche. It is of such magnitude that the Germans probably have decided to retire altogether beyond the Donetz. The I correspondent suggests these possibihv ties in the Russian drive to Rostov: The Red Army pincers, coming from the north and east along the Lower Don, may meet to the east of Rostov. The Germans who manage to reach Rostov will not be safe, because the Russians are getting astride the communications leading to the rear of the city. The trapping of a large part of the German armies in the Caucasus now seems certain. The capture of Millerovo is the crowning triumph since the capture of Kotelnikovo. It means that two claws of the pincer movement designed to encircle the Germans in Southern Russia now have few obstacles before them.