WESTWARD SWEEP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 January 1943, Page 3

WESTWARD SWEEP

GERMAN SUMMER GAINS MUCH REDUCED ITALIANS & HUNGARIANS ROUTED. PROSPECTS IN CENTRE & NORTH. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, January 21. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent cables that the Russian’s 600-miles winter offensive in the south, which is entering its tenth week, is gathering momentum. Hitler's forces are threatened in the great central bases of their winter line— Rostov, Kharkov, and Kursk, besides North Caucasia. The Moscow correspondent of “The Times” says that the Russians in the south are carrying the battle westward into regions which the Germans can ill afford to lose if they hope to retain any of last summer’s gains, and they have already lost about half of the territory which was seized after the launching of the first attack from the Kursk salient last year. A feature of the mobile warfare on the Voronezh front is the utter routing of the Italians and Hungarians. The latter are brave in offensive warfare, but crack when the tide turns against them. In the north, Soviet successes in the Velikiye Luki sector, in which several more places were taken yesterday, have coincided with a deepening of the winter, says the Moscow correspondent of'“The Times.” All the German positions between White Russia and the Baltic Sea are menaced. It is important to remember that the frozen ground in the north will not permit of movements of mechanised forces for many months, but it gives ski-mounted troops, of whom the Russians have a vast number, a substantial advantage. FLOW OF SUPPLIES FROM UNITED STATES & BRITAIN. HUGE QUANTITIES SENT TO RUSSIA. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY .January 20. The United States Lend-Lease Department has released figures which reveal the increasing flow of American and British supplies to the Soviet Union. The goods sent in November, 1942, were 13 times greater than those sent in January, 1942, and to January 1 the United States had shipped more than 3200 tanks and 2600 planes—more than it shipped to the United Kingdom, or to any other military theatre under lend-lease. The United States also sent 81,000 trucks or other military motor-vehi-i i iiA i cles. ' Britain also supplied over 2600 tanks and 2000 planes. Shipments of food to the Soviet are also growing and the United States is sending more there than to Britain, as food is considered just as vital to Russia’s war effort as munitions of war.