GERMAN CORPSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 February 1943, Page 3

GERMAN CORPSES

UTTERING ALL ROADS WEST OF VORONEZH RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE GAINING SPEED. FURTHER IMPORTANT GAINS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, February 5. Despite a stiffer German resistance, the Russians’ twin offensive against the Kharkov-Kursk railway line, and against the remnants of the German strongholds in the Caucasus is still mounting in fury. The Germans have rushed up reinforcements’ from deep in the Ukraine to support the defenders of the centre, biit General Vatoutin’s advance is still gaining momentum, while General Yeremenko’s troops are preparing to assault Bataisk, Rostov’s last Caucasian bastion. A Moscow despatch states that the gap through which the Germans are able to escape 'from the Caucasus to Rostov is nbw reduced to 15 miles. General Golikov instill driving on speedily, exploiting the capture of Tim and Shigry' for loosening the hinge of the’ German central and southern defensive‘systems ait Kursk. Three powerful Russiah columns are bearing down on the Kursk railway about 20 miles from the city, as flanking support for the thrusts from the west. The occupation of Tim is most important, because it controls five roads radiating to Shigry, Kursk, .the KurskKharkov railway and the ValuikaStornoie railway, giving the Russians key strategic positions against Kursk, upon which-the German defenders, are being driven back, with the possibility of the advance acting as a lever for the reduction of Kharkov. Simultaneously, General Vatoutin’s forces have broadened the front against Kharkov by the capture of Dvurechnaya and Borovaya, whereby they tore up one of the strongest German defence lines along the east bank of the Oskol River. Here both sides had mustered all arms for a battle, but the Russian gunners devastatingly smashed the enemy fortifications, the Soviet infantry clinching the assault with the bayonet. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent reports that German corpses litter all the roads from Voronezh westwards. The Red Army is tightening its ring around the trapped German forces, which, according to captured German officers, are facing an acute shortage of food and munitions. One force, trapped west of Voronezh, was completely annihilated in a large inhabited locality south-east of Semlyanka Stornois. BRILLIANT VICTORY .ROOSEVELT’S MESSAGE. | TO STALIN. TRIBUTE TO RUSSIAN ARMIES & PEOPLE. WASHINGTON, February 4. I “As Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States, I congratulate you on the brilliant victory at Stalingrad of the armies under your supreme command,” said President Roosevelt in a message to M. Stalin. “The 162 days’ epic battle for the city which has forever honoured your name and the decisive results which all Americans are celebrating today, will remain one of the proudest chapters in this war of the peoples united against Nazism and its emulators. “The commanders and fighters of your armies at the front and the men and women who supported them in factory and field combined not only to

cover with glory their country’s arms, but to inspire by their example fresh determination among all the United Nations to bend every energy to bring about the final defeat and unconditional surrender of the common enemy.”

FEARS OF DISASTER BETRAYED BY NAZI HIGH COMMAND. INSTRUCTIONS TO UNITS ' ENCIRCLED. LONDON, February 5. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says that the German High Command’s fear of another Stalingrad disaster in the . Caucasus is shown by a captured divisional order instructing all big units being overrun and encircled to break up into small units and try to break through by filtration rather than by strength. The Russians have captured Dvurechnaya, 12 miles north of Kupyansk, Borovaya, 22 miles south of Kupyansk, and the railway station at Kilpny, 50 miles north-east of Kursk. South of Rostov, the 'Russians have captured the large railway junction of Minskaya, 35 miles from Yeisk, Kanevskaya, 50 miles due west of Tikhoratsk on the Krasnodar (or Krosno-grad)-Minskaya railway, bringing the Russians within about 20 miles of the Sea of Azov.