OREL MENACED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 February 1943, Page 3

OREL MENACED

RUSSIAN ARMY CLOSING IN ON BASE GERMANS ADMIT BREACH IN LINES. STRUGGLE FOR UKRAINE CONTINUES. LONDON, February 26. The Red Army is steadily closing in on the great enemy base of Orel. Russian tanks are breaking through the deep defensive belt and Soviet troops following after them are clearing the enemy out of fortified villages and strongpoints. The Germans admit that the Russians have made breaches in their Ijnes north of Orel. The Russians report that tanks have broken through the main river defensive line south of the enemy Enemy counter-attacks are still hammering at the Russian defences round the key railway towns of Kramatorsk and Krasnoarmeisk'. The Germans are trying to push panzer wedges between the Russian positions but the Russians are cutting off the wedges before they can be broadened by infantry following the tanks. Both towns are still held by the Russians. In the western tip of the Kuban. Soviet troops have taken two more places, still further narrowing the enemy foothold on their bridgehead. Russian bombers are breaking the ice in the Kerch Straits to prevent the Germans sending men and supplies across. A number of gliders which the enemy is using as troop carriers have been shot down in the past 24 hours. BIG ATTACK REPORTED SOVIET PREPARATION FURTHER OFFENSIVE PLANNED. LONDON, February 26. Messages reaching Stockholm suggest that the Russians are on the eve of their greatest offensive on the central and northern fronts. The “Daily Telegraph s Stockholm correspondent says that the Russians are strongly attacking Gzhatsk, which is the cornerstone in the defences covering Vyazma and Smolensk. Bitter fighting is raging, with both sides throwing in strong forces of bombers and fighters. • » t Russian armoured units, infantry and endless supply columns are streaming to the front north to Rzhev and also at the southern and northern tips of Lake Ilmen. German bombers are doing their utmost to smash these columns, but the Russians have; strong fighter support, and lorries cruise beside the marching men, spreading smokescreens. . , Below Leningrad determined Russian attacks are reported north-east and south-east of Novgorod, which is a big German supply base. One column is driving down the Volkhov River valley toward Novgorod and another is attacking across the ice of Lake Ilmen. RUSSIAN PRESSURE CONTINUES ON WIDE FRONT. HITLER GAMBLING ON THAW. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.10 a.m.) RUGBY, February 26. Russian pressure evidently continues on a wide front, especially, between the Orel and Kharkov areas, against adverse conditions caused by the spread of a thaw northwards and against stiffening German resistance. Strong enemy resistance inside the Donetz Bend points to a refusal to accept the strategic implications of the loss oi Kharkov. By repeated counter-attacks with tanks, the Germans have managed so far to halt the Russian drive which threatened to close the western exit from the Donetz Basm and it seems that they still hope to delay the Russians by clinging to a cluster of industrial towns around Stalino without being surrounded there. The result is that strong German forces remain concentrated in the Inner Donetz ring while the Russians have foimed a much wider ring by pushing towards the Dneiper bulge. Hitler apparently is gambling on the present early thaw continuing and that the mud will bog the Russian advance until the early spring.