OUTLOOK BAD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 March 1943, Page 4

OUTLOOK BAD

FOR GERMANS ON EAST FRONT IN SPITE OF RECAPTURE OF KHARKOV. ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE SOVIET FORCES. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, March 15. The victorious Russian drive in the central sector of the Eastern front, where the Red Army's spearheads pointing towards four keypoints in the defences of Smolensk is still counter-balanced by the grave news from the Ukraine, General Golikov's troops, fighting desperately against forces both numerically superior and employing a far greater weight of armour, appear to be still giving ground in the Kharkov area. Despite the menace the Germans are thus raising to the reconquered portion of the Ukraine, Reuter's Moscow correspondent emphasises, fighting along the whole front must be viewed in the right proportion. He says the German counter-offensive, even if it recaptures Kharkov (the evacuation of that city has now been announced by the RuSsians) is far less important than the Russian successes further north. The weight of the German offensive is provided by the use of thousands of escapees from the neighbourhood of Stalingrad, the Caucasus,. Kuban and Donetz, who have been reformed and re-equipped, and of fresh divisions from the west. The Germans possess excellent rail communications to their rear, while the Russians’ communications are tenuous passing over recent battlefields, where there has been no time fully to organise them. The Germans are losing heavily in their Donetz push. They are simultaneously being forced out of their defensive systems west of Moscow and south of Leningrad, which they have fortified for eighteen months. If the Red Army clears out the Germans to behind a line from Velikiye Luki to Orel, even if it does not capture Smolensk, it will have achieved what was seemingly impossible last year. ’ SOVIET HEADWAY ON THE CENTRAL FRONT. STAND LIKELY ON DONETZ ; EAST OF KHARKOV. it (Received This Day, 1.15 p.m.) 2 LONDON, March 15. * In their central offensive the Russians are still advancing, although gradually, hampered by the thaw. They crossed the Upper Dnieper near Zhirkovsk, 35 miles north-west of Viazma, "jvhich is a considerable achievement, because the right bank is dominated by strongly fortified heights. Flat, snow-covered fields are facilitating the encirclement of German strongpoints at the approaches to Nikitinka. The Russian thrust at the Viazma-Smol-ensk Railway has reached within 15 miles of the important railway junction of Durovo, which is also threatened by an advance northward. The Russian drive from Byeloi towards Yartsevo has progressed and a number of villages have been captured in the jpast 24 hours. Other Russian thrusts directed against Dorog, Obig and Yelfiia apparently are still unstemmed, although fresh German armoured and motorised infantry forces are being pushed into battle. The Russians seem confident that their advance will continue, concludes Reuter. With reference to the German capture of Kharkov, “The Times" Stockholm correspondent says the Russians appear to be gradually withdrawing their main forces to the Donetz River, 20 miles eastward, where General Golikov seerpingly intends to make a determined stand while regrouping his forces iji the rear. The “Daily Express” Stockholm correspondent'reports that Russian siege guns today opened a heavy bombardment of the Germans’ first defence line before Smolensk, the ch,ief pivot of Hitler’s hedgehog system on the central front. The defence line runs fifty miles eastward of Smolensk, with Durovo, which is General Koneik’s immediate objective, as its northern bastion, and Yelnia as its southern strongpoint.