OUTLOOK IN SOUTH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 March 1943, Page 3

OUTLOOK IN SOUTH

BETTER THAN FOR SOME TIME RUSSIANS IN PLACES STRIKING BACK. GERMANS SUFFER TREMENDOUS LOSSES. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, March 17. While the Red Army’s offensive on the central front continues to make good progress in face of stiffer opposition, today's news from southern Russia is better than for some time. The Russians are holding their positions on the middle reaches of the Donetz River and in places are beginning to strike back. A message from Moscow says that the Russians on the Donetz front have considerably improved their positions. They still hold their bridgeheads at Izyum and other points across the river. The Germans are suffering tremen-. dous losses in attacks which have been 1 backed by big armour, particularly yesterday, when Soviet tanks attacked a strong column of enemy tanks and motorised infantry and forced them to retreat. Today’s Moscow communique says that the fierce battles in this area are continuing. North-west of Kharkov the German attacks toward Kursk have not been making much progress. The Germans still report fighting near Sievsk. Moscow says that in another sector, where the Germans broke through the defences, the Russians surrounded and annihilated them. The Russians last night captured several more villages and towns on the central front and beat back two counter-attacks. They have now reached the branch railway from Nikitinka. On the north-western front the Russians have reached an important highway after destroying 86 blockhouses and have cleared the Germans out of a big forest. ORDEAL OF SOVIET TROOPS. Describing the difficulties in the Russian advance on the central front, Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says that General Koniev’s forces have been fighting continuously for nearly three weeks. Marching 20 miles a day through snow and slush, they have fought dozens of minor and many inajor engagements, including the battles of Rzhev, Gzhatsk, Sychevka, Byeloi and Viazma. The troops advancing south of Byeloi are working through miles of marshes which offer no protection from the wind or enemy observation. Those from the east are fighting in dense forests three feet deep in snow, where tanks cannot operate effectively. The Germans west of Viazma dynamited a river dam, causing the waters to rise six feet above the ice, but the Russians have crossed this obstacle. The strain of the fighting is terrific. The German forces in retreat are thickly mining their wake, and one Russian unit cleaned up 2000 mines in one day. Correspondents of “The Times” advise caution regarding the future of the campaign on the central front. The Moscow correspondent says that though substantial progress has been made toward Smolensk there is much difficult and strongly fortified country ahead. The Russian newspapers have not yet mentioned Smolensk as an objective. It is realised that Smolensk is as important to the Germans as Bryansk and Kharkov, and possession of it will be stubbornly contested. The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” says that assertions that Smolensk is immediately threatened are premature. It can safely be said that the Russians have no. chance of capturing the heavily fortified Smolensk zone before summer, because the Germans have the advantage of . positions in the Smolensk-Orsha-Vitebsk railway triangle with excellent rear communications, whereas the Russians are struggling forward mostly in a sea of mud. ACTIVE PARTISAN GROUP DERAILS 15 TRAINS IN ONE MONTH. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 16. The Moscow radio reports that a partisan group operating in the Minsk area inWhite Russia has derailed 15 military trains in one month. Nine railway engines and 212 railway wagons were wrecked, and many German officers and soldiers perished.