NAZIS TRAPPED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 July 1943, Page 4

NAZIS TRAPPED

IN THE OREL SALIENT RUSSIANS RELENTLESSLY CLOSING IN. THE MTSENSK SURPRISE. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.45 p.m.) LONDON, July 21. Ths Russians are gaining ground and continuing to hammer the German armies in most of the key sectors on the curving 500 miles front from Mtensk, north-east of Orel to Voroshilovgrad, in the Donetz Basing, but the fiercest fighting is still around Orel. The Russians, clearly determined again to trap thousands of Germans, are using the familiar smashes from north and south of the objective, which this time is the Germans’ escape railways from Orel to Bryansk. Reuter's Moscow correspondent says the Russians, besides reaching Ermolaevo, seven miles east of Orel, are also fanning out westwards towards the great German base of Bryansk. The Germans in the Orel sector are mainly supplied from Bryansk and the Russians are already shelling the supply line. A Russian tank column from the northwest, which captured Ilinskoe, has made a new advance and is now within five miles of the Studenkovo railway station. The Russians at the western end of the gap, north-west of Orel, now stand only 35 miles east-north-east of Bryansk. The Russians advancing towards the eastern gate of Orel are now 17 miles from the city, at Protasova. The Reuter correspondent continues that military observers in Moscow consider that Orel is practically in the bag now. The only question is how many Germans will be captured and how many will manage to escape through the ever-narrowing gap. The correspondent says the Germans are powerfully defending the railway leading to Bryansk. The Germans, on the whole length of the road and railway between the two cities, have a series of especially good airfields, with concrete runways, from which the Luftwaffe is constantly going into action. “The Times” Stockholm correspondent says the railway, and also a good parallel road, immediately south of the railway, are the sole arterial routes for German escape from the Orel pocket. It is now probably too late for the Germans to run the gauntlet, which is perhaps why there is no indication that they intend to do anything but stand and fight an already hopeless battle to the finish.

■ German troops whom it had been intended to send to Sicily, have been thrown into the fighting on the Russian front in an effort to stop the Russians from completing the encirclement of the German forces in the Orel area. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says this has been established by prisoners taken from one German division. A number of fresh divisions, thrown in against the northern arm of the giant Russian pincer around Orel, have been slashed. Fresh divisions, however, are still being sent up to the front. The Red Army took the Germans by surprise when it stormed into the fortress of Mtsensk and the troops of the German garrison suffered heavy losses as they tried to extricate themselves from what had become a death trap. The Russians, according to the “Red Star,” had already infiltrated through the German lines and almost surrounded the town before the artillery barrage preceding the final attack was laid down on the Mtsensk defences. The Russians were so quick that the Germans had no time to blow up bridges over the River Susha, which curls around the western side of Mtsensk.