FURTHER GROUND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 July 1943, Page 3

FURTHER GROUND

GAINED BY THE RUSSIANS IN OREL AND OTHER AREAS ADVANCES OF THREE TO FIVE MILES. ENEMY COUNTER-ATTACKS REPELLED. LONDON. July 23. A Moscow conininiiiciue reports advances by Russian troops on several sectors oi the front. The Orel area is .still the scene of the heaviest fighting. Today, Soviet forces continued to fight their way forward, gaining rather more than three miles of ground. Further south, between Kursk and Kharkov, where the German army earlier this month drove a wedge into ’ the Russian defences. Soviet troops have broken enemy resistance and counter-attacks and advanced up to five miles in some places. In the Donetz Basin, fighting of local importance continues. The Red Army has improved its positions both to the south of the Isyum bridgehead and south-west of Voroshilovgrad. The communique also reports local fighting in the Kuban Country, where Soviet troops have improved their positions. . , , The Germans again speak of violent attacks by Soviet forces at the other end of the front, near Leningrad, but there is still no news of this from Moscow. The Germans are suffering heavy losses. Moscow states that yesterday in the Ore area alone. 92 German tanks were crippled or destroyed and 112 aircraft shot down.

GLOOM IN BERLIN GERMANS BEING PREPARED FOR MORE SETBACKS. HINTS OF COMING RETREATS. LONDON. July 22. The German High Command and Press are busy preparing the population for news o further serious setbacks in Russia, i says the British United Press correspondent at Beine. The Berlin correspondent ol the Neuc Zu cher Zeitung” says that the GermanJWl Command is now talking about a mobiK defence phase" which usually precedes newj of further retreats. The High Command also talks of the possibility of abandoning what are called “mere strips of territory Reuter's Stockholm correspondent says that the latest dispatches from Berlin indicate that the name of Stalingrad is on everybody’s lips in the city, where German withdrawals on the eastern front are expected. German propaganda has spent muc 1i time cn preparing the home front toi setbacks, and the atmosphere is 1 o like the gloom prevailing before the Stahngiad disaster. Berliners murmur the word 'otalmgrad" because Nazi propaganda has been desperately insisting that no comparison mu c t be made with that debacle. Reuter adds that reports from German front-line correspondents confirm the new. of German withdrawals, and foi the fust time they indicate that the German troops have been demoralised. One war lepoiei writes- “Psychologically the situation is most tense because the individual soldier does not Understand why he has to abandon territory which was previously captured yaid by yaict in extremely heavy fighting."

ALMOST HOPELESS POSITION OF THE GERMANS AT OREL. RUSSIANS ONLY FIVE MILES FROM CITY. (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) LONDON, July 23. The Russians have reached points only five miles from Orel in their drives from north-west and east of the city. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says the German position at Orel is now almost hopeless. Russian dive-bombers south of Orel are actively attacking German panzer units. GAINING MOMENTUM SOVIET ATTACKS IN SOUTH. ALSO IN NORTH ACCORDING TO GERMANS. (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, July 23. The Berlin radio said the Red Army attacked on a broad front south of Lake Ladoga yesterday, after an artillery barrage lasting for several hours. The Swedish newspaper “Svenska Dagbladet s Berlin correspondent reports that the Russians have launched a very strong offensive in the eastern sector of the Leningrad front and adds that the whole of the Russian front is now in motion. Russian tank columns on the southern front are pouring westward through four bridgeheads on the western bank of the Donetz River. According to the ‘Red Star, positions that have been wrested from the Get - mans on the west bank of the not th Donetz can be called the key to the Donetz Basin. From those favourablysituated heights, which the enemy had strongly fortified. Red Army men can see into the Ukrainian plains, says the -Red Star.”

The Exchange Telegraph's Moscow correspondent says the Germans are using Tiger tanks south of Izyum in attempts to recapture lost ground, but all their counter-attdeks have been repulsed. The Russians retain the initiative in the fighting, which has all the indications of an impending offensive. The Germans are counter-attacking almost continuously, in attempts to hold back the Russians from Orel. They are still bringing in fresh troops, including Alpinists and police formations, says the British United Moscow correspondent, who adds that the Russians in the Byelgorod sector are beginning their own drive towards Byelgorod. They are advancing across a virtual cemetery of piles of corpses of crack German troops, who were poured into the Byelgorod offensive earlier this month. ‘The Times” Stockholm correspondent says that, with the capture of the Mtsensk and Boikov strongholds, the Russians have greatly shortened their enveloping lines, freeing strong forces of men and material for the actual reduction or isolation of Orel. The Germans have been observed transporting materials to Bryansk from Orel, which might merely be a precautionary measure, but for the changed tone of the German reports and explanations, which harp on the elastic nature of German campaigning in 1943, entailing the ceding of territory, “in order to wear down the enemy” Reuter declares that Boikov was a big loss to the Germans When the Germans found themselves directly threatened, they mounted a series of heavy counter-attacks. The Russians 'for a week fought their way towards

Boikov until yesterday they cut the garrison's last remaining line of escape. The Moscow radio reports a successful Russian attack in the Kuban area, south-west of Krasnodar. The Paris radio's commentator, Jean Pacquis, declared that the time of brilliant (Axis) conquests on the Eastern front has passed. Nobody in Berlin, he says, denies the vital importance of the outcome of the battle for Orel. The Axis is now cn the defensive on the Eastern front, but this dees not necessarily mean that the Germans will not be able to regain the initiative.

IN FULL RETREAT THROUGH NARROWING WAY OF ESCAPE. GERMANS ON OREL-KURSK FRONT. (Received This Day. Noon.) LONDON. July 23. The Germans are falling back on the two main sectors of the OreiKursk front, closely pursued by the Russian troops. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent reports that the Germans are retreating in the Orel sector and that the position of the city itself is regarded as almost hopeless. The Germans further south are in full retreat along the road which follows the direction of the KaskByelgorod Railway to Kharkov. Converging Russian armies have narrowed the corridor linking Orel with the west to 20 miles. Russian tanks and mobile columns, pouring through Boikov, arc already miles along the highway running southwards. Other Russian columns, moving southwestwards from Mtsensk. arc likely to cut off the majority of the retreating Germans before they gain the safety of the Orel defences. One Russian force which has already penetrated as far as Shumova, half-way between Boikov and Orel, constitutes a dangerous spearhead pointing at the fleeing German forces. The vital OrelBryansk Railway is under Russian artillery fire and Russian patrols have cut it at several points. It is believed that the railway already is of no further value as a means of transport for German troops. The Russian advance from the north apparently is not only directed at cutting the railway. but also at the great. German stronghold of Bryansk itself.