NO WAY OF RETREAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 July 1943, Page 4

NO WAY OF RETREAT

FOR GERMANS IN OREL BAG RUSSIANS REDOUBLING THEIR BLOWS. DEFEAT OF CRACK ENEMY TROOPS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day. 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, July 26. There seems little doubt in Moscow tonight that a Russian entry into Orel will occur within a matter of days, says the British United Press correspondent in Moscow. The Russians have cut all ways of retreat for the Germans inside the Orel bag except one narrow dirt road. The situation of the German force inside Orel is rapidly becoming critical. The Russians have not only cut the Bryansk-Orel Railway, but also have begun to shell the highway running parallel with the railway. All villages in the path of the German retreat are aflame and the inhabitants have taken to the woods. Huge fires are raging in the enormous forests in the Orel-Bryansk area. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent states that fresh Russian forces are redoubling the Red Army’s blows against Orel’s hedgehog defences. Two new Russian columns are moving from the north and west against the tough core of resistance south of Bolkhov. where the Russians yesterday threw the Germans out of six more fortified defence points on the Oka River. German reinforcements are still being thrown in to stiffen the dwindling garrisons of the defence points. Some German companies of 150 men have been reduced to 30 or 40 men.

The Russian attacks continue with undiminished vigour, states the Paris radio, quoting a German military report. The Germans say the centres of the attacks are the area of the Novorossisk bridgehead in the south, along the Mius and Middle Donetz, up to Byelgorod, in the centre, and from the Leningrad front to the north of the Orel salient. The Berlin radio stated that the Russians attempted to break through the Mius front and that the Germans sealed off two wedges driven into their lines.

The Moscow newspaper “Pravda” says the present series of German defeats in Russia is being suffered entirely by German crack troops. They cannot blame their failure of 1943 on to Italians, Hungarians and Rumanians. who are not participating in the offensive because they have not yet been made fighting fit after the blows the Red Army dealt them in the winter campaigns. The Germans are drawing on reserves and ever throwing fresh units into counter-attacks. They are also switching forces from one sector to another in a bid to close the gaps made on their defence line.