RETREAT FORCED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 July 1943, Page 4

RETREAT FORCED

ON GERMANS IN OREL AREA IN SPITE OF DESPERATE RESISTANCE. RUSSIANS OVERCOMING ALL OBSTACLES. (By Telegraph—Press Association' -Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.10 p.m.) LONDON, July 29. The German retreat south of Orel is continuing. The Red Army is relentlessly hammering the German rearguards and steadily breaking down the resistance the enemy is putting up from previously fortified villages and strategic heights. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says i hat, with the capture of the railway station of Stanovov Kolodetz, the Russian armies are now ten miles or less from Orel on three of the four railway lines leading to the city. The only railway station between Stanovov Kolodetz and Orel on the Kursk line is Stish, at which the Siberians who took Stanovov Kolodetz are now aiming. The Germans fiercely defended the approaches to Stanovov Kolodetz. They had anti-tank ditches, trenches and minefields for miles around it, and held up the Siberians for some days, in which hard battles were fought before the Germans were overcome and driven out.

“The Times” Stockholm correspondent says the Germans south of Orel are trying to prevent the Russian armies from sweeping northwards. The Russians in this area have captured additional villages, but developments in the past few days suggest that other Russian armies may besiege Orel before the Russians from the south and north manage to link up across the railway from Orel to Bryansk.