DOUBLE VICTORY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 August 1943, Page 3

DOUBLE VICTORY

CELEBRATED IN MOSCOW OCCUPATION OF OREL & BYELGOROD RAPID THRUSTS RED ARMY. ATTEMPT TO CUT ENEMY LINE OF RETREAT. LONDON. August 5. Jn an order ol' Ihe day. Marshal Stalin confirms the news of the capture of Ore] and announces that the Russians have <dso captured Byelgorod. In honour of this double Russian victory. 12 salvoes will be fired by 120 guns in M'oscow 1 onight.

Russian troops are mopping up enemy remnants in and around Orel and the Red Army is thrusting rapidly to the north-west and south-west ot the city in an attempt to cut the enemy’s line<of retreat. Long-range bombers attacked Bryansk and did much damage to tanks, supply trains and other objectives. ’ A Soviet communique reports (according to a British Official Wirless message) that much booty was captured round Orel, including in one sector 11,000 shells, 2,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition, and more than IGb machine-guns. Soviet long-range aircraft on Tuesday night heavily attacked the railway

junction at Bryansk and other targets

in the enemy’s rear, including railway trains, ammunition dumps, enemy concentrations and aerodromes on which the enemy had concentrated a large number of planes, many of which were destroyed.

SOVIET WOUNDED

79 PER CENT GO BACK TO FIRING LINE. HIGH PROPORTION OF COMPLETE RECOVERIES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, August 4. The Russian Army has suffered 4 500,000 casualties to date, but 70 per cent of the wounded go back to the firing line completely recovered. This fact was revealed by a member of a mission of British surgeons who have just completed a three weeks’ tour in Russia.

One member, Mr G. Rock Carling, who is consultant adviser to the Ministry of Health, said: “There is no shortage of women nurses in Russia, and 50 per cent of the army doctors are women.”