ON THE RUN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 August 1943, Page 3

ON THE RUN

GERMANS ON THE KHARKOV FRONT ESCAPE GAP NARROWING. GOOD SOVIET PROGRESS ALSO TOWARDS BRYANSK. LONDON, August 9. The Russians are forging steadily ahead in I lie Bryansk and Kharkov areas and many more towns and villages have been liberated. A Soviet communique states that on the Kharkov front Red Army columns pushing on from Byelgorod advanced from 10 to 15 miles today and recaptured more than 100 inhabited places. On the Bryansk front, an advance of 3£ to 7 miles was recorded and more than 80 places were reoccupied, including an important town 25 miles west of Orel on the railway to Bryansk. On all fronts yesterday the Russians knocked out 69 German tanks and brought down 80 enemy planes. The booty taken on the Kharkov front on Saturday and Sunday included 212 tanks, 139 guns, more than 100 mortars and nearly 600 lorries. The Red Army is keeping the Germans on the run in its great offensive against Kharkov, another message! states. Continuing their remarkable push over a 60-mi!e front, the Russians yesterday captured the town of Bogodukov, north-west of Kharkov and have advanced a further 10 miles to the west, and they have also reached a point 16 miles north-tvest of the suburbs, of Kharkov. Another spearhead, striking to the north-west, is just over 20 miles from the important town of Sumy. As a result of the fast-developing offensive the Germans in Kharkov now have an escape gap about 50 miles wide to the south only. All three railway lines leading north and north-west from Kharkov have now been cut by the Russians. The two other main lines are still open, but most of the great railway system of which Kharkov is the centre is now in Russian hands. Reuter points out that the capture of Bogodukov, which Moscow officially announces, has cut the Khar-kov-Sumy railway.

GRIM OUTLOOK FOR NAZIS. A German military commentator admitted that the German armies arc facing a grim situation in Russia, especially on the Bryansk front, where their power of resistance is very heavily strained. He attributed the Rus 1 - sians’ success to the masses of tanks and artillery they had been able to concentrate. He described the number of guns the Russians had put into the field as extraordinary. The Red Army newspaper “Red Star” has issued a special call to the guerillas in White Russia (to the west of Smolensk) to prepare for new battles. “The echo of our guns, roaring beyond Orel and Byelgorod, is being heard at Kiev and on the Dnieper and Dvina,” it says, and, addressing “the three millions of White Russians under the German heel,” it adds, “We- are coming soon.” The “Red Star” says the Germans left Byelgorod a man-made wilderness. The Germans had posted evacuation notices in the town ordering the population to leave by July 29, and with bloodhounds they tracked down inhabitants who were hiding in cellars and woods and forced them to trek to Kharkov.