GERMAN TRIBUTES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1943, Page 4

GERMAN TRIBUTES

TO POWER OF RUSSIAN ATTACKS UNSURPASSED VIOLENCE. AND UNPRECEDENTED MASSES OF MATERIAL. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.25 p.m.) (LONDON, August 11. Heavy fighting, in which the Russians clearly are gaining ground, and inflicting heavy casualties, continues in the Kharkov and Bryansk areas, which are still the most active parts of the Russian front.

The Germans, in a series of admissions that the battle is not going well for them in Russia, have permitted the German news agency’s military commentator to broadcast that: “Big Russian attacks continue, with a violence which could hardly be surpassed. The Russians’ intention to force a decision’ this year is becoming more evident. They are trying to force a break through with masses of material of a magnitude quite unknown hitherto.” Although Russian sources do not mention the area, the Germans continue to refer to heavy Russian blows south-west of Viazma, approximately 50 miles from the Bryansk-Smolensk railway. A German news agency correspondent, describing the struggle south-west of Viazma, claimed that the Russians nad concentrated the most modern military equipment on a scale not previously witnessed on the Eastern front.

Tonight’s Soviet communique reports that the Russians in the Bryansk area advanced three to six miles and occupied over 70 inhabited localities. In the Kharkov direction Russian troops advanced ten to twelve miles and occupied over 50 inhabited localities, including the towns of Akhtyrka' and Krasnokutsk. The Russians also captured several railway stations and cut the railway line running south-west from Kharkov to Poltava.