GERMAN LINES BROKEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 August 1943, Page 3

GERMAN LINES BROKEN

SPECTACULAR RUSSIAN ACHIEVEMENT. IMPORTANCE OF NEW ADVANCE. (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) LONDON. August 20. The narrowing of the Germans’ escape corridor southwards from Kharkov, between the converging arms of the Russian belt around the city to thirteen miles, was achieved by the Russians' spectacular break through m a sector south-west of Kharkov and west of Smiyev. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says:. "This new advance brought the Russians several miles nearer Kharkov’s southern suburbs, which means that the city is now dangerously threatened from the north and east and south. This latest Russian ad-' vance has also brought another great advantage—the last single railway line southwards and south-westwards to Losavaya and Dnepropetrovsk is now within range of the Red Army’s heavy artillery. The Russians are fiercely pounding the line from the ground and the air.

Describing how the Russians effected their newest advance, the British United Press correspondent says the Germans, after the Russians overran Smiyev, retreated to strongly prepared positions farther west. The Russians blanketed these with a terrific artillery and air bombardment. Red Army tanks followed up with repeated attacks, which so battered the remaining defences that the infantry were able to pour through the gaps created. The Russians and Germans in the Briansk sector, according to Moscow correspondents’ accounts, are now apparently settled down to bitter close-quarter fighting in swampy ground each of Briansk, where tanks are almost useless, medium artillery, mortars and machine-guns principally being employed, although even these are difficult to move up. Russian sappers are building roads of logs.