VICTORIOUS THRUSTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 September 1943, Page 3

VICTORIOUS THRUSTS

RED ARMY MAKING RAPID HEADWAY

a 0 Important Base of Sumy Captured THREAT TO SMOLENSK & OTHER STRONGHOLDS DEVELOPING APACE ENEMY DEFENCES CRUMBLING IN DONETZ BASIN LONDON, September 2.'. There is more great news from Russia tonight. In a special order of the day, Marshal Stalin announces the capture of Sumy, 100 miles north-west of Kharkov. In the Donetz Basin important places have been captured. On the Sea of Azov the Russians are only 25 miles east of Mariupol, and in the Smolensk area more than 100 places have been liberated. The Russians threaten the retreating Germans with even greater deefats. Smolensk and Stalino are menaced by massed Russian drives. Kiev is being rapidly approached by the victorious Red Army troops. , The capture of the big German base'and rail centre of Sumy was celebrated in Moscow with another salvo of guns. Sumy is the .most southerly point in a general advance on a wide front, which stretches north-westward in a great arc for 80 miles'. All along this arc the Russians made very rapid progress today. The Russians have cut the railway to Bryansk. In the centre of the arc they have captured numerous towns and a long stretch of railway. Soviet forces are making a two-pronged drive on Smolensk, the most important enemy base in the whole of Russia. One army, driving down a railway, is 40 miles away and the other, fighting forward along the main road from Moscow —along which Napoleon’s armies retreated—is reported to be 50 miles from Smolensk. A further advance of three to six miles and the capture of over 100 towns and villages are reported. The Germans are still putting up a stiff resistance. The German defences in the Donetz appear to be crumbling. On the Sea of Azov, the Russians are only 25 miles from Mariupol. This advance along the sea coast has undermined the entire German defences in the Eastern Donetz Basin, which now form a deep bulge into the Russian line. The Russians, breaking across the Donetz River, have advanced many miles into the heart of the basin. The German defences collapsed .under the sudden Russian stroke and at the end of the day the Soviet forces were 20 miles nearer to Stalino, which is now threatened from the north-east, east and south-east.