HALF DON BASIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 September 1943, Page 4

HALF DON BASIN

LOST BY THE GERMANS RUSSIANS PRESSING WESTWARD DRIVE. ENEMY BOMBER ATTACKS MET BY FIGHTERS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.52 a.m.) RUGBY, Setember 5. The Russian westward drive towards the Dneiper, between Bryansk and Poltava, was pressed on yesterday without a pause, and reached the east bank of the Desna River at Korop, whence, according to the latest Moscow messages, it proceeded south-westwards along the river. The spearhead is approaching another important lateral railway—that which connects the Bryansk front, via Gomel and Bakhmach, with the Lower Dneiper at Kremenchug. Simultaneously this new Russian salient has been broadened to north and south. As the Russians close in on Konotop, from the north-west and south-west, the Germans are concentrating large bomber forces, stated to have been withdraw/! from other fronts, in efforts to disorganise the advancing Soviet columns. Soviet fighter patrols, however, are providing a strong enough protection to save the ground forces from serious interference. In the Donetz Basin the capture of Gcrlovka gives the Russians possession of the hub of the close network of railways which for so long enabled the Germans to retain their hold on the industrial area. The German line now appears to run north and south, covering Slaviank, Stalino and Mariupol, so that half the famous Don Basin is now lost to them.

SUN OF VICTORY SHINING ON RUSSIANS. MASS EXPULSION OF GERMANS BEGUN. (Received This Day, 12.25 p.m.) LONDON, September 5. The Germans are now giving indications that they realise they may have to pull out of the Ukraine and the Don Basin. The British United Press Moscow correspondent reports that the Germans in the West Ukraine are loading unthreshed grain on trains and burning what is left. He adds that Stalino, although still v/ell within the German lines, is burning like aTorch. The enemy is believed to be burning the city preparatory to moving back. Tonight's Soviet communique states that the Russians in the Donetz Basin advanced six to nine miles and occupied over 120 inhabited places, including Artemovsk and also several other large inhabited localities and railway stations. Correspondents’ accounts emphasise that the Russians’ strongest pressure at present is against Konotop and Stalino. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says General Rokossovsky’s divisions, advancing from Rylsk and Glukhov, have driven deeper into the North Ukraine province of Chernigov. The Russians are now fighting only 130 miles from Kiev, the most westerly bastion of the Germans’ last great natural defence line. Battles are already being fought 60 to 80 miles from the former Russian front line. The ‘Red Star” says: ‘The mass expulsion of the Germans from the Ukraine has begun. The sun of victory is shining on us.”

ENEMY LOSSES TEN THOUSAND KILLED DAILY. IN ATTEMPT TO STEM SOVIET TIDE. (Received This Day, 1.10 p.m.) LONDON, September 5. The Red Army in the Donetz Basin is noV/ entering the zone conquered by the Germans in 1941. Reuter points out that about 30 to 40 days of fighting weather remain in most sectors before the autumn rains bog down tanks and planes. The Germans are losing an average of over 10,000 men daily in killed alone in struggling to stem the Soviet tide. The latest reports indicate that Hitler’s hold on the Northern Ukraine and the Donetz Basin is slipping hourly. A Russian communique says: .‘The Russians south of Bryansk advanced 5 to 8 miles and occupied over 50 inhabited places, including the large railway junction of Khutor Mikhelyovsky, 90 miles from Bryansk, on the BryanskKiev Railway. Also,' in the Konotop sector, they have advanced 4 to 6 miles a«d occupied over 100 inhabited places. The Red Army west and south-west of Kharkov, and on the Smolensk front, advanced and occupied several inhabited localities.” Reuter, commenting on the Russian communique, declares that the Russian push in the Donetz Basin is assuming huge proportions and points out that Khutor Mikhalyovsky, south of Bryansk, which the Russians have captured, is also the junction of a branch rail line running to Glukhov, which is already in Russian hands. The junction of Konotop, where the Bryansk railway joins the rail line from Kursk to Kiev, has been outflanked by the capture of Korop. New Russian advances are threateniong the junction of Bakmach, 18 miles west of Konotop, where the Kursk-Kiev line is cut' by a lateral railway from Gomel to Kremenchug.

RACE AGAINST TIME IN DRIVE TOWARDS DNIEPER. HEAVY RAINS DUE NEXT MOmn (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.45 p.m.) RUGBY, September 5. British and American correspondents in Russia have been visiting the battlefront near Kharkov. A Soviet staff officer told them that the Red Army was well satisfied with the way things were going on the Kharkov front and elsewhere, but. he said there would be hard going before they reached the Dnieper. Apart from strong German resistance, the Russians are racing against time. By next month, heavy rains will hold up all largescale movements. The German radio announced tonight that Marshal Goering was visiting his headquarters on the Eastern front.