RED ARMY BROOM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 September 1943, Page 4

RED ARMY BROOM

SWEEPING GERMANS OUT OF DONETZ BASIN GOOD PROGRESS ON ALL FRONTS. OFFICIAL & OTHER REPORTS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, September 6. The Red Army broom continues to sweep the Germans from positions they had long held in the Donetz Basin, and with a continuance of the present rate of the Russian advance the Germans will be out of the Donetz Basin in a few days, says “The Times” Stockholm correspondent. Tonight’s Soviet communique records the capture of the town and railway junction of Kramatorskaya and the town of Slavyansk. In this Donbas offensive the Russians have advanced 9 to 15 miles and occupied over 100 inhabited localities. In the Bakhmach direction the Russians have advanced 6 to 13 miles and occupied over 100 inhabited localities, including the large railway junction town of Konotop. The communique adds: “The Russians south of Bryansk advanced 9 to 12 miles and occupied over 90 inhabited localities, including several large centres. The Russians west and south-west of Kharkov fought offensive engagements and occupied several inhabited localities, considerably improving their positions. In the Smolensk direction also the Russians have fought engagements for the improvement of their positions.” A Berne report says the Germans have begun to evacuate Stalino.

THREAT TO STALINO RUSSIANS WITHIN THREE MILES. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.30 a.m.) RUGBY, September 6. Over half the Don Basin has been liberated from the Nazis, including the entire Voroshilovgrad region, and the Red Army is now nearing the approaches to Stalino, says a Moscow message. According to a military observer of the Soviet News Agency, one Soviet group is only three miles east of the city.

POLICY OF DESTRUCTION PURSUED BY RETREATING GERMANS. » MINES & INFERNAL DEVICES. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.0 a.m.) RUGBY, September 6. The retreating Germans in the Don Basin are attempting to carry out a policy of complete destruction of military and industrial objects and private dwellings, but frequently are outmanoeuvred and compelled to leave intact not only abandoned places, but also their own equipment and supplies. Mines have become a major weapon of the retreating Reichswehr to slow up the advance of the pursuing Russians. The Germans are using at least five types of anti-tank mines. The latest have three detonators, two of which are calculated to blow up while a sapper is de-fusing the top one. At the de-mining headquarters in Kharkov, Colonel Alexander Tserlin, of the engineers, said Soviet sappers have exploded or de-fused more than 70,000 mines at the approaches to Kharkov. The Germans are using in addition infernal devices which hardly belong to the category of mines. They also have in action flame-throwers which shoot flames for a distance of 30 yards with great pressure created by internal explosion. “The Germans are mining .everything, including pianos, toys, corpses and bicycles, but fortunately many of the German mine-layers are new men, brought into a constantly perfecting art,” Colonel Tserlin told a correspondent.