BEGINNING OF END

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 September 1943, Page 4

BEGINNING OF END

PERCEIVED BY RUSSIANS DRIVE TO THE DNIEPER GATHERING PACE. GIANT STRIDES BEING MADE TOWARDS KIEV. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.35 p.m.) LONDON, September 9. While the Russian southern armies are 80 miles beyond Stalino, columns farther north are pressing on towards Kiev with giant strides. A column advancing from Konotop, by the capture of Bakhmach, made a substantial gain. The “Red Star” says: “Kiev tonight can hear guns. This is not a mere battle; it is the expulsion of the enemy from our country. We for the , first time feel the beginning of the end.” General Rokossovsky, commander ol the Don Army which broke the German defence ring at Stalingrad, directed the action against Bakhmach. The Russian advance guards, chasing the fleeing Germans beyond Stalino, arc now within 60 miles of the Dnieper. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent reports that the Russians arc pushing quickly on from Krasnoarmeisk along two railways, leading to the Dnepropetrovsk, which is the key to the Dnieper bend and the hub of the Ukrainian railway system. Reuter says advanced Red Army units are only forty miles from Povlograd, 30 miles north-east of Dnepropetrovsk, and that the capture of Pavlograd would cut the vital railway from Kharkov to Zaporozhe and thence to Militopol and the Crimea. Reuter says the Russians on entering Stalino found the main street aflame from end to end and, thought the city was completely destroyed, but soon doors and windows elsewhere opened cautiously and the inhabitants came out, eager for the first sight for two years of the Red Army uniform. The Russians for a week have not mentioned the situation on the Bryansk front, but the Berlin radio tonight reported a Russian break through. The announcement was: “The Russians in the Bryansk sector, throwing in powerful tank and infantry forces, breached the main German line, but German infantry counter-attacked and repulsed the enemy.” _____