SHATTERING BLOWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 September 1943, Page 4

SHATTERING BLOWS

STRUCK BY RED ARMY AGAINST GERMAN LINES COVERING KIEV. INDICATIONS OF POSSIBLE ENEMY COLLAPSE! (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.40 p.m.) RUGBY, September 10. A clean breakthrough east of Kiev is reported from Moscow. A Press message says the Germans, clinging to fragments of their shattered lines, are fighting hopelessly, unaware that their main body has fled towards Piluki. Mention of this town in last night’s communique shows that the Russians may now be advancing, not only towards Kiev, but towards the Dnieper

crossing at Cherkasi. Piluki is 80 miles from both these important objectives. Isolated German garrisons were mopped up by Soviet special detachments. Other Russian forces swept on to the north-eastern approaches to Romay, half-way between Piluki and Sumy, _ where the Germans tried to reorganise their defence. Elsewhere in this area the Russians are reported to be continuing to advance, meeting only small enemy groups. . Meanwhile the Russians have suddenly driven forward towards Dniepropetrovsk. The capture of Dobropolye yesterday brought them only 20 miles south-east of Lozovaya, one of the junctions behind the recentlystabilised KhaYkov-Poltava sector. Here they are only 65 miles east of the Dnieper at its elbow, and a message this morning says the distance is 60 miles. The advance due west along the railway through Krasnoarmeisk has continued to Udachnoe, 80 miles east of Dnepropetrovsk. Thus the advance has been much faster across the northern half of the Donbas than the southern.

The Germans in the coast regions are being placed in the same danger which threatened and overtook their garrison at Taganrog. Moreover the Germans report a Russian landing on the coast of the Sea of Azov.

A British United Press correspondent says that a further deterioration of the German positions before Kiev and in the Southern Ukraine might lead to the engulfment of the German armies before they are able to retreat across the Dnieper. The Russians are now co-ordinating two mighty blows aimed at bringing the battle for the east bank of the Dnieper to a decision. The Russians today captured Petropavloka, 55 miles east of Dnepropetrovsk and the Dnieper bend, while the Russians in the North Ukraine, in addition to their drive against Kiev, fanned out in a north-westerly direction towards Chernigov. ‘The correspondent says the German defence system in the Kiev-Chernigov area is in a state approaching collapse. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent reports that the Russians have made a new advance of over 20 miles beyond Bakhmach and are now striking against Nezhin, the last vital railway junction before Kiev. The Berlin radio’s commentator, Captain Sertorius, tonight declared: “Apparently the period of elastic warfare has not concluded in the Donetz Basin.” He added that after non-stop assaults, the Red Army on the Bryansk front had again broken, through. Hard fighting was at present going on 111 or--1 der to seal off the breach.

The capture of Chaplino brought the Russians to little more than 50 miles from the Lower Dneiper, at Zaporozhe. Chaplino is only 35 miles from the main trunk railway between Kharkov and the Crimea.

The Germans thus far have been withdrawing from the Donetz Basin in a comparatively orderly manner, but now the Russians are behind them and a smaller-scale Stalingrad is in prospect. The German High Command faces the superhuman task’ of stemming two major break-throughs towards the Dnieper over a thousand mile front—the southern drive from Stalino towards Dnepropetrovsk and the northern drive from Bakhmach.