SERIOUSLY MENACED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 September 1943, Page 4

SERIOUSLY MENACED

4 GERMANS IN CRIMEA AND OTHER SOUTHERN AREAS RUSSIANS WITHIN 40 MILES. OF ENEMY’S LAST ESCAPE RAILWAY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.5 p.m.) LONDON, September 12. The Russians in their irresistible advance from the Donetz Basin, are now definitely threatening to cut off the German armies in the Kuban bridgehead, the Crimea and the south-west Donetz region. The British United Press correspondent says the Russians who are approaching the Dnieper bend are now less than 40 miles from the single railway which the Germans must use for evacuating their troops from the Kuban bridgehead, from the Crimea and from the south-west Donetz area. Four Red Army columns —from Mariupol, Chaplino, Petropavlovka and Barvenkova—are surging towards the Dnieper as fast as vehicles can carry them. The Germans, in face of this grave threat to the whole of their armies in the south, are expected to make a last-ditch stand on the east bank of the Dnieper, in the Zaporozhe area. The Germans, in their defence of their last railway line, will be handicapped by the threat overhanging Losovaya, Pavlograd and Vishenvetsk.oye, which are the last three junctions on the Kharkov-Zaporozhe railway still in German hands. The Russians are now a little over 20 miles from each of these three junctions. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says the Russian drive towards the Dnieper bend, on the arc from Kharkov to the Sea of Azov, continues unchecked. The Russian’s spearheads at the northern end of the arc are 15 miles from Pavlograd, and 45 miles from Dnepropetrovsk. Cossacks and tanks, on the southern arc, are advancing towards Zaporozhe, which is the sole escape bridge for the Germans in the Crimea. The correspondent also reports that the Red Army is within 15 miles of Nyejin, the final railway junction on the road to Kiev.

The Russian Army is maintaining its pressure against Kiev from the northeast. The British United Press says the Russians in the Nyejin sector are less than 100 miles from Kiev. The Red Army has continued to advance on the’Kursk-Kiev railway, while further advances towards Beresiria, northwards of the line, and towards Priluko, southwards of the line, have guarded the Russian flanks against counter-attacks. TRIPLE THREAT TO BRYANSK. Bryansk is endangered from three separate Russian thrusts. Firstly, the Russians, from the north, are within 20 miles of the Bryansk-Smolensk railway; secondly, the Russians, from the east, after some of the toughest fighting of the war, have pentrated dense forests and are now within striking distance of the town; thirdly, the Russians, from the south, have forced the Desna River at several places and are pressing on towards Bryansk. Reuter reports that two Russian forces pressing north and south from Roslovl are threatening to cut off Bryansk from the rear and to bisect the railway to Smolensk. The German news agency admits that Russian detachments have pentrated the German line south of Roslovl, but- claims that the detachments were wiped out in a new flank attack. Tonight’s Soviet communique states that the Red Army west and southwest of Stalino advanced 6 to 8 miles and occupied over 50 inhabited places, including the district centre of Staryermenchik, and in the Priluko sector advanced 5 to 12 miles and captured over 70 places, including Gadyach, The Red Army, in the Nyejin sector advanced 6 to 7 miles and occupied 20 inhabited localities and in the Roslovl sector advanced 4 to 5 miles and captured over 60 places. Conducting an offensive on the Bryansk front, the Russians advanced in some sectors from 21 to 3.} miles and occupied over 40 inhabited places, including several railway stations, one of which is 12 miles east of Bryansk. A German communique claims that the Russians who landed in the western part of Novorossisk Harbour were annihilated in bitter battles and adds that fighting continues in the eastern part of the port. A German High Command statement, quoted by the Berlin radio, says the Russians constantly bring in more reinforcements on the coastal road south-east of Novorossisk. Bitter battles are raging in the eastern Novorossisk region. Fighting is increasing in intensity west of Krymskaya, and on both sides of the Kuban bridgehead.