IMPORTANT JUNCTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 September 1943, Page 3

IMPORTANT JUNCTION

TAKEN BY THE RUSSIANS . 75 MILES NORTH-EAST OF KIEV. PROGRESS BEYOND BRYANSK AND IN SOUTH. LONDON, September 15. The Russians today increased their threat to Kiev and have captured the railway junction of Niejin, 75 miles north-east of the Ukrainian capital. Marshal Stalin announces this success in an order of the day. He describes the place as the most important strongpoint in the enemy’s defeiices on the way to Kiev. The town, fell after two days of tierce fighting. Another Russian army is driving on towards the junction of Priluki, and further gains are reported on the Bryansk front, where more places have been captured, including one 25 miles north of Bryansk. Soviet advance forces have established themselves firmly on the western bank of the Desna River, and are at grips with the German troops left behind in Bryansk to carry out demolition work. In the Lower Ukraine, the Russians have advanced up to 10 miles in several places and liberated between 200 and 250 towns and villages. This evening .the Germans stated that Soviet troops had penetrated to the north-eastern suburbs of Novorossisk, on the Black Sea coast. RIVER BATTLE SOVIET TROOPS WIDENING BRIDGEHEAD. ON WEST BANK OF DESNA. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.50 a.m.) RUGBY, September 15. The Red Army has forced a new crossing of the River Desna and is swelling the forces engaged in battle with the Germans on the west bank. By day and night, ferries, rafts, canoes and boats bore masses of men and equipment across the wide and deep water, despite intensified Luftwaffe operations. As the Soviet bridgehead was widened hour by hour on the west bank, the Germans launched furious counter-attacks, totalling 25 in one sub-centre alone. Three hundred German •tommy-gunners were mown down by Soviet rifles and machine-gun fire. The heaviest fighting was between the separate bridgeheads which the Red Army is steadily widening out along the river, in order to create a single massive vantage ground in the area of Novgorod and Seversky (half-way between Bryansk and Niejin). It is in the Niejin area on the Kiev-Konotop railway that one of two main thrusts towards Kiev is developing. The other, 50 miles south, is clearly defined, but seems to be aiming at the Ukrainian capital along l the Poltava-Kiev line. Heavy rains in the Pavlograd direction have slowed up the operations which are completing the liberation in the Kharkov region. Soviet tanks and motorised infantry have been badly hit by the rains, but infantry units are taking up the fight by night as well as by day.