RAPID PROGRESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 September 1943, Page 3

RAPID PROGRESS

MADE BY SOVIET FORCES IN DRIVE ON DNIEPER & DESNA GROWING THREAT TO KIEV & DNEPROPETROVSK LONDON. September 22. The Russians have started a successful new drive towards the Dnieper and are now within eight miles of the river and are less than 15 miles from the big town of Cherkasy, on the southern flank of the Russian wedge pushing towards Kiev. They have also taken the town of Oster on the Desna, 40 miles north of Kiev.

The continued progres on all sectors from Smolensk to the Black Sea includes a number of important gains in the direction of Gomel. Two hundred towns and villages have been captured, including a place on the main BryanskGomel railway. The Russians have also advanced several miles in the direction of Dnepropetrovsk and have captured a railway town 16 miles north-east of the city. In the extreme south, Soviet forces have captured the Black Sea port of Anapa. This narrows the German bridgehead in the Kuban to 27 miles and leaves the enemy holding only a marshy lagoon area. A German military spokesman, receiving the foreign Press in Berlin yesterday, admitted that the German withdrawal in Russia was now a “largescale retreat,” caused by a shortage of reserves and the Allied landings in Italy. GOMEL THRUST COSSACK PATROLS REACH DNIEPER LONDON, September 22. A Russian communique for the first time indicates a thrust in the Gomel direction. The threat to this important railway junction comes mainly from the south-east, where the Germans are offering hard resistance. The Red armies have broadened the line of their advance toward Kiev to 100 miles, threatening to outflank it. With the fall of Chernigov, Hiller must now pin both his hopes and his intuition on the Dnieper barrier, 30 miles away. Chernigov did not fall without a bitter struggle. The Desna River is broad at this point, and German artillery barrages covered both banks. It took the Russians three days to get enough men across to outflank the. Germans, who even then did not retire. A correspondent says that Cossack patrols ahead of the main Russian forces on the Dnieper bend sector have already refreshed their horses in the waters of the great river. The Moscow radio says that Soviet aircraft last night, without loss, bombed the railway junctions of Vitebsk, Gomel and Jankoi, scoring direct hits on several ammunition-laden trains, which blew up. SOVIET CITIZENS RELEASED FROM GERMAN BONDAGE LONDON, September 22. Soviet forces in the forest areas between Bryansk and Chernigov freed 100,000 Soviet citizens whom the Germans were driving to Germany for forced labour and also 20,000 on a sector of the Poltava front. MORE CAPTURES ON SEVERAL MAIN FRONTS, (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.40 a.m.) RUGBY. September 22. A Soviet communique states: “The Russians took Oster, Peroyaslav, Zotonosha and 180 other places in the Diev direction. North-west of Smolensk they took Demidov and 50 places. Towards Dnepropetrovsk, 90 places, including Novomoskovsk, were taken. A six to eleven mile advance was made in the Poltava sector. In the Gomel direction, Pochen and Starodub were taken.” The communique also announces the capture of Anapa.