MAY BE TRAPPED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 September 1943, Page 4

MAY BE TRAPPED

LARGE GERMAN FORCES NARROW. LINE OF RETREAT FROM POLTAVA. RUSSIANS RACING TO CLOSE GAP. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.35 a.m.) LONDON, September 23. With the capture of Poltava, the Russians have eliminated the last great German strongpoint barring their progress towards the Dnieper, on the front from Chernigov to Pavlograd. Moscow correspondents, emphasising the importance of the capture, point out that, with the Russians astride the Poltava-Krecenchug Railway, only a single narrow road is available for moving German troops back to the Dnieper from Poltava. A British United Press correspondent says the fate of the German armies in the Poltava area depends on whether they can outrace the Russians to Kremenchug. If they cannot, large German forces may be trapped, because considerable reinforcements were thrown in to retain Poltava. , r>The Russians forced the Voskla River and fought a fierce three-day battle before capturing Poltava. Today’s German communique states that Poltava was abandoned according to plan, after the destruction of all installations. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says massed Russian bombers, after dawn today, carried out attacks on bridges in the Dnieper bend. Russian armies are at present taking up final positions foi an onslaught at Zaporozhe and Dnepropetrovsk.. IN EARLY PROSPECT BATTLE FOR THE DNIEPER CROSSINGS. RUSSIANS DRIVING SPEARHEADS TO RIVER. (Received This Day, 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, September 23. The Red Army, in its great drive towards the Dnieper, is liberating towns and villages at the rate o 40 an hour, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. Russian shells are now whistling over the Dnieper to the high western bank as the Russian vanguards drive spearheads to the river below Kiev and against the centre of the great Dnieper bend . , , The great Ukraine offensive has developed into a rapid investment of the Dnieper bridgehead cities of Kremenchug, Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhe, and the stage is now set for a battle preliminary to the crossing of the Dnieper itself. The Russians have 350 miles of river length from which to choose crossing places. The Germans are desuerately resisting as the battle nears the Dnieper. The enemy is covering all the road approaches and bridgeheads with massed cannon and mortar batteries. The Russians to the north have increased their threat to Smolensk by the capture of Unecha, a vital junction on the. Gomel-Bryansk railway, from which the Russians may eventually be able to outflank Smolensk from the south. The Germans are being inexorably expelled from the Kuban area, >says “The Times” Stockholm correspondent. A majority are escaping to Crimea by air, some in small craft from Temryuk and Taman Bays, and a few by a funicular railway across the Kerch Straits. If reports are true, Melitopol is almost isolated, and an exciting race must develop to cut off the German retreat through the Perekop Isthmus. The swiftness of the Russian advances has prevented the deportation of thousands of inhabitants. The Red Army is everywhere on the front from which the Germans retreated. The Germans poured fuel over grain fields and set fire to them and polluted wells by throwing in carcases of cats and dogs and even the bodies of executed peasants. Tonight’s Soviet communique reports that inhabited places totalling 860 have, been occupied in advances varying from three to 13 miles on all fronts. In the Kremenchug sector the large inhabited locality of Semenovka was taken, also Gogolev, on the Kiev front, Rachina, in the Smolensk sector, and the large locality of Ozanovo, ten miles north-east of Smolensk.