ARMY OF PARATROOPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 September 1943, Page 4

ARMY OF PARATROOPS

READY FOR VITAL PART IN RIVER BATTLE. SOME ALREADY IN ACTION. (Received This Day, 1 p.m.) LONDON, September 28. Tonight’s Soviet communique records advances of up to 13 miles in the Kremenchug direction, in which Potoki, five miles north-east, and Rublevka, 12 miles north-west of Kremenchug, were captured. In the Gomel direction the Russians advanced 6 to 9 miles and took Zyabrovka, 14 miles south-east, and Krasnayagora, 45 miles north-east of Gomel. Advances up to 15 miles were made in the Mohilev direction, and 12 miles in the Vitebsk direction. Excluding the large number of inhabited places captured on the left bank of the Dnieper, the Red Army today freed over 1.120 localities. The Moscow radio said Soviet planes of all types are providing enormous assistance to the troops at the approaches to the Dnieper. “They are intensifying blows against the Dnieper crossings to which the retreating Germans are rushing.”

Front line reports say a huge army of paratroops is forming up behind the Russian lines to join in the battle for the Dnieper. This will be the first major test for Russia’s great parachute army, probably the finest in the world. Already seme of these paratroops have landed beyond the western bank of the Dnieper, and they are contesting a German attempt to wipe out a bridgehead over the river established by Russian forces.