PRESSURE KEPT UP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 October 1943, Page 3

PRESSURE KEPT UP

SOVIET DRIVE INTO WHITE RUSSIA POSSIBILITY OF SPLITTING GERMAN FORCES. NORTH AND SOUTH OF PRIPET MARSHES. LONDON, October 3. 'The Russians report steady progress in their drive into White Russia. A Moscow communique records advances of three to six miles in various sectors in the Gomel and Mogilev areas. Russian troops have liberated more than 70 towns and villages, over 50 of them in the Mogilev area. Mr. Paul Winterton, the London "News-Chronicle’s" Moscow correspondent, emphasises the importance of the Russian drive in this direction —towards the Pripet Marshes. If the Russians break through here, he says, they will compel the Germans to divide their forces in Russia into two separate armies, one in the north and one in the south, with no link between them. A Soviet communique reports increased patrol and artillery activity in other sectors of the Russian front. Yesterday the Russians smashed 155 German tanks and shot down 42 enemy aircraft. HERCULEAN EFFORT TO SMASH GERMAN LINE. BEFORE WEATHER SLOWS DOWN OPERATIONS. . (By Telegraph- —Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, October 3. The Red Army is making herculean efforts to maintain the full force of its offensive and smash the Germans’ White Russian line before the .weather slows down operations, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. The Russians in their drive towards Vitebsk have taken Bersino, a small place of considerable tactical importance. They are advancing from Bersino and outflanking Lesno, on the Smolensk-Vitebsk railway, 10 miles further north and only 25 miles from Vitebsk. Observers in Stockholm say that the German High Command is pouring tanks and infantry reinforcements into the line guarding the vital Vitebsk-Mogilev-Gomel railway in a desperate attempt to stop the Russians sweeping over White Russia.

If Vitebsk falls, the way to Riga will be open and the whole German Leningrad front may have to fall back. A Moscow communique says that the Russians on the Taman Peninsula have captured the strongly fortified strongpoints of Staraya Titaroskaya, 10 miles south of Temryuk, and also Krasnaya, Strela and Vozrozhdenie, and on the Gomel sector advanced six to nine miles and occupied more than 50 inhabited places, including Strumen, 50 miles north of Gomel.

The Red Army on the Mogilev sector advanced six to nine miles and occupied more than 270 inhabited places, including the district centre of Driben. Leading units of General Popov’s mechanised forces pierced the centre of the German White Russia line and reached the east bank of the Ipronya River, 25 miles east of Mogilev. The Red Army also made a further crossing of the Goj River below Chernikov. THREAT TO CRIMEA. Axis quarters state that more than 250,000 Russians are making a bold effort to cut off the Crimea by a dr we on a wide front in the Melitopol and Zaporozhe areas. One Berlin report states that the Russian drive in hilly country between the two towns is the heaviest of the summei' compaign. The Vichy radio says that the intervention of heavy German tanks has so far frustrated the attempt to cut off the Crimea. The Stockholm “Tidningen’s” Berlin correspondent, quoting a German front line reporter, indirectly admits that the retreating German armies are carrying out mass deportations of Russian civilians. A gigantic migration is going on in the Eastern and Western Ukraine, where 1,000,000 Russian peasants in horse-drawn carts, with their wives and children, are moving westward, he said.