LOSING BATTLES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 October 1943, Page 3

LOSING BATTLES

BEING FOUGHT BY GERMANS ON EAST FRONT Desperate Efforts to Hold Gomel and Kiev RUSSIANS DRIVING ON IN VITAL AREAS FIERCE CONFLICT ON DNIEPER LINE LONDON, October 12. The Red Army is attacking the last defences of Gomel, the most southerly bastion of the Germans’ White Russia line, immediately north of the Pripet Marshes. On the Dnieper, the Germans are throwing in great numbers of fresh troops in a vain effort to wipe out the Russian bridgeheads. At one point the Germans outnumbered the Russians by five to one, but they could make no headway. The fighting is particularly fierce north and south of Kiev. Mr Paul Winterton says the Germans are fighting like tigers to retain Kiev. If they lose it, it will mean that they have been decisively defeated and not, as their reports customarily allege, because they have chosen to withdraw to a shorter line. Further south the Russians are steadily widening their bridgehead on the western bank of the Dnieper. A correspondent sums up the general position of the fighting in Russia as follows: “At the moment the Germans are fighting back wherever they are challenged, but they are steadily losingground, and it looks as if they are no longer capable of stopping the Russian armies with their present resources. ’ ’