SOVIET PUN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 October 1943, Page 3

SOVIET PUN

UNFOLDING ON VAST SCALE EFFORT TO ENCLOSE GERMANS IN DEATH TRAP. STAND ORDERED BY HITLER. (Bv Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON. October 18. The battle for the Dnieper crossings has become a battle for the Dnieper bend, with the Russians concentrating masses of men in an effort to. turn the German stronghold into a death-trap, while the Germans struggle desperately to hold key positions or at least to gain time for a withdrawal. Heavily-armoured Russian columns are battering their way into the river bend through the gap which was torn in the German lines south-east .of Kremenchug, and they are grinding down the German defences on both sides of the 30-mile gap in bloody fighting. Moscow correspondents say that a vast Russian plan is unfolding which, at its most successful, could restilt in the destruction of the German strength on a greater scale than Stalingrad. The thruSf Through Kremenchug, the storming ’.if Melitopol, and the blow aimed at severing the railways west of Dnepropetrovsk are all part of one grand operation. A special order of the day issued by Hitler has ordered: “Not a step back on this line. You are defending your families. If you want them to live you must die —but the Russians must not pass.” One prisoner said; “The soaked earth smells of our blood.”