TRAP CLOSING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 October 1943, Page 3

TRAP CLOSING

ON GERMANS IN DNIEPER BEND ENEMY HEAVILY DEFEATED. ■IN ATTEMPT TO KEEP OPEN ESCAPE ROUTES. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON. October 20. The Russians have broken through the last German defences south-east of Kremenchug. They are now 60 or 70 miles to the rear of the German armies holding the elbow of the river, and after cutting the main railway from Dnepropetrovsk they are threatening to close all the western escape routes. The capture of the key junction on the railway took place after several German divisions, reinforced with tanks and planes, had failed to drive back the Red Army assault columns. The Russians waited till the Germans were exhausted and then struck. Correspondents this morning say that the vital railway from Dnepropetrovsk has been occupied along a length of 17 miles. Tanks and motorised infantry have now fanned out in the direction of Krivoi Rog, the biggest iron ore centre in Russia. They are only some 30 miles distant, and the whole of the German

positions in the centre of the Dnieper bend are crumbling. The “Red Star” says that the Russians to the south-east have now cut the main highway as well as the main railway leading out of the Crimea. This leaves the Germans in the Crimea only the single-track fine to Kherson.

It is disclosed that the German strongpoint north of Kiev which fell yesterday to the Red Army is a town 31 miles distant.

The Russians have nrade more progress south of Rietchitsa, across the Dnieper west of Gomel, which controls the railway running from Gomel.