IN GREAT PERIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 October 1943, Page 4

IN GREAT PERIL

GERMANS IN THE LOWER DNIEPER BEND RUSSIANS DRIVING WELL TO WESTWARD INTO VALUABLE MINING TERRITORY (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) RUGBY, October 20. As a result of the cutting of the railway behind Dnepropetrovsk, the Germans on the Lower Dnieper bend are in great peril. The Russian offensive from Kremenchug has made great headway in the last few days and the great iron ore centre of Krivo Rog and the manganese mines at Nikopol are almost within reach. , The present vast Russian design is compared in London with the offensive on the Don-Volga front last year, when the circumstances in some ways were similar. The most serious immediate menace is the thrust from Kremenchug. Coinciding with strong pressure through Zaporobhe and Melitopol, this seems likely to pinch out the Germans in the Dnepropetrovsk sector. A second threat is made by crossings of the Middle Dnieper, below and above Kiev. The strongest pressure in this sector comes from the north, towards and behind Kiev. A further advance here threatens to make untenable the whole German position on the Ukraine and the Crimea. A third double thrust is aimed at both sides of Gomel and seems likely to envelop that city. The exploitation of this third movement threatens not only the Dnieper line, but the rest of the front. Messages from Russia indicate that the Germans have been ordered, as at Stalingrad, to hold their present positions at all costs and the bloody battle raging at Melitopol is bearing this .out. Whether the Germans at Dnepropetrovsk and on the Lower Dnieper, however. remembering what happened at Stalingrad, will carry matters to such extremes, remains to be seen. The peril of their situation may perhaps be judged from a statement by the “Izvestia” that Kiev. Khitomir and Lvov now await liberation. Lvov is fully 300 miles west of Kiev. Fighting in the area and city of Melitopol is going on with undiminished vigour, says the Moscow radio. The Germans at dawn on Wednesday opened a terrific artillery barrage and then motorised infantry and a very large number of tanks attacked the Soviet troops from three directions. The enemy attempted to break through to the river crossing to cut off the Soviet troops who are fighting in the city and south-west of it. During the day, Soviet artillery in the vicinity of the city disabled 30 enemy tanks and wiped out a regiment of motorised infantry. Soviet artillery shelling concentrations of enemy forces inflicted huge losses. The enemy changed his tactics and attacked with small tank groups. The Soviet artillery repelled ten counter-attacks. Not a single enemy tank reached the Soviet defence lines.