SOVIET THRUSTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 October 1943, Page 3

SOVIET THRUSTS

AGAINST DNEPROPETROVSK AND TdV/ARDS KRIVOI ROG. WHOLE GERMAN POSITION CRUMBLING. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON, October 24. The whole German position in the Dnieper bend is crumbling as the Russian master plan swiftly develops to its climax. The Red Army, by a sudden sideways thrust from the left flank of its great Dnieper bend wedge, has broken through powerful German fortifications and is now launching a direct drive against Dnepropetrovsk, wfyile the tip of the wedge nears Krivoi Rog. Only a 40-mile gap, with the one ineffective railway between Krivoi Rog and Nikopol, is still open for escape by the German army in the Dnieper bend. A Moscow air communique says the Soviet Air Force struck new blows last night at the Nikopol railway junction and at Dolinsk. Soviet tanks, artillery and planes are blasting the enemy out of the remaining strongpoints on the Melitopol sector. The Germans now have behind them only bare, featureless plains, with no large railways or towns to aid their defence. There are signs that the Germans are speeding up the evacuation of wounded from the Crimea, but scores of thousands may have to be left behind. After using the beautiful holiday resorts on the Crimea coasts the Germans are now, with their usual vandalism, destroying buildings, including the Tsar’s old palace and the magnificent sanatoria made by the Soviet Government for the workers.

A Moscow message reports that the weather is steadily growing colder all along the front, and there have been hoar frosts in some parts. The German controlled Scandinavian telegraph bureau at Stockholm, quoting military circles in Berlin, says the German leadership must be expected to squeeze every ounce of strength from the soldiers in order to hold the positions and avoid a catastrophe of great proportions. Huge Russian and German forces are massing for a gigantic battle. The developments in Russia ■are viewed by Berlin with the tautest nerves. . '

The Scandinavian Bureau also., says: “Officials are sitting in Berlin with Wcttfelfes in hand awaiting a gigantic new Russian offensive which they are expecting on the Kremenchug sector. The Germans knew the Russians would not advance till their flanks were secured. The Russians have now achieved this, and the German soldiers are bracing themselves for a new storm of fire and steel.

“The catastrophe which is threatening the German armies in the southern Ukraine and the Crimea is not comparable even with the Stalingrad disaster,” says, the “Observer.” “The Germans’ situation is matched only with that of the British and French armies in May, 1940, the break-through at Sedan. “It is not feasible for all three menaced German armies—in the Crimea, on the Nogaisk steepes south of Zaporozhe, and in the Dnieper bend proper—to escape through the Nikolayev bottleneck, where the remaining escape railways converge, it might still be just possible this way to save the troops of the Crimea alone if the other two armies are sacrificed. The consequences if these three German armies are destroyed are almost immeasurable."

The military writer of the “Sunday Times” says: “If, with the fall of Melitopol, the Russian pursuit rolls swiftly across the steepes, there may be a German rout. The Germans’ losses have beeij very heavy; their divisions

have been fighting literally for weeks, and it is amazing that they are still in being. The danger for the Germans is that if-, they start cracking as a result of exhaustion they will go altogether.” All enemy reports reaching Stockholm refer to violent fighting west .of Chernigov, midway between Gomel and Kiev.