WIDE OPEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 October 1943, Page 4

WIDE OPEN

GATEWAY TO CRIMEA AS RESULT OF CAPTURE OF MELITOPOL. RUSSIANS ONLY SIX MILES FROM KRIVOI ROG. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, Noon.) LONDON, October 24. By swamping the German garrison at Melitopol, after eleven days of the most ferocious street fighting of the Russian war, the Red Army has accomplished half of Stalin’s master plan for the envelopment of the -entire German southern armies. Melitopol was the pivot of the southern front and its capture leaves the gateway to the Crimea wide open.

Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says Melitopol’s fall springs one jaw of the trap set for a million Germans within the Crimea and the Dnieper bend, while the Germans’ admission of a withdrawal before Krivoi Rog reveals the strength the Russians are throwing into the development of the other jaw, which is being formed as a result of the original break through, south-east of Kremenchug. The Berlin radio says the German positions before Krivoi Rog were withdrawn as a result of enemy pressure.

The British United Press says Melitopol’s cellars, attics and causeways are cluttered with German dead, the city’s pavements are red with blood and smashed German tanks lie askew on the roads. The Germans burned down the western part of the city and the remainder was wrecked by shells and bombs. Melitopol is a vast graveyard, in which lie tens of thousands of German corpses. There is an almost uncanny calm now in Melitopol, after the incessant chatter of machine-guns and the crash of artillery, says a Reuter correspondent. Melitopol was a second Stalingrad, with a 'vital difference the attackers won. The irrestible Red'Army is allowing the enemy no respite. The Russians are sweeping the Germans before them from shattered Melitopol as they fight westwards over a country which is almost devoid of roads. Streams of Russian tanks and guns are pouring westwards, while the Red Aii Force is harrying the retreating Germans.

Fighting in the other jaw of the trap, in the Dnieper bend, is being maintained at tremendous intensity. The Russians are throwing in everything. Even Polish women tommy-gunners are fighting with the Red Army in this sector.

The Paris radio stated tonight that a vicious battle was raging inside Krivoi Rog and added that Russian tanks had forced the Germans to retreat before Krivoi Rog. The German-controlled Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau declared that immense Russian and German forces are piling up south of Kremenchug for what threatens to be the greatest battle of the war. The Red Army has not massed such great forces since it started its drive against Orel. German leadership, the bureau adds, will have to squeeze every ounce of strength from the troops in order to avoid a huge catastrophe. The military writer of the Stockholm newspaper “Svenska Dagbladet” says: “After four months of retreats, it would not be surprising if the Germans showed signs of tiring.

Tonight’s Soviet communique states that the Red Army in the Melitopol area has continued to extend the breach in the enemy’s lines and in the Krivoi Rog sector has advanced four* to six miles and occupied over 50 places, including Lozovatka, six miles north of Krivoi Rog and the rail station of Terny.