NO RESPITE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 November 1943, Page 3

NO RESPITE

FOR BEATEN & BROKEN GERMANS IN EXTENSIVE SOUTHERN AREAS. BIG RUSSIAN CAPTURES OF MEN & MATERIAL. i i <By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, November 2. A “Pravda” front-line despatch . says that along the whole Dniepersouth coast area the retreating Germans no longer have a continuous front, and Red mobile units, tanks, mechanised infantry, and cavalry are deeply thrusting into the enemy’s rear, paralysing his movements and capturing huge quantities of booty and a great number of prinsoners. Air reconnaissance shows a great congestion of German lorries and supply trains, and files of tanks and guns. The Moscow radio’s war correspondent gives a vivid glimpse of the front. “Columns of tanks and guns are choking the German retreat Toads,” he said. “It is a marvellous picture from the air.

‘•The whole scene is one of disorder. I The Germans cannot get their equipment across the Dnieper. They try to build big stacks of war supplies to burn them, but the Russians are advancing so rapidly that they are often in time to put out the fires. They have already captured masses of equipment.”

Tonight’s Moscow communique reports the capture of 60 places, including Perekop and Armyansk, on the sector between the Crimea and lower Dnieper.

One correspondent says that organised enemy resistance . has ceased throughout the entire 10,000 square miles of the steppes from Melitopol to the Dnieper, and that thousands of disorganised German troops now have only one aim—to get across the river. There are signs of utter confusion all along the road to the Dnieper crossings. The Soviet Air Force is giving the broken enemy no respite. The Germans in: the north are struggling to cross the river to Nikopol, but even if they succeed they will be no better off. They will still have to get through the bottleneck junction of

Apostolovo. which is already congested with Germans retreating from the Dnieper bend and menaced by the Russians at Krivoi Rog, 20 miles away.