GERMAN ARMIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 November 1943, Page 4

GERMAN ARMIES

TRAPPED IN SOUTH RUSSIA IN CRIMEA AND ALONG DNIEPER. FULL-SCALE SOVIET ASSAULT. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m.) LONDON, November 2. The rout of the German armies on the Nogaisk and Tauride steppes is nearing an end, with the German forces split by Red Army columns. The Russians have launched a full-scale assault from land, sea and air against the Crimea, say dispatches from Moscow. The Red Army has driven nearly 20 miles westward beyond »the Perekop Isthmus and its advanced columns are only about 30 miles from Kherson (at the mouth of the Dnieper). Three German armies are now trapped, says Reuter's Moscow correspondent. The first is the German-Ruman-ian garrison in the . Crimea. The second is cut oft on the mainland north of the Sivash coast, where it is fighting out its last hours in futile counterattacks, attempting to break a Russian cordon of tanks and guns. The third force, pinned on a hundred miles stretch of the Lower Dnieper, from Kakhovka to above Nikopol, is fighting a desperate battle with its back to the river, supported by batteries on the opposite river bank. Front line dispatches say the Rus-, sian vanguard of tanks and Cossacks is fighting its way down the Perekop Isthmus into the Crimea, with Storinoviks striking ahead of the Army’s spearheads and smashing vast German concentrations. The attacks from the north are leaving the Germans no escape route and no alternative but a perilous 180 miles Black Sea “Dunkirk” to Odessa. BLACK SEA FLEET READY TO DEAL WITH GERMAN ATTEMPT. TO ESCAPE FROM CRIMEA BY SEA. (Received This Day, 12.45 p.m.) LONDON, Noyember 2. The Russian Black Sea Fleet is reported to be standing off the coast ready to deal with any German attempt to escape by sea from - the Crimea. A German military spokesman today denied that the Germans were evacuating the Crimea, where, he said, very strong forces were garrisoned. The Berlin correspondent of the Stockholm “Social Demokraten,” however, states that General Jaernecke, who commands the German and Rumanian divisions in the Crimea, has ordered German troops to be evacuated first, because he has insufficient shipping at his disposal £o move all the Germans out of the peninsula. The correspondent says there are five German and Rumanian divisions in the Crimea. Observers in Moscow say the garrison’s chance of escaping the Russian trao is remote.

Berlin' reports an additional blow against the Crimea from a landing force, which stormed ashore across the Kerch Straits and gained bridgeheads north and south of Kerch. Berlin claims that the Russian penetrations are held by counter-attacks. Allied correspondents say the Germans, with their southern forces cut to shreds, have strengthened their efforts to achieve some measure of stabilisation inside the Dnieper bend and stave oil the menace of a similar collapse. A, new tank division has been moved up south-west of Dnepropetrovsk to stiffen the hard-pressed infantry, but the Russians are beating off counter-attacks and steadily pushing the Germans back.

The Berlin radio commentator, Captain Sertorius, claims that the German counter-attack» in the Dnieper bend continues to make slow progress. Reports from Krivoi Rog say the German reserves are being drained by the. Russians, who are taking a heavy toll of men and machines for each counter-attack.

Referring to the German rout on the Tauride Steppe, the “Red Star” says a hc;t pursuit of the retreating Germans by Russian, tanks, motorised units and cavalry continues across the steppes. North cf the Crimea the Russians are making a series of swift thrusts and driving deep wedges into the German formations. They are by-passing them through gaps and hitting hard against the German rear. Large groups of the enemy, cut' off from their units, are abandoning their equipment. They are drifting through the steppes, only to fall eventually into Russian hands. Long columns of prisoners stretch along the reads leading back to the Russian headquarters between Lake Sivash and the Lower Dnieper. The “Red Star” asserts that the Germans did not expect such a rapid advance in the. Perekop Isthmus. Their resistance on the western sector of the Tartar Wall crumbled under the impetus of a blow from the Kuban Cossacks and tank units The paper adds that enormous bottlenecks have been formed on the pontoon ferry crossing over the Lower Dnieper Non-stop bombing by the Red Air Force is increasing, multiplying the enemy panic and his losses.

Tonight’s Soviet communique reports the capture of Kakhovka, in the area of vzhich the retreating enemy is being pursued. Several localities have been occupied in the Dnieper bend southwest of Dnepropetrovsk and in the Krivoi Rog direction all enemy counterattacks by major infantry and tank forces were repulsed. Heavy losses of men and material were inflicted on the Germans. There are intense reconnaissance activity and artillery exchanges on other fronts.

The Berlin radio announced that the Russians broke through south-west of Gomel, but claimed that the attacks were‘repulsed and gaps sealed off.