IN STATE OF CHAOS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 November 1943, Page 4

IN STATE OF CHAOS

GERMAN FRONT IN SOUTH RUSSIA MOST DANGEROUS SITUATION ADMITTED ENEMY IN DESPERATE PLIGHT (By Telegraph—(Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.15 p.m.) LONDON, November 3. Moscow commentators say the enemy is suffering enormous and irreparable losses as the lower reaches o.f the Dnieper are steadily cleansed of the invader. German officials quoted by the Germancontrolled Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau admit that the whole front in Russia is in a state of chaos. The officials added: “The position is most dangerous, with the Germans suffering enormous losses.” The bureau said the Red Army was threatening to crush the Germans in a pincer from Kerch to Perekop.« Reuter’s Moscow correspondent declares that whether the next stage in the Russian offensive is an all-out assault against the Crimea or a mass crossing of the Lower Dnieper, the Red Army is unlikely to give the enemy what he desperately needs —time to think what to do next. The Berlin radio admitted fresh Russian landing attempts in the Crimea, but claimed that they were repulsed and that the forces which landed previously had been pressed more closely against the coast. Tonight’s Soviet; communique says: “The Red Army, between the Dnieper and Katkinit Bay, has continued to develop its offensive and has occupied over 80 inhabited places, including Bolschoi, Kopani and Chalbasy, 23 miles south-east of Kherson.” ESCAPE GAPS BEING NARROWED RAPIDLY GERMANS SACRIFICING LIVES WITHOUT STINT(Received This Day. 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, November 3. With the Germans completely bottled up in the Crimea and their escape gaps at Borislav, Nikolayev and Kherson rapidly being narrowed as the result of the Red Army’s rapid approach, it is expected that the Germans are about to start a new retreat south-westwards, in order to escape encirclement in the Dnieper bend. A continuation of the Russians’ thrust southward from Krivoi Rog, combined with a new threat across the Dnieper north-westwards, will force the Germans to pull out of the Dnieper bend as quickly as possible, along the railway from Nikopol to Nikolayev, which is the only one left to them, says the British United Press Moscow correspondent. The next few days will see the end of the campaign in the Dnieper estuary and there is little doubt that the Russians on the east bank of the Dnieper, in the neighbourhoo’d of Britany, are preparing to cross to the west bank, thus threatening Borislav. The Cossack vanguard below the Dnieper is advancing more rapidly than the mechanised forces .across Salashovsky Sands and meantime are pressing on towards Kherson and are 20 to 25 miles from the town. At Krivoi Rog, the last strongpoint covering Nikolayev and Kherson from the north, General Von Maiinstein is sacrificing lives without stint to shore up the crumbling-escape corridor, Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. Fighting is equally bitter at Nikopol, because the enemy knows that the area must be held if the Germans in the Dnieper bend are to move out southwestwards.