LARGE BOOTY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 November 1943, Page 4

LARGE BOOTY

AND MANY PRISONERS TAKEN BY RUSSIANS. VERY HEAVY ENEMY LOSSES. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) RUGBY, November 7. A Soviet communique, describing the capture of Kiev, says the Russians, by a daring manoeuvre, half encircled the city, broke into the northern and western outskirts, routed the enemy garrisons in these suburbs, and then took the city by storm. The enemy sustained extraordinarily high losses, . and, according to incomplete figures, in the day’s fighting, 100 German tanks were destroyed or disabled, and a large booty and many prisoners captured. The troops of the enemy formations fled along the highway in panic towards the town of Vasilkov. They were harassed by the Soviet Air Force and troops, who, developing a successful offensive, occupied Vasilkov and many other localities. In the Dnieper bend, south-west of Dnepropetrovsk, the Germans, attempting to stem the Soviet offensive, launched several fierce counter-attacks. In one sector the Germans succeeded in pushing forward slightly, but by blows from the flanks they were smashed and compelled to retreat. In this battle 2000 Germans were killed and 22 tanks and 19 guns destroyed. West and south-west of Nevel, 22 German planes were shot down. In another sector the Germans launched over ten counter-attacks, which were repelled. One infantry battalion was wiped out. Moscow messages say the Russians are sweeping on beyond Kiev almost without a halt. The country ahead, to the borders of Poland, about 150 miles away, offers no substantial - defensive possibilities, and has no great bases where concentrations of German forces cculd take refuge from the terrible Russian winter, which reports suggest show signs of being of its usual severity.

The Soviet advance south-west of Kiev is in the geenral direction of the Dniester, separating the Ukraine from Rumania, some 150 miles away, and may well be the ocmmencement of a gigantic outflanking movement which would make all the German positions south of Kiev untenable.