PANIC & CHAOS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 November 1943, Page 4

PANIC & CHAOS

IN GERMAN SOUTHERN ARMIES DESCRIBED BY MOSCOW PAPER ENEMY SOLDIERS SEEKING ONLY TO ESCAPE (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.2 p.m.) LONDON, November 8. Vividly describing the rout of the German southern front, the “Pravda” gives a word picture of panic and chaos as the enemy troops flee before the Russian mobile columns which are striking against their backs, cutting across escape routes and smashing up what remains of the German formations.

The paper says: “The swiftness of defies description. Every German is fleeing for his life. Cars, lorries, guns, panzers and other vehicles obstruct the roads. The infantry is abandoning everything—shells, arms and personal belongings—they seek to escape. Terror-stricken infantrymen and artillerymen, many barefooted, race westward. Machines collide and jam the roads. Ambulances are overturned and the air is filled with the soul-rending cries of the wounded. Maddened horsemen tramped on men and machines.” The British United Press Moscow correspondent points out that Russian newspapers have been most conservative in describing the Russian success. The “Pravda’s” description is the first in which such sweeping claims of Russian success have been jnade. Brigadier Cerff, the German Black Guard general. speaking in Liberec, Czechoslovakia, said: “There are many questions which cannot be answered in war time, but one thing can be said with certainty—everything will be lost, all our possessions will be swept away by the tide from the steppes, if we do not hold out in this battle.” Tonight’s Soviet communique says: “Troops of the First Ukrainian Army, continuing to develop their successful offensive, captured Makarov and Obukhovichi, which are district centres in the Kiev region, also 60 inhabited localities. The Russians in the Kerch Peninsula repelled counter-attacks and continued operations for the extension of their bridgehead. West and southwest of Nevel, the Russians fought local engagements and improved their positions.”