KOROSTEN & RECHITZA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1943, Page 3

KOROSTEN & RECHITZA

CAPTURED BY THE RED ARMY Threat to Gomel Heavily Intensified POWERFUL GERMAN COUNTER-ATTACK WEST < OF KIEV FURIOUS CONFLICT IN PROGRESS LONDON, November 18. More important successes by the Bed Army are announced in Moscow—the capture of the important main-line junction of Korosten, 100 miles north-west of Kiev, and Eechitza, 25 miles west of Gomel. The fall of Korosten was announced by Marshal Stalin in a special order of the day. It occurred after two days of heavy fighting. Korosten is one of the most important railway junctions in the Western Ukraine. It is the meeting point of the ( horth-south Leningrad-Odessa railway and the main railway from Kiev to Warsaw. The north-south line had already been cut by the Eussians in their capture of Jitomir, but until the fall of Korosten the railway from that junction to Warsaw was still in enemy hands. The Germans now have to depend on a roundabout, single-track railway for communications behind this part of their front. The capture of Rechitza, 150 miles north of Korosten, was announced this evening. The town was entered by the Red Army troops after three days of fierce fighting. The chief importance of the capture of Rechitza is that the Red Army is now free to converge on the powerful German stronghold of Gomel from the west. Gomel is already closely threatened from the north and its only remaining supply railway, running to the north-westh, is under the fire of Russian artillery. The capture of Korosten and Rechitza was celebrated by salvos from 124 guns in Moscow. Fifty miles south of Korosten, in the Jitomir area, the Germans are intensifying their tank and infantry attacks on the southern side of the great wedge driven by the Red Army into the plains west of Kiev. Heavy and ferocious fighting is in progress in this area. Reporting from Moscow, Mr Paul Winterton says the Germans are repeatedly throwing in great forces of tanks in an attempt to break up the Russian wedge. Red Army forces were compelled to withdraw on one part of the front and a great deal depends on the outcome of the battle. Still further south, below Dnepropetrovsk, the Russians have extended their advance towards NikopoL

ON VAST SCALE GERMAN ‘COUNTERSTROKE IN SOUTH ENEMY DISREGARDING LOSSES. BATTLING TO KEEP OPEN LINES OF ESCAPE. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, November 18. At the south-western corner of the Kiev salient the Germans have regained some ground. Moscow announced that in the Jitomir region the enemy concentrated considerable tank and infantry forces on a narrow sector and threw them into battle regardless of losses. In one area Soviet units destroyed more than 50 tanks and 30 armoured cars and killed 1500 Germans, and in another area repelled seven fierce counter-attacks and knocked out 23 tanks. Toward the end of the day Russian units abandoned several inhabited localities under pressure from numerically superior enemy forces and consolidated themselves in new positions. The Germans’ counter-attack is their biggest since the opening of the autumn ca'ftipaign. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says that Field-Marshal von Mannstein, in a stiff bid to thwart Gen-1 eral Vatutin’s westward drive, has thrown in 150,000 men and hundreds of tanks against-the Red Army’s JitomirFastov wedge. The battle is on a vast scale. . Strong panzer formations and reformed mechanised units in the last few hours have joined in the struggle, which has been going on for the past six days. The enemy is desperately battling to keep open the lines of escape between Fastov and Odessa ..for the German armies still engaged in the Dnieper bend.