GERMAN DEFENCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1943, Page 4

GERMAN DEFENCES

REDUCED TO HOPELESS MUDDLE ON SOUTHERN PART OF WHITE RUSSIAN FRONT HITLER’S WINTER LINE CRACKED (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.10 a.m.) LONDON, November 26. Red Army tommy-gunners fanned out ahead of the infantry, after the crossing of the River Soj, gained control of road junctions behind the lines and turned the enemy’s defence system into one of the most hopeless muddles of the war. The Germans became so completely disorganised that entire reinforcement units at some points marched into villages the Russians had already captured. The enemy at other points in confusion shelled his own units as they moved up to the front line. The main body of the Russians finally swamped the last German lines and cut the Gomel Highway. The Germans, as the irresistible Russians swept on towards the Propoisk-Roga-chev Highway, threw in more reinforcements, but these failed to halt the rush. Reuter’s correspondent says the Russians’ powerful and well-timed blow has cracked Hitler’s winter line. The enemy forces have been ejected from deep belts of warm, snug and wellequipped dugouts, where they evidently intended to dig in for the winter, and are now being chased into swamps and forests, where guerillas lie in wait and snow is already thick. A gap of 30 miles has been torn in the German defences between Gomel and Mogilev, through which the Red Army forces are pouring swiftly.

MAY BE TRAPPED TWENTY GERMAN DIVISIONS SIGNIFICANCE OF RUSSIAN GOMEL VICTORY (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m.) LONDON, November 26. The Russians’ broad salient between Gomel and Mogilev is rapidly being deepened and widened, especially southwards. A German force estimated to amount at least to 20 divisions is in danger of being cut off and completely trapped in the Gomel sack, the neck of which has already been reduced to a width of 50 miles. It is pointed out in London that the fall of Gomel completes the separation of the German armies in the Ukraine from those on the central front. Gomel controls two railways to Poland, while the main railway connection Le'nin-grad-Vitebsk-Jitomir-Odessa passes a few miles west of Gomel. “The Times” Stockholm correspondent says the Germans made Gomel one of their most important bases on the central front, with large stores of food and material. The elimination of the Gomel salient shortens the German line, but also shortens the Red Army line. KIEV SALIENT BATTLE Marshal von Mannstein, in the great battle of the Kiev salient, is still pinning his hopes on attacks against General Vatutin’s south flank. German counterblows in the past 48 hours have increased in force to an extent, but despatches from the front indicate that the Russians have not ceded any significant positions. A German attempted break through near Korosten also apparently has been unsuccessful. The “Red Star” says the German counteroffensive is continuing in the Chernyakhov and Brusilov areas, where the Russians have fallen back in face of some ferocious tank attacks, in which the Germans are using as many as 200 tanks on a narrow sector.

The German news agency .reports that the Russians have renewed their attacks against the Nikopol bridgehead and have reached the German lines at some points.