TROUBLE AT OREL NAZI ADMISSION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 247, 29 July 1943, Page 3

TROUBLE AT OREL

NAZI ADMISSION

ENCIRCLING MOVE. REMORSELESSLY CLOSING IN. BATTLE FOR LENINGRAD. (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. 12.10 p.m.) LONDON, July 2S. The Germans are beginning to admit that they are in trouble in the Orel area while Russian sources continue to report that the Red Army is remorselessly closing in toward Mga and-Orel with the Axis forces hastily withdrawing to avoid annihilation. Reuter’s correspondent at Moscow says that if the Red Army troops fighting the important battle on the Leningrad front capture the key station of Mga about 30 miles east of Leningrad, the Russians will have broken the siege of Leningrad in the full sense of the word. They have freed the main railway linking the city with Moscow and the interior of Russia. • The British United Press correspondent at Moscow reports that large German forces are withdrawing from south of Orel under cover of a desperate rearguard action in the attempt to extricate themselves from the circle which the Russians are rapidly completing around Orel. The Germans are systematically scorching the earth, leaving blazing villages and blown up bridges in theii wake. They are carrying off Russian civilians for forced labour behind the German lines. The Tass (Soviet) News Agency says that the Germans south of Orel are fighting rearguard actions on tho intermediate defence lines to enable their main forces to slip out of the threatened encirclement. The Germans north of Orel are hurling large forces of tanks, mobile guns and planes into frequent but unsuccessful counter-attacks. Reuter’s, referring to the Orel area, states that Soviet night patrols from the armies engaged in narrowing the Germans’ “escape corridor” from Orel to Briansk have already blown up sections of the railway, completely disorganising enemy traffic. The Siberian troops south of Orel are relentlessly driving the Germans back, also worrying the enemy’s rear with mobile columns. There are signs everywhere on the Orel front of a German defeat and retreat. The Russians advancing through the fir forests see pieces of German uniforms hanging on branches. The roads are littered with abandoned equipment and munitions.

The Berlin radio admits: “The Russians are infiltrating tank forces into our lines of the central sector of the Orel front, but the Germans are meeting the Russian tactics with mobile warfare.”