TAMAN CLEARED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 310, 11 October 1943, Page 3

TAMAN CLEARED.

BERLIN ADMITS EVACUATION. CAUCASUS FINALLY FREED. LONDON, October 9. The Taman peninsula has been completely cleared of the Germans. M. Stalin made this announcement in an order of the day. The Caucasus is now finally freed, while the Germans remaining in the Crimea will be in danger if the Russian attacks against Zaporozhe and Melitopol succeed.

• The Berlin radio says that the last German units were transferred last night to the Crimea after “all the attempts to break through and outflanking the defence, carried out by ; far superior Russian forces, had been repelled.” The radio said that the evacuation of the Taman peninsula began several weeks ago, when disengaging movements on the Mius and Donets fronts had made the withdrawal of the Axis extreme southern flank necessary.

A Russian communique says that the Germans left 20,000 dead on. the battlefield of the Taman, and 3000 prisoners. The Russians captured on the peninsula, says the communique, 52 tanks, 337 guns, and large quantities of other war material. The Moscow radio has announced that Marshal Timoshenko has been awarded the Order of Suvorov, firstclass, for his direction of operations in the Taman. Colonel-General Petrov has been awarded the same order and promoted to be 'an army general.

M. Stalin’s order of the day said that the Germans had not only lost their springboard for the Caucasus, but had also lost a strip of territory important to the defence of the Crimea.

German barges evacuating troops were so heavily laden, said the Russian communique, that six sank during the crossing of the Kerch Straits, with a heavy loss of life.