STROKES SMASHED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 34, 19 November 1943, Page 3

STROKES SMASHED

GERMANS IN MOST SECTORS.

PROGRESS OF RUSSIAN THRUSTS.

ARROW-HEAD NEARING POLAND.

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. IS.

Reuter’s correspondent declares that the German strokes against General Vatutin’s left flank are being smashed in most sectors, only a little ground being given, and that Marshal Mannstein’s spearhead has dug only slightly into the Russian lines southeast of Jitomir.

Morley Richards, military writer in the “Daily Express” says that this is Germany’s last chance to avoid catastrophe. In addition to keeping open the Dnieper Bend corridor the Germans are trying to prevent their forces being split in two. Continuation of the Russian drive west of Jitomir would mean that half the German army would be driven back into Rumania and the other half into Poland. Correspondents at Moscow point out that the Russian bridgehead across the Dnieper now extends from the Gomel area through Kiev as far as Pereyslavl. Reuter’s correspondent reports that the Russians again launched an offensive in the Dnieper Bend, where the Germans now hold only a small corner between the river and the Zaporo-zhe-Nikopol railway. The capture of Korosten means thsf the great Leningrad-Odessa railway has been finally sundered, depriving the Germans of all rail communications between their central and southern fronts, except by railways running north and south within the Polish border.

The arrow-head of the Red Army attack is now less than 60 miles from the Polish border. Gomel may also have fallen to the Russians. The Stockholm correspondent of the “Daily Express” quotes Berlin

dispatches as saying: “After successfully shortening their front the German forces extricated themselves from the Gomel pocket. Nothing is known in Berlin of the fate of the city.”

German sources also report that the Russians launched new and violent attacks west of Vitebsk and south of Nevel.

The Germans to-night claimed that they have made fresh advances north of Jitomir against the southern flank of the Kiev bulge. The German overseas radio said that important territory had been regained and that pressure against the Russian salient was growing m the form of a double attack north and south of Jitomir.

The Soviet communique to-night says that the Russians in the Jitomir and Korostyshev areas are engaged in repelling attacks by major forces of tanks and infantry, in the course of which the enemy suffered enormous losses in men and equipment. The Russians captured Vaslyvichi. south-west of Ryezhitsa, and several inhabited places on the lower reaches of the Pripet River. %