"Gates To West Now Wide Open"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 229, 27 September 1943, Page 5

"Gates To West Now Wide Open"

CAPTURE OF SMOLENSK

Russians Use Dnieper As Offensive Springboard

(N.Z.P.A. and B.O.W.—Rec. noon.) LONDON, September 26. With Smolensk, the Germans greatest communication base on the central front, overrun and, according to the weekly newspaper Moscow News, the German plunderers already fleeing from Kiev like rats from a sinking ship," the Red' Army is already able to turn the Dnieper River from a defence barrier into a springboard for .a further offensive movement. Reuters correspondent in Moscow says small bridgeheads are believed to have been established on the west bank of the Dnieper between Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk. The main Russian forces are trying to extend and consolidate the bridgeheads in face of the fiercest artillery and mortar barrage. Russian paratroops landed in the rear, of the German lines on the Middle Dnieper, according to the German News Agency, which adds: "The Russians are throwing not only divisions but also whole armies into the fight, which is a battle of material on a gigantic scale." Moscow radio, summing up the effect of the latest Russian successes, says: "The gates to the West have been thrown wide open." The Daily Mail says: "The capture of Smolensk must rank as one of the most supreme feats of the war. The Russians have the satisfaction of knowing that they are finally freeing their own land from the invader."

"The Smolensk area is a lurid example of German tactics in creating a dead zone in the path of their retreat," states a message from Moscow. "One ofthe most serious effects is the destruction of a large section of the modern Moscow-Minsk highway mile by mile, as the Germans retired. One of the innumerable craters which the Germans left is 25ft deep with a diameter of over 1 4Urt. "Thousands of Germans perished in the Dnieper when Soviet mobile artillery suddenly approached and shelled the Solovievsky Bridge at short range. Trapped between fire and water, the Germans vainly sought shelter behind their trucks and guns, while others ended their horror by hurling themselves into the river. Soviet bombers and Stormoviks completed their annihilation.