DRIVE ON GOMEL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 231, 29 September 1943, Page 3

DRIVE ON GOMEL

RUSSIANS CLOSE IN

Guards Storming Suburbs Of Dnepropetrovsk

N.Z. Press Association —Copyright Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, Sept. 28. Russian forces are within 10 miles of Gomel, on the Sozh River, a tributary of the Dnieper, on the east side of the town, and are closing in fast, says Reuters correspondent in Moscow. Crack Guards imits are storming Dnepropetrovsk in a threepronged thrust from the left bank of the Dnieper. The Russian Army newspaper Red Star says the Germans suffered heavily in their withdrawal across the Dnieper from the Dnepropetrovsk suburb of Nizhnidneprovsk. Fierce fighting occurred for Nizhnidneprovsk, where the Germans attempted to launch counter-attacks. The Soviet newspaper Izvestia says German reserves have been brought up over long distances in an attempt to seal the great gaps in the Dnieper line and are being thrown into battle without rest. The Germans are constantly counterattacking without success. Their reinforcements have already received a number of crushing blows. According to the correspondent of the Stockholm newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in Berlin the military spokesman in the Wilhelmstrasse said it must not be taken for granted that .the Dnieper marks the line along which the German troops will establish a fast defence. Advances in White Russia The German lines on the White Russian front are already _ buckling dangerously. The Russians, in battles which are raging day and night, have pressed on to within less than 30 miles of Vitebsk, 70 miles of Mogilev and 30 miles of Gomel. Five miles west of Smolensk the Russians captured the railway station of Onezdovo. Another message says the Red Army is only 15 miles from Gomel. , , , ~ According to the Ankara radio, the Russians have penetrated into White Russia at four places. The Germans are putting up a stiff resistance to the Russian drive on Vitebsk, in White Russia, defending every river, stream and ditch and clinging to every hill. The Red Army, however, is still fighting its way forward and last night was already 12 miles or more along the railway linking Smolensk with Vitebsk. Vitebsk itself is more directly threatened from the north-east, where Russian troops are pressing through difficult country. The Germans are expected to put up a big fight for the city, which lies on the main north and south railway behind the enemy lines from the Leningrad front. Its capture would endanger the entire German position in the north. An official announcement from Moscow late last night reported the capture of 15 miles west of Smolensk. This was the site of the mass graves of Polish officers, the "discovery" of which by the Germans was the subject of Russian and German charges and counter-charges. It was also the cause of friction between Russia and Poland.