THREE MAIN DRIVES

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23589, 17 March 1942, Page 5

THREE MAIN DRIVES

Soviet Pressure Maintained HEAVY FIGHTING NEAR KHARKOV (■Received March 16, 11 p.m.) (U.P.A.) LONDON, March 16. The Soviet armies are keeping up their pressure on all the key fronts frcm Leningrad to the Crimea. While the latest Russian communique says there was no material change in the fronts during the night,' unofficial reports show that the Russians are making three main drives. In the central sector, they are closing in on Orel, the great supply base and railway centre 200 miles southwest of Moscow. In the Ukraine, heavy fighting is said to be going on under the walls of Kharkov, the industrial capital of the eastern Ukraine, while farther south Marshal Timoshenko’s armies are making an equally determined bid to capture Taganrog, on the Sea of Azov, and Theodosia, in the eastern Crimea. Particularly bitter fighting is raging round Kharkov. “The hour of Kharkov's liberation is at hand,” declares the Russian army newspaper, “Red Star." "Guerrillas within Kharkov are almost every day blowing up German military quarters. In January they blew up the headquarters of the 68th Division, killing all the staff officers, including Commander Braun. A Ukrainian girl shot another general as he walked to a car. A German guardsman executed the girl on the spot.” "Red Star" says that soon after the occupation of Kharkov the Germans executed 14,000 civilians in the basement of the Hotel Internationale, which was converted into death cells and execution chambers. Twelve hundred Russians were at present in the cells awaiting execution. More than 100 Russians were hanged in the streets. Disease and starvation were rampant and dead were picked up in the streets every day. The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” states that Marshal Timoshenko is throwing heavier weight than ever into the offensive below Kharkov. A German spokesman admitted that the German positions in the Donets basin were hard pressed. Pressure on Orel The Russians are steadily tightening their encirclement of Orel, says the Stockholm correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph,” Heavy fighting is proceeding 12 miles south-west of Orel. Orel is defended by a miniature Siegfried line. Blockhouses, minefields, tank-traps, and wire entanglements surround the outlying villages. The city is stocked with masses of supplies, enabling it to withstand a long siege. Powerful Russian infantry and tank forces are striking heavily against Taganrog from the north-east, after a prolonged artillery bombardment. Russian ski troops are also attacking Taganrog across the frozen Sea of Azov. A Moscow message reports that the crack "Berlin Bear” regiment of the 257 th division was routed on the southern front when the Russians reoccupied a big village. Among the prisoners were some recently ■ arrived from Germany, who stated that Berlin was filled with wounded. A special announcement from Moscow states that 10,000 Germans were killed on the south-west and south fronts between March T and March 12, and considerable war equipment captured. German Losses Near Leningrad The Russian ring round Staraya Russa, south of Lake Ilmen, on the Leningrad front, is being steadily tightened. A Moscow communique says that in two days in the Leningrad sector 800 German officers and men were killed and 10 blockhouses were destroved. The Russians claim to have captured three more localities in the north between Rzhev and Staraya Russa. The German radio stated that strong Russian forces had broken through the German lines south-eastwards of Lake Ilmen. Fighting had been going on for several days, and the German troops were “about to adjust" their line. A most violent battle is proceeding along a line between Rzhev and Byelyi, through which the Russians are attempting to break to reach the Vy-azma-Smolensk railway, says the Berlin correspondent of the Stockholm newspaper “Dagensnyheter.” The Russians have passed Elnya and occupied Levikono and Glinka, respectively five and 11 miles from Elnya on the Smolensk highway. , The Moscow radio said yesterday morning that another strongly-fOTtified German position has fallen m the vicinity of Smolensk, where the ring seems to be closing around Vyazma. The Moscow radio says that Russia has built up a tank force equal to anything the Germans can throw into the spring campaign. Spring is near and the Red Army is ready to deal still heavier blows against the enemy. A message from Kuibishey states that five men were sentenced to death and eight others were sent to prison for 10 years for pillaging Socialist properly. SUFFERINGS OF GREEKS More Than 150,000 Perish DEATHS FROM STARVATION AND DISEASE LONDON, March 15. Between 150,000 and 200,000 Greeks have perished as a result of the Axis occupation l of Greece. They have been massacred, executed, or have died ot starvation and disease, due to nutrition. The Cairo correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says this figure was given him by local Greek officials on the basis of escapees’ accounts. Officials fear that unless some effective way is found to get more adequate relief to Greece half the population of 7.ooo,ooo'may be dead before the war is ended. The peak figure of deaths from starvation and malnutrition in Athens was reached in February, when in an intense cold wave augmented by suffering from lack of food and fuel, 1500 died every day in Athens and the Piraeus area. Many people stand in line all day to get a ration of four ounces of hard black bread in which maize, rice, and chestnut flour are mixed. An escapee said that infant mortality in Athens is appalling. A park in the centre of the city has been converted into a cemetery because so many people die in the centre of the city and there is no transport to take them to suburban cemeteries. AIRRAID ALERT IN LONDON (Received March 16, 11 p.m.) LONDON, March 16, A short air-raid alert was sounded in the London area this morning. This was the first time London has had an alert since November 1 and the first time in daylight since June 6. Twelve Killed When ’Planes Collide. —Seven members of the South African Air Force, three members of the Royal Air Force, and two civilians were killed when two military aeroplanes collided over a suburb of Cape Town. One aeroplane crashed on the roof of a shop, setting fire to buildings on both sides.of a street The second aeroplane struck the wall of a school building. Eleven civilians were admitted to hos-pital.—-Cape Town, March 16.