BATTLE FRONT DEFINED

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23914, 5 April 1943, Page 5

BATTLE FRONT DEFINED

SOVIET OFFICIAL MAP (8.0. W.) RUGBY, April 3. Details of a Soviet information bureau map, showing the Russian line as it was on March 31, are given in a Moscow message. The front line runs from the southern outskirts of Leningrad to a point on the Novgorod railway 80 miles north-north-west of Novgorod. It then turns upwards to a point eight miles south of Schluesselburg. It runs eight miles due east, 10 miles south-south-east, six miles west, four miles south-west, and four miles south, and then winds eastwards round Kirisha. From the fringes of Kirisha the front runs south-south-west and cuts the Moscow-Leningrad railway six miles to the south-south-east of Chudovo. It bulges westwards for 16 miles, and then goes due south past the walls of Novgorod to Lake Ilmen. From the middle 6f the south shore of Lake Ilmen the front runs south round the fringes of Staraya Russa, and then goes south-west to a point nine miles west of Velikye Luki. It curves eastwards to the northern fringe of Velizh, runs east-south-east and cuts the Vyazma-Smolensk railway 24 miles east-north-east of Yartsevo. The nearest point to Yartsevo lies north-north-east at a distance of about eight miles. From the Vyazma-Smolensk railway the front runs south-south-east to a point 60 miles east-south-east of Smolensk, after which it turns sharply east, and cuts the Sukhinichi-Smolensk railway about 130 miles due west of Tula. It then bulges westward round the west fringe of Kirov.--* From Kirov the line runs south-east to the eastern fripge of Mtsensk, and deviates more sharply south to a point about 40 miles due east of Orel, and then turns south-west to the KurskOrel railway. The front runs due west 24 miles, and turns eight miles west-north-west and then west-south-west to the eastern outskirts of Sievsk. From Sievsk the line runs south-south-ecst past the eastern outskirts of Ryhsy, and

then, with a more easterly deviation, to a point 16 miles east-south-east of Sumy, after which it runs 66 miles due east to the Kursk-Kharkov railway. It then turns south past the east fringe of Byelgorod. The Red Army holds the whole of the east bank of the Donets to a point about 30 miles east of Kharkov, and has an imnortant hold on the west bank in the elbow north-west of 7■’.yum, which is still in Russian hands. The front follows a line from the Donets to a point 16 miles north-west of Voroshilovgrad, after which it runs more or less regularly south to the Sea of Azov, eight miles east of Taganrog. From there the Red Army holds the whole of the Azov coast.to a point eight miles north-east of Temruyk, Irom which the line runs almost to the Kuban river, and then due east parallel with the river. The front intersects the Kuban river 50 miles west of Krasnodar, turns south-west’ - ard to a point 20 miles east-norlh-enst of Novorossiisk, and then runs due west 10 miles. From there the front runs 10 miles south-west, and terminates on the eastern outskirts of Novorossiisk,