BIG BATTLE FOR BRYANSK

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24052, 14 September 1943, Page 5

BIG BATTLE FOR BRYANSK

Enveloping Movement Develops

MORE SOVIET GAINS IN SOUTH (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) v (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, September 13. 7 Messages from Moscow this morning indicate that a biff battle is raging near Bryansk, and one correspondent says that Soviet guns are shelling the outskirts of the city. The Soviet High Command yesterday announced the capture of a railway station 12 miles east of Bryansk* Another Russian force is pushing forward south-west of the city, and a third force in the north is 15 miles away. _ Further north still) the Russians are Roslavl, midway between Bryansk and 1 Smolensk.

Stronger resistance is being offered to the Russian offensive in the Ukraine, but west-north-west of Kharkov the Russians have crossed the Psiol river and taken Gadyach, a railway town midway between Kharkov and Bakhmach.

Soviet spearheads are still driving towards the Dnieper bend. The offensive here threatens the railway from Lozovaya to the Crimea, and the Germans are showing anxiety about their Kuban bridgehead.

The latest Soviet communique says: ‘The Red Army west and south-west of Stalin to-day (Sunday) advanced from six to eight miles and occupied over 50 inhabited places, including the district centre of Staraya Menchik. “In the Priluki sector they advanced from five to 12 miles and captured over 70 places, including Gadyach. The Red Army in the Lyezhin sector advanced from six to seven miles and occupied 20 inhabited localities. “In the Roslavl sector they advanced from four to five miles and captured over 60 places. “Conducting the offensive om the Bryansk front, the Russians advanced in some sectors from two and a half to three and three-quarter miles and pccupied over 40 inhabited places, including several rail stations, one of which is 12 miles east of Bryansk.” A German communique claims that the Russians who landed in the western part of Novorossiisk harbour were annihilated in bitter battles. It adds that fighting continues in the eastern part of the port. A German High Command statement quoted by the Berlin radio says that the Russians are constantly bringing in. more reinforcements on the coastal road south-east of Novorossiisk. Bitter battles are raging in the eastern Novorossiisk region. Fighting is increasing in intensity west of Krymskaya and on both sides of the Kuban bridgehead. The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press says: “The Russians now approaching the Dnieper bend are iuw less than 40 miles from the single railway to the Crimea. Four Red Army columns —from Mariupol, Chaplino, Petropavlovka, and Barvenkova—are surging towards the Dnieper. “The Germans, in the face of this grave threat to the whole of their armies in the south, are expected to make a last-ditch stand on the east bank of the Dnieper, in the Zaporozhe area. In their defence of this railway line the Germans will be handicapped by the threat overhanging Lozovaya, Pavlograd, and Sinelnikovo, the last three junctions on the Kharkov-Zapo-rozhe railway still in German hands. The Russians are now a little more than 20 miles from each of these three junctions.” “The Russian drive towards the Dnieper bend, on an arc from Kharkov to the Sea of Azov, continues unchecked,” says Reuter’s correspondent in Moscow. “The Russian spearheads at the northern end are 15 miles from Pavlograd and 45 miles from Dnepropetrovsk. Cossacks and tanks on the southern arc are advancing towards Zaporozhe, which is the sole escape bridge for the Germans in the Crimea.' The Red Army is keeping up its .pressure against Kiev from the north-

east. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says that the Russians are within 15 miles of Nyezhin, the last railway junction on the road to Kiev. The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press says that while the main Russian force in this sector is striking along the Kursk-Kiev railway, other forces advancing towards Berezna north of the line, and towards Priluki, south of the line, have guarded the Russian flanks against countersttscks The British United Press correspondent adds that Bryansk is endangered from three separate Russian thrusts. First, the Russians from r the. north are within 20 miles of the BryanskSmolensk railway; second, the Russians from the east, after some of the toughest fighting of the war, have penetrated the dense forests and are now within striking distance of the town; and third, the Russians from the south have, forced the Desna river in several places and are pressing on towards Bryansk. . , ■ . ... Reuter’s correspondent reports that two Russian forces pressing north and south of the Roslavl are threatening to cut off Bryansk from the rear and bisect the railway to Smolensk. • „ . The Official German News Agency admits that Russian detachments hay® penetrated the German line south ol Roslavl, but it claims that those detachments were wiped out in a new flank attack. ■ “What surprises you about the Russian barrages is to find yourself alive at the end of them,” said a German officer,.on leave from the Eastern Front, speaking over the Berlin radio. He added: "The Russians usually give our lines three barrages of an hour and a half a day. We then, with ears deafened, eyes inflamed, and covered with mud, watch for Russian tanks. It i® not surprising that under these conditions they are often able to break through at various points. Often when we .emerge from our dug-outs we have immediately to start hand-to-hand fighting. These barrages strain th# nerves of all of us to the utmost”

MACARTHUR AND MOUNTBATTEN

PROSPECTS FOR CHINA

PRECEDENCE IN DRIVE AGAINST JAPAN

“ECONOMIC CRISIS PASSED”

(Rec. 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, Sept 12 “According to reports from Australia and elsewhere, General Mac Arthur is to play second fiddle to Lord Louis Mountbatten (Allied Supreme Commander in South-east Asia), in the campaign pointed at Tokyo,” says the New York “Daily Mirror.” “Senator, James Mead, talking to reporters in New Guinea, left little room for doubt that though General Mac Arthur may fet some reinforcements, Lord Louis lountbatten is receiving priorities for the big push.” The “Daily Mirror” says that General Mac Arthur was not invited to the Quebec conference and received no mention in Mr Roosevelt’s and Mr Churchill’s speeches. “We believe that obvious attempts to sidetrack General Mac Arthur and to hush-hush his accomplishments are a dangerous mistake, subordinating victory to politics,” says the “Daily Mirror.” “General Mac Arthur remains our greatest general, and is the logical choice for supreme command of the effort against Japan.” The New York “Daily News” predicts that these reports will “precipitate a free-for-all fight on Capitol Hill on the question whether Mr Roosevelt and Mr Churchill have decided to blanket General Mac Arthur as a dangerous political opponent in the 1944 election, by making Lord Louis Mountbatten Commander-in-Chief in Southeast Asia,” RUSSIAN CHURCH PATRIARCH INSTALLED (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 13. Before a crowd of 3000 in Moscow, the Metropolian Sergius was officially installed in Moscow Cathedral as Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. This office has been vacant, except for a brief period in 1917, since the death of the Patriarch Adrian, in the year 1700, The Russian See of the Greek Church was raised to a patriarchate, dependent on the Great Church in Constantinople* in 1582; but the patriarchate was suppressed in 1700 when Peter the Great established a synod for the govern- - ment of the Church of Russia under the Tsar’s authority. In 1917' the church was disestablished and, for a brief period, the patriarchate of Moscow was revived.

PLANS FOR POST-WAR GOVERNMENT

(Rec. 12.30 a.m.) CHUNGKING, Sept. “China has successfully passed her economic crisis and is able to survive in the coming two years of continued resistance to the Japanese,” said Marshal Chiang Kai-shek, opening the eleventh plenary session of the Kuomintang Executive Committee. He added: “Bountiful, harvests and increased cotton production this year assure sufficient food and clothing for the Army and civilians. "American monetary assistance is helping China to uphold her currency, stabilise prices, and check inflation. He said that when war conditions permitted, the Kuomintang should hand over the • government to the people, introduce constitutional rule, and assume an equal legal footing with other parties. At a later stage the cqmmittee decided to convene a National People’s Congress within a year after the war tp adopt a Constitution and inaugurate a constitutional Chinese Government.

CLASH IN OUTER MONGOLIA

(Rec. 10 p.m.) CHUNGKINO. Sept. 13. The Chinese Central News Agency reports that Japanese and Chinese puppet troops clashed with Outer Mongolian forces at Kailinho, 40 miles inside the border of Outer Mongolia and ISO miles north of Paotow. Japanese and puppet troops from Inner Mongolia rushed to the scene. The United Press of America recalls that Mr Stalin is pledged to defend Outer Mongolia,