ENEMY LOSING HEAVILY

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24094, 2 November 1943, Page 5

ENEMY LOSING HEAVILY

Retreat North Of Crimea

GLOOMY COMMENT IN GERMANY

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 2 a.m.) LONDON, Nov. 1. “The German troops, split up and scattered, continue to retreat with heavy lossgs between the Dnieper and the Crimea,” says the Moscow radio. A front-line dispatch to Pravda” says; "Along the whole Dnieper front and the Sea of Azov coast the pursuit of the retreating enemy is in full progress. The Germans no longer have a continuous front. Our mobile units, tanks, mechanised infantry, and cavalry are deeply thrusting into the enemy’s rear, paralysing his movements and capturing huge quantities of booty and a great number of prisoners. Air reconnaissance shows great congestion of German lorries and supply trains and files of tanks and guns.” The Moscow radio’s war correspondent gives a vivid glimpse of the front. He says: “Columns of tanks and guns are choking the German retreat roads. It is a marvellous picture from the air. The whole scene is one of disorder. The Germans cannot get their equipment across the Dnieper. They try to build big stacks of war supplies to burn them, but the Russians are advancing so rapidly that they have already captured masses of equipment.”

The Pans radio says: “The battle of the Nogais Stepps surpasses in violence anything hitherto seen. Fierce battles are going on in the Genichesk and Askanianova regions.” The Vichy radio says the Russians have cut the vital railway between Vishvoie and Nikopol. Under the heading “Battle of Destiny” a gloomy article on the Russian front appears in the German newspaper “Muenchner Neueste Nachrichten.” “The gravity of the Russian offensive concerns not only the Dnieper bend but th'e entire southern front, where we face the possibility of encirclement and the consequent shattering of our whole flank,” says the newspaper. “The German leaders cannot fail to realise that the Russians may succeed in opening up roads to south-eastern Europe. The present battles no longer aim at any military victory, but concern the life of the German nation and future generations. With contracted hearts we follow these events, praying and hoping that bur army may succeed in overcoming the present crisis.

“Our soldiers are facing massed artillery concentrations on a scale hitherto unknown. The greatest battles of the last war pale into insignificance in comparison.” “All the capitals in south-eastern Europe are frantically nervous, expecting a Russian break-through to their territories,” says the Budapest correspondent of the Swedish newspaper “Svenska Dagbladet.” “They have little confidence in the Germans’ ability to hold the Russian drive. Political quarters in these capitals are anxiously awaiting ,the result of the Moscow conference, ’hoping it may afford them some way out of their present dilemma between the Russian devil and the deep blue sea.”