Late War News BIG NEW RUSSIAN ONSLAUGHT

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 271, 11 August 1943, Page 6

Late War News BIG NEW RUSSIAN ONSLAUGHT

On Central Front report by axis SOURCES Developments In War (Br Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Received August 11. 1.40 a.m.) LONDON, August 10. The Russians have launched a third big (push, this .time on the Vyazma sector of the central front. A German military commentator calls it a gigantic attack. The main battle, is located in the Dorogabuzh-Demnensk area, reports Herl in radio. The Germans are rushing up reinforcements in tiansport planes and have already (transported 81,000. soldiers and several tons ol war material. . „ . Paris radio says that the Russians, in the Vyazma area have thrown in nine divisions of infantry and three tank brigades, supported by the air force. According to Oslo radio, the Russians yesterday made 12 successive attacks on a single sector of this front,, each with a battalion. The radio claims that all the attacks were halted outside the main German defence line. The Moscow correspondent of the Lntish United Press says that unbroken progress is reported on all sectors north of Kharkov. Large numbers of prisoners are pouring in. and dozens of towns and villages are falling into the Russian* hands every day. , The Russian advance on the Kiiarkov front has all the signs ot a mayor breakthrough, says the Exchange lelegraph’s Moscow correspondent, lhe Germans, deprived of a large number of their communication lines, are being harrassed by the Russian Air force, which L dominating the skies in spite of intensified efforts by the Luftwaffe. There are signs of demoralization among the enemy officers and men. Progress in Sicily. (Renorting on the (Sicilian battle, A® radio says that the Eighth Army is five miles from Randazzo. General Montgomery, in summing up the operations, said: "The Germans in Sicily are doomed. Their days are numbered. Another report tells of slow, steaoy progress in Sicily, where the Germans are putting up a desperate resistance. Bronte, which was prematurely reported captured two days ago, has now 'been occupied by troops of the Eighth Army, who have joined up with troops ci the American Seventh Army advancing from Cesaro. . . , The number of prisoners taken as a result of the surprise landing Iby the Americans on the northern coast has now increased to I'soo, mostly Italians. Turkish Belligerency, "The day we are called on to fulfil our obligations to Britain under the treaty and enter the war we shall do so. This forthright statement was made by M. Yalchin, a Turkish official, in an article in the newspaper, “Vatan," says Reuter’s Istanbul correspondent. M. Yalchin, in an interview, said that the. article expressed his own personal opinions. "Turkey promised to enter the war on the side of Britain when certain conditions arose in the Mediterranean,” he stated in the article. “Those conditions have not yet arisen. Though Turkey has never declared neutrality, the Axis propaganda is doing its utmost to discredit the Anglo-Saxons for trying to get Turkey to abandon neutrality. The fact is that when we are called on to enter the conflict under our. treaty obligations we shall not need pushing.” Reuter’s correspondent says that the article contradicts an earlier statement by the influential newspaper “Aksam,” ■that Turkey would remain neutral till the end of the war. The Soviet news agency, quoting a report from Istanbul, says that a state of siege has been proclaimed in the Ploesti district in Rumania. Unrest continues in the oilfields in spite of severe reprisal measures, and acts of sabotage are continually being reported. Latest Hitler Eqiort, Herr Hitler, guarded by a military escort, is reported to be virtually a prisoner at Berchtesgaden, says the British Cnited Press correspondent on the German frontier. This report appears to be the latest variation of the story that Field Marshal Goering has now become the real leader of Germany and that Hitler is a mere figurehead. It was apparently to refute such reports that the German Labour leader, Herr Saukel claimed in a speech in Paris that he had just returned from the Fuehrer’s headquarters and found Hitler calm, serene and full of the complete conviction that Germany would win the war. Radio National, a German station in Holland which poses as British, has declared in a special warning: “Chemical war is on the verge of starting. Get a new gas mask as quickly as possible.” However, a Wilhelmstrasse spokeman stated today that Germany undertook not to use poison gas as long as the enemy refrained from doing so.