SOVIET ARMIES PRESS ON

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 3, 29 September 1943, Page 5

SOVIET ARMIES PRESS ON

'Battles In White Russia

THRUSTS ACROSS DNIEPER (By Telegraph.-—Press Assn.—Copy right J (Received September 28, 9 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 2 7. The German lines on the White Russian front are already buckling dangerously. The Russians in battles raging day and night have pressed to within less than 30 miles of Vitebsk, 70 miles of Mogilev and 30 miles of Gomel. \ . According to Ankara radio, the Russians have penetrated White Russia at four places. Massive concentrations of Russian guns are hurling a CO J I ' tinuous rain of shells across the Dnieper and are softening up the German lines for a number of thrusts which are developing at widely separated points. Russian planes shuttling across the narrow gap between the two armies are heavily bombing the Germans., °The British United Press Moscow correspondent reports that Russian paratroops which have been landed on the west bank o the Dnieper at many points are now attacking the German rear.

An official announcement in Moscow late tonight reported the capture of Katyn, 15 miles west of Smolensk. It is the site of the mass graves of Polish officers, the “discovery” of which by the Germans was the subject of Russian and German charges and countercharges arid also the cause of RussianPolish friction. Chernobaisk lias been taken in the Kiev area and the Red Army has also captured Onezdovo railway station five miles west of Smolensk. Another important Soviet success to■day is the occupation of a suburb .of Dnepropetrovsk. The main part of Dnepropetrovsk, third city of the Ukraine, with a peacetime population of 500,000, is on the German side of the river. The suburb the Russians have taken is on the other side, and the communique does not say that the Red Army is across the river at any point. Dispatches from Moscow today say the Russians went all out to expand their small bridgeheads on the German side, and the German communique admits that some Russian forces had obtained a footing there. Tile Soviet communique also reports more progress toward the other Dnieper towns of Kremenchug and Kiev. Toward Kremenchug the Russians have taken a district centre some 20 miles from the city. Further north the Red Army has gained up to 10 miles in each of its three drives toward Gomel, Mohilev and Vitebsk. Battle for Crossings. The crucial battle for the Dnieper crossings is in full saving, states Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. The Russians are making many simultaneous thruste, some of which undoubtedly are feints designed to split up the Germans and diffuse their fire. Russian and German artillery are heavily duelling across the river, and the Red Air Force is hammering at the German defences. The Dnieper line is already cracking and is likely to split wide open soon, ' The German losses in men are huge , and thousands of tons of valuable war material now massed east of the river '■will never make a return journey except in Russian hands.

There are five bridges between Kiev and Zaporozhe for railways and main roads. It is not yet known whether the Germans have blown them up or whether they hope to retain protective bridgeheads on the east bank. The German resistance is stiffening west of Gomel, where they are employing considerable" tank and infantry reinforcements. As the Russians on the east bank of the Dnieper surge forward, more and more Germans are being forced into the river and many German bodies are floating down toward the battlefields farther south. Gorman Peril. Along the whole front from west of Smolensk to south of Dnepropetrovsk, the Nazisbave reached positions where any further retreat in one sector will menace the entire line, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. Fifty Russian divisions are driving in three main sections against White Russia, imperilling the heart of the new German line and the vital bases j>t Vitebsk, Mogilev, and Gomel, which are the gates to Minsk.