"OUR SPRING HAS COME"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 116, 19 May 1942, Page 5

"OUR SPRING HAS COME"

RUSSIAN SLOGAN

LONDON, May 17,

The rate of progress of the Russian forces in their advance against Kharkov has decreased as the heart of the German .fortifications is reached. Longrange Russian artillery is now bombarding 'the city itself. The eastern suburbs, which the Germans and prisoners of war partly, rebuilt during the, winter, are blazing fiercely.

The Red Army has broken through the* German defences at Lozovaya, 75 miles south-west of Kharkov, and is driving on to Krasnograd. This advance, in conjunction with the Russian pressure on Byelgorod, north of Khar-

kov, indicates the beginning of a possible encircling movement. ft Berlin reports admit that Russian pursuit plane's have appeared en masse over the front, engaging in terrific dog-fights against the- .German fighters which are trying to protect the ground forces.

A correspondent says that the German commander is hurling wave after wave of tanks into the battle in an attempt to stem the advance of the Soviet troops, who are attacking under the slogan, "Our spring has come!" GERMAN ORDERS TO RESIST TO THE END. In one sector the Germans are retreating in disorder and the Russians are using cavalry to break through the fleeing enemy/and destroy material in his rear. As an example of the exceptionally heavy losses inflicted on the enemy, it is stated that in a single day the Russians virtually wiped out the 375 th Regiment, the second battalion of the 602 nd Regiment, and various other ..enemy units. Orders found on captured Germans told them to resist in certain fortified points to the last man. i

The "Red Star" says that while the regular army is making progress across the Ukraine, guerrilla fighting has become more intense in Whjlte Russia, where partisans have penetrated into Vietbsk.

Russian cavalry on the Kalinin front, north-east of Smolensk, in a one-day swoop, dislodged the Germans from six towns, killing more than 900 men. The Germans claim that practically the whole of the Kerch Peninsula is in their hands, says the Stockholm correspondent of "The Times." The Germans planned a demonstrative blitz, not expecting that the Russians would be able to resist more than two or three days, but after eight days the Soviet forces are still disputing parts of the town of Kerch itself, and the north-eastern tip of the peninsula.