EXTENT OF RED DRIVE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 20, 25 January 1943, Page 5

EXTENT OF RED DRIVE

APPROACH TO NAZI STARTING POINT

(Rec. 12.40 p.m.) RUGBY, Jan. 24. : The Russians at two places are now only about 50 miles from the line. whence the last German offensive began on: the southern half of the front One of these areas) is between Voro- • nezh and Kharkov, where the Rus? sians are about 50 miles from the German starting point near Biel* gorod. The other is on the 'lowe* Donets near Voroshilovgrad. Between Voronezh and Rostov th« Russians are nowhere more than about < 100 miles from the line they held last? spring. South of Rostov a large arda* of the Germans' 1942 gains still re*; mains to them in the Kuban district.l but it is rapidly shrinking, and theic; chances of retaining any Caucasian,5 territory at all are slender. i Commenting on this, the "Observer*^ • says that Mr. H. L. Stimson's state*] ment that Russia now has air, of superiority over the whole front goes a long way to explain the decisive turn in the tide. Moreover, it is | one aspect of the Russian victories to] which the British and the Americans] have contributed. Six thousand planes which were produced for Russia in: British and American factories andi which were delivered by the valour of British, American, and Russian sailors' contributed as much to this Russianair superiority as the destruction wrought by the Luftwaffe in Tunis/ Libya, and elsewhere. Nearly all the Germans' satellite divisions fighting in Russia are' novf accounted for, it was stated in London today. All the Italian and Hun< garian troops have been so heavily;, defeated in recent weeks that their* effective fighting strength must be-j come negligible, while of, the original* 20 Rumanian divisions all but ,fourT are known to have been badly maul*' cd. Capitulations en masse byi Italian, Rumanian, and Hungarian 1 troops have been a frequent occur™ rence, sometimes with generals and their staffs. A news agency correspondent says that during a recent visit: to the Stalingrad front he learned that on the previous day the commander of a Rumanian unit crossed the front line in a car to surrender. The Russians, however, turned the commander back with a request to bring his men and their equipments - which he did.—B.O.W.