RESISTANCE INCREASES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 67, 20 March 1943, Page 5

RESISTANCE INCREASES

ENEMY DEFENCE OF SMOLENSK (Rec; 12.10 p.m.) RUGBY, Mar. 19. The Red Army continues to advance on the central front towards Smolensk. ,despite increasing resistance. A supplementary communique stales that the Soviet troops on this front, having occupied the district centre and railway station of Izdeshkovo, forged ahead and occupied several other localities. The communique also says: "Southward of Lake Ilmen our troops, oveixoming stubborn enemy resistance, occupied several localities, killed 900 .Hitlerites, and captured booty. Our pilots destroyed five enemy planes." A Moscow message says that the Soviet blow at Izdeshkovo against three infantry divisions and one motorised division has given new impact to the westward drive from Vyazma. The Russians are already well advanced in the direction of Safonov, about 50 miles east of Smolensk, and there are signs that the Germans are increasing their resistance by the use of large forces ■ and artillery. They may try to offer a decisive battle at Yartseyo, which was the; scene of bitter righting in August, 1941.

The' Russians in the Kharkov area continue to hold the Donets, on which the ice still holds but is rapidly thinning, and is flooded by water from the thaw1.: At one point German tanks, attempting an unprepared crossing, crashed through the ice. All the German attempts to capture the most important bridgeheads at Byelgomd, Chuguyev, and Izyum have so far failed. The heaviest fighting at the moment apparently is around Chugu-

yev, where the enemy brought up. large reserves but failed to achieve a crossing. The Soviet air force is heavily attacking the Germans, particularly their lorried troops.—B.O.W.