VITAL RAILWAY CUT?

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 18, 21 July 1943, Page 3

VITAL RAILWAY CUT?

NEW RED ADVANCE

GREAT SOVIET DRIVE

(By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright.) Rec. 1 p.m. LONDON, July 20. It is officially announced in Moscow that the Russians have captured Gorodische, three miles south of the Bryansk-Orel railway. Reuters Moscow correspondent says that the capture of Gorodische indicates that the Red Army advancing from the north already has cut the vital Orel-Bryansk line.

One Russian spearhead advancing on a 20-mile front has captured Sichy, 20 miles east-north-east of Orel.

The Russian forces from the northern wedge are advancing rapidly on Bolkhov, while the Russians driving from the south have reached a point 37 miles from Orel.

The British United Press says that villages on the Orel front are constantly changing hands, but that the Germans have generally been unable to. slow down the momentum of the Russian drive.

The Stockholm correspondent of "The Times" declares that the outcome of the Orel battle, with the Russians embracing Orel in arms from north and south, appears to be assured, although the closing of. the pocket is not yet in sight.

ABANDONED THEIR CHILD

P.A. NELSON, July 20. Parents who abandoned a 13-month-old child in a Christchurch hotel appeared in the Magistrate's Court, charged with abandoning a child under 14 years in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering. The accused were Albert Henry Wheeler, aged 34, and Myjca Joyce Wheeler, aged 24. Both pleaded guilty. Wheeler said that his wife was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He could not secure a house and hotels and boarding-houses refused to have them on account of his wife's screaming. The Magistrate: Is that your idea of an excuse? Accused: I thought it was out of kindness. I thought the little one would get a home after a while. We thought we were doing right. The Magistrate: You ask me to believe that? I hope there are riot many other fathers and mothers who have that idea of kindness. Accused: We kissed the little one and cried when we left it. We couldn't do anything else. The mother said they had no home for their child. The Magistrate said it was a callous, cruel act. The remarks of Wheeler carried no weight, and he could not think that any normal mother would do such a dreadful thing. Wheeler was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and his wife to 12 months' probation.