LINE OF RETREAT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 64, 13 September 1943, Page 5

LINE OF RETREAT

THREATENED BY REDS

ARMIES IN THREE THEATRES (By Telegraph—Press .association —Copyright.) Kec. 12.15 p.m. LONDON, Sept. 12. Through an-irresistible advance from the Donets Basin, the Russians are now definitely threatening to cut off the German armies in the Kuban bridgehead, the Crimea, and the southwest Donets. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says that the Russians, who are approaching the Dnieper Bend, are now less than 40 miles from the single railway which the Germans must use for evacuating their troops from the Kuban bridge-* head, the Crimea, and the south-west Donets.

Four Red Army columns—from Mariupol, Chaplirio, Petropavlovka, and Barvenkovo—are surging towards the Dnieper as fast as vehicles can carry them. The Germans, in the

face of this grave threat to the whole of their armies in the south, are expected to make a last-ditch stand on the east bank of the Dnieper in the Zaporozhe area. In their defence of the last railway line the Nazis will be handicapped by the threat hanging' over Lozovaya, Pavlograd, and Vishenvetskoye, which, are the last three junctions on the Kharkov-Zaporozhe railway still in German hands. The Russians are now a little over 20 miles from each of these three junctions.

NO CHECK TO ADVANCE

Reuters Moscow correspondent says that the Russian drive towards the Dnieper bend, on an arc from Kharkov to the Sea of Azov, continues without a check. While the Russian spearheads at the northern end of the arc are 15 miles from Pavlograd and 45 miles from Dnepropetrovsk, the Cossacks and tanks of the southern arc are advancing towards Zaporozhe, which is the sole escape bridge for the Germans in the Crimea.

Reuter also reports that the Red Army is within 15 miles of Nyejin, the final railway junction on the road to Kiev.

The Russian army is maintaining pressure against Kiev from the northeast. The British United Press says the Russians in the Nyejin sector are less than 100 miles from Kiev and the Red Army has centred the advance on the Kursk-Kiev railway, while further advances towards the Berezina River northwards of the line and towards Priluki, southwards of the line, have .guarded the Russian flanks against counter-attacks.

TRIPLE PERIL, OF BRYANSK.

Bryansk is endangered from three separate Russian thrusts. First, the Russians from the north are 20 miles off the Bryansk-Smolensk railway; secondly, the Russians from the east, after some of the toughest fighting of the war, have penetrated dense forests and are now within striking distance of the town; thirdly, the Russians from the south have forced the Desna River at several places and are pressing on towards Bryansk.

Reuter reports that two Russian forces, pressing north and south from Roslovl, are threatening to cut off Bryansk from the rear and bisect the railway to Smolensk. The German news agency admits that Russian detachments have penetrated the German line south of Roslovl, but claims that detachments wiped out the new flank attack.

A German communique claims that the Russians who landed in the western part-of Novorossisk harbour were annihilated in bitter battles, and-adds that fighting continues in the eastern part of the port. ' A German High Command statement quoted by Berlin radio says that the Russians constantly britig in more reinforcements on the coastal road southeast of Novorossisk, Bitter battles Eire raging in the eastern Novorossisk region, and fighting is increasing in in-' tensity west of Krymskaya and on both" sides of the Kuban bridgehead.