BRYANSK EVACUATED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 66, 15 September 1943, Page 5

BRYANSK EVACUATED

The position seems to be that part of the enemy garrison was left behind to cover the evacuation and set fire to all buildings of importance before the Soviet troops could get across the Dnieper, which is more than a quarter of a mile wide at this point.

The German radio's military commentator, Captain Sertorius, said that the German Command was conducting operations, with elasticity, taking advantage of the spaciousness of the battle area, but the fact remains that Bryansk occupies a strong defensive position and that the Germans were compelled to get out because they were being steadily encircled by the Red Army columns. Bryansk had been in German hands since October, 1941. The Germans say they have evacuated it because they are aiming at compelling the Russians to pursue them in much greater depth than can be desirable for the Russian Command. All this, it is said, is the result of the German Command's lai*ge-scale evading movements. Berlin claims that all war material and industrial machinery had been evacuated from Bryansk. The withdrawal means that the Russians now have in their hands one of the most important railway junctions in Russia and one of the great bastions of v the German defence line. The German High Command today speaks of heavy street fighting in Novorossisk, the last port in enemy hands in the Kuban.