VAST AIR BATTLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 91, 14 October 1943, Page 6

VAST AIR BATTLE

RAGING WER KIEV GERMAN DEVASTATION ' (By: Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) Eec. 1 p.m. LONDON, October 13. General Rokossovsky's troops launched the assault on the Dnieper under the greatest air umbrella ever put up on the Russian front, and the biggest air battles of the war are raging around Kiev. The flames sweeping Kievl can be seen for miles and huge •' palls of smoke fill the air. Escapees from the city say that the most important buildings and monuments have been blown up, and dynamite charges have torn the main street apart. For. twenty miles around Kiev houses and parks and even orchards ; have been razed. , The: "Isvestia's" front-line corres- . pondent says that Russians who have. • escaped from the city tell,of the terrible things the Germans have done. For two-years they have been merci-lessly-killing, off the inhabitants. Gallows were ejected in the city square -and tens ,of thousands* of graves tes- | tify to German bestiality. The suburbs [ of Kiev have been burnt to,the ground. 'Reuters Moscow correspondent says ; that the Germans, in the effort to stave off the crushing weight of Russian re- " inforcements streaming across the • Dnieper are pressing old Rumanian ' planes into ' service even obsolete types captured in the Western Front -campaign in 1940. This sorry collection is in action under the protection of groups of modern Messerschmitts ■ in, the attempt to regain air superiority. Moscow radio declares, that the Russians have driven a wedge far into the. German lines on the west bank of the , Dnieper, and the Gerraannews agency •admits,that in the face of large-scale • attacks from - Russian bridgeheads on .the west bank, the German defence -positions had to be withdrawn in cer,tain places to avoid a threatening breach.