Nazi Forces In Crimea

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 106, 1 November 1943, Page 5

Nazi Forces In Crimea

RED ARMY DRIVES SOUTH

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) Eec noon. LONDON, October 31. With the Russians only eighteen miles from Perekop, on the isthmus linking" the Crimea with the mainland, the Germans have begun the evacuation of the Crimea by sea. Barges and sailing boats are being used to get. the Germans and Eumanians away. The single-track railway across the Perekop isthmus through to Kherson is crowded with escape trains. The Germans are blowing' up the convalescent homes and hotels of the Crimea as they leave. The Russians' capture of Genichesk gives them command of the eastern approaches to the Crimean peninsula. Eeuter's Moscow correspondent says that the Germans panicked when the Eussians stormed into Genichesk from two sides. Officers tried hard to restore order, shooting down some of the fleeing men with revolvers.

According to the Tass Agency the Russians have advanced from 75 to 85 miles from Melitopol.

The Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau declared that the Germans had given up hope of holding Krivoi Eog, keystone of the Dnieper bend defences. They had decided to leave the German garrison to its fate. The Russian ring around Krivoi Rog is tightening and the only question is how long the German garrison is able to hold out. The Stockholm newspaper "Social Demokraten's" Berlin correspondent states that the Germans are sending all the available troops to the Eastern Froiit. Leave has been cancelled and men summoned by telegram to return to their units. . The Soviet communique reports big new advances in southern Russia, where the Russians are keeping up the pressure in their great offensive on the steppes of the southern Ukraine. The communique says that Russian troops between the Dnieper and the Crimea have/occupied more than two hundred places, one of which is only 15 miles from the Perekop Isthmus between the Crimea and the mainland. , Another spearhead has reached the lower Dnieper. Across the Dnieper, inside the bend, Red Army troops have occupied several towns and villages in their offensive south-west of Dnepropetrovsk. In the Krivoi Rog sector they are still repelling counter-attacks by large enemy ,tank and infantry forces. From other sectors of the front the communique reports intense reconnaissance and artillery activity. ; BATTLE BEGINNING. Earlier reports said that the battle for the Crimea was beginning along the shores of the Sea of Azov and the irregular inland lagoon that separates ithe eastern peninsula from the mainland.

The enemy has many strongpoints and is taking advantage of every bit of cover. Soviet: mobile columns have many of these and the garrisons cut off are-obeying their orders to hold out to the last.

The main Russian drive is to cut off the Perekop Isthmus, the western gateway to the Crimea. Powerful • GerTrian forces are massing to meet the shock of the Russian columns which are bearing swiftly down upon them. In several sectors the Germans have already launched counter-attacks and are beginning to use tanks and infantry forought up from the Crimea itself. The '{Russians are moving up their guns. All this is happening on the southern flank ■•of the-great Soviet wedge which 'ipoints up the Dnieper estuary- On the northern flank, where the Russians have split the German forces, into-two groups, they are pushing through the Dnieper marshes towards the river. Tanks and infantry closely follow the riflemen and are keeping up the pressure on the enemy. Inside the Dnieper bend big air battles are being fought on the Krivoi Hog front. The Germans are now supporting their counter-attacks with a! determined effort to bomb the Russian supply lines where they cross the Dnieper. Twenty or thirty times a day Russian fighters have to beat off big formations of German aircraft. NAZI .CROSSING IN PERIL. An earlier report said that in southern Russia Soviet forces are sweeping j across the broad and treeless plains, leaving in their wake the remnants of the broken German armies. Russian cavalrymen have been leading the way —thard riding soldiers "who sweep through and around the Germans as they try desperately to make a rearguard stand or stumble in retreat towards the west. They cut the enemy's communications and disorganise his life line. ; Behind them follow the Red Army mobile infantry. Russian tanks, sweepSing aside the debris in their path, are •hammering down hastily prepared defences or beating back counter-attacks. . The latest dispatches put the Russians about 20 miles from Nikopol, where a railway crosses the Dnieper into territory already threatened by the Soviet armies which are now fighting inside the Dnieper bend. The Russians are even closer to Kakhovka —some reports say within 16 miles.

This town represents the only established Nazi crossing of the Dnieper ■between Nikopol and Kherson, at the mouth of the river. If it should fall,

the Germans now rolling back on to the marshy lands bordering the river would be faced with a problem of getting across it on improvised bridges and ferries.

The Russian spearhead was reported to be 18 miles from Perekop today, and if the speed of its advance is maintained it may reach the area of this town within a matter of hours. If the Red Army can stop up the Perekop bottleneck the Germans will only have one way left out of the Crimea —by sea, under the threat of the guns of the Russian fleet.

Low hills, lie along the edge of this route, .and the Germans are said to be trying to stem the Russian advance with anti-tank ditches and minefields; but the Soviet penetration continues, and those of the enemy who have-not escaped to the west are being rounded up. I?/,ide the Dnieper bend the railways from Nikopol, Dnepropetrovsk, and Krivoi Rog all meet at Apostoloyo, and .the Germans are gradually being pushed back from this vital town.

Tonight's Soviet communique says that the Red Army between the Dnieper and the coast of the Sea of Azov continued to pursue the retreating enemy and occupied over 200 inhabited places, including Chaplinka, 15 miles from Perekop, and several district centres. The Russians southwest of Dnepropetroysk continued their offensive and occupied several places. The Russians in the Krivoi Rog sector continued to repel counter-attacks from large tank and infantry forces.