SWEEPING FORWARD

Evening Star, Issue 25005, 26 October 1943, Page 3

SWEEPING FORWARD

Russian Advance From Dnieper

German Bases Stormed and Captured

iPresi Asiociation—By Telegraph—Copyright

(Bee. 11.85 a.m.) " LONDON, October 25. The Russian wall of panzers is rolling on from Kronenchug, Zaporozhe, and Melitopol, and will sweep away all resistance unless the Germans can throw in huge reserves, states the German-controlled Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau. Enormous masses of infantry support the panzers. The battle has not yet reached its peak, but it is already obvious that it will very soon decide the fate of the Crimea.

Eeuter's.Moscow correspondent says the Russians are closing in on Krivoi Rog. Their shells are screaming into Krivoi Rog railway junction. The Germans are throwing more men into the furious battle for the last defence lines north of the town. The Germans west of Melitopol are trying to save their battered forces by heavy armoured counter-attacks.

A Russian tank force is moving up for the main assault on Krivoi Rog. The speed of the Russian advance from the Dnieper has saved a number of villages from.the German wreckers. A German battery at one point was captured before it could fire a shot.

The capture of Dnepropetrovsk and the twin city of Dneprozerzhinsk is announced in a special Order of the Day from Marshal Stalin, which says: " Troops on the third Ukrainian front, with decisive co-operation from the second Ukrainian front, are continuing their successful operations on the right bank of the Dnieper, and to-day captured the regional centre of Dnepropetrovsk and the town of Dnepro-zerzhinsk-Kamenskaya, important industrial centres in the southern part of our country and important enemy operational bases within the Dnieper Bend."

The Russians evacuated Dnepropetrovsk in August, 1941. Between it and Zaporozhe was the great dam and power station, which the retreating Russians blew up. Dneprozerzhinsk, also on the Dnieper, is 30 miles west of Dnepropetrovsk. The Russians captured 40 other places within the Dnieper Bend, and are now within four miles of Krivoi Rog.