CRACKED OPEN

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21227, 16 October 1943, Page 3

CRACKED OPEN

GERMAN DEFENCES MELITOPOL - & GOMEL STREET FIGHTS RAGE (By Telegraph— Press Aaan.—Copyright.) LONDON. Oct. 14. Never since Germany attacked Russia has the Red Army had such a series of potential successes in prospect. The defences at Melitopol and Gomel are cracked wide open and street fighting is raging for their final seizure, while Kiev itself is apparently in the throes of evacuation. The Russian summer offensive has become merged into a vast autumn battle, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. Melitopol, with its vital railway station astride the main escape route from the Crimea, is being cleared street by street in house-to-house lighting. Vicious battles are still swaying in the centre of Melitopol, but the Germans are being wrenched trom their last positions. The Russians are throwing in everything to liquidate Melitopol, because the capture of the city would not only destroy the main rail escape route from the Crimea but would enable Red Army tanks to sweep unhampered across the Togaisk steppe between Melitopol and the Sea of Azov to close up the Crimea by land from the north. The Germans are resisting desperately on the Melitopol front and counter-attack as many as 17 times a day. Melitopol is a living inferno, with hundreds of buildings aflame. Dnieper Crossings The battle for the Dnieper from its confluence wdth the Pripet to the Melitopol area is being maintained in intensity. The Red Army is ferrying troops across the Dnieper at a greater daily rate than ever. The Russians now have dozens of strongly built pontoon bridges across the Dnieper capable of carrying the heaviest tanks to the west bank north and south of Kiev. The Germans are rushing reinforcements to Kiev in a desperate attempt 10 hold up the Russian advance long enough to evacuate the city. The lighting outside the town is reported to be the fiercest since the battle tor Orel and Byelgorod. The roads from Kiev are jammed with German lorries carrying away everything movable. Surrounding villages inhabited by so-called German colonisers are now deserted. Moscow correspondents give no further details, but Captain Sertorius admits tlhat the Russians have made local breaches in the Kiev area, adding: “The Russians are hurling in masses of men south-east and north of Kiev.” Reuter’s correspondent says the Russians on the White Russian front are fighting among the flames of the ruins of Gomel’s biggest buildings. General Popov’s troops hold the city in a semi-circular vice. The Germans have resolutely defended Gomel throughout the campaign. The Russians during September penetrated the outskirts, but this time the Germans’ position is stated to be desperate. The Russians who got out of the town say the Germans are systematically reducing it to rubble, blowing up block after block.