German Front Cracking

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 55, 6 March 1943, Page 5

German Front Cracking

LONDON, Mar. i. Hitler’s Eastern Front is bending and cracking from Staraya Russa to Orel as the Bed Army drives on after new successes on the Moscow front, says Beuter’s Moscow correspondent. The Bussians are scoring more and more successes as they drive the enemy westwards, reports the Moscow radio. They are preventing the Germans from consolidating their positions, storming their centres of resistance, and capturing enormous booty. The Red Army has already liberated 15 districts in the Kharkov region. Beuter’s correspondent says the Bea Army’s spirit and striking power in the fourth month of the great offensive are as high as ever. The Vichy radio announced that Marshal Timoshenko is massing big forces from Orel to Staraya Bussa. The Daily Telegraph’s Stockholm correspondent says the Germans at Bjev destroyed all supplies and ammunition they were unable to take away, ana drove civilians before them for work in labour camps. Demolition squads set fire to the town. Beuter’s Moscow correspondent says that Hitler is estimated to have deployed more than 70 divisions on the Moscow front salient which is now threatened by the fall of Bjev. These Forces protect the north-eastern approaches to Smolensk. The whole area of the salient is saturated to the limit with fortifications of the most modern type. A German military spokesman statea that the Bussians on the wings of the Orel semi-circle have launched attacks with numerically far superior assault and tank forces, and are engaging the Germans in heavy defensive battles. The Russians achieved local breaches.