RUSSIAN GUERRILLAS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 23 June 1943, Page 5

RUSSIAN GUERRILLAS

HEAVY LOSSES INFLICTED ON ENEMY FIGURES FOR TWO YEARS London, June 22. The Moscow announcement giving figures of German and Russian losses in two years of war, adds that Soviet guerrillas operating throughout enemyoccupied territory killed 300,000 Germans, derailed 3000 trains, set fire to 895 fuel and ammunition dumps and also wrecked 3263 railroad bridges, and destroyed hundreds of tanks, planes and guns. The announcement claimed that the losses inflicted on the Germans fundamentally shattered the German army’s might and definitely crippled German capacity for waging war, and added that the Soviet’s political and military position was stronger than ever, whereas the enemy’s had deteriorated. AngloSoviet relations had improved and Hitlerite attempts to split the British, American and Russian coalition had failed. “Nevertheless, the Soviet people and the army do not under-estimate the seriousness of the struggle ahead. The balance of forces has changed in favour of Russia and the Allies but this is not enough for victory. Everything now depends on how the Allies use the present favourable situation for a second front in Europe without which victory :s impossible. The absence of a second front in Europe saved Nazi Germany from defeat in 1942. Hitlerites used this breathing space for a new large-scale offensive against the Soviet last summer and autumn. To let the existing favourable conditions for the opening of a second front in Europe in 1943 slip by—to be late in this matter—would seriously harm our commoa cause entailing prolongation of the war and a colossal increase of sacrifice. On the contrary the opening of a second front in Europe this year will speed victory and save many victims.” “DAWN OF VICTORY BREAKING” Ilya Ehrenburg, in an article in “Pravda” (Moscow), says: “After two long years of battle we see the dawn of victory breaking. Our hatred of theGermans has ripened into a determination which is tempered in the furnace of sufferings. We don’t hate the Germans just because they are born Germans but because they have arrogantly presumed themselves to be the leading people of the world and have drenched the world in blood. The question of winning the war decided in our hearts when we first saw gallows, the mangled bodies of children and young girls whose virtue had been dishonoured. We are yearning for justice. We do not want the Germans to suffer because we are suffering now, but because we believe punishment should follow crime.”—P.A.