YELNIA SALIENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24721, 25 September 1941, Page 7

YELNIA SALIENT

THE RUSSIAN SUCCESS RECAPTURE OF CITY GERMANS RETREATING (Rec. 9 p.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 24. Mr Vernon Bartlett, in a broadcast despatch from Moscow, describes a visit to the battlefield of Yelnia. “ It looked like Hampstead looks after a bank holiday, except that the rubbish consisted not of waste paper but of the remains of delicate and precise instruments for the destruction of human life. German steel helmets and other articles of equipment are ten a penny on the battlefield from which the attack for the recapture of Yelnia began. Nobody knows very accurately how many Germans have been piled into shell holes and buried there. Even the Soviet casualties are hard to estimate, for the dead are buried together in one large grave marked in Russian, ‘ Brotherly Grave.’ The Germans had over a month in which to dig themselves in, and their trench system stood well up to artillery fire, but the Russians came out of a bridge half a mile away and in a classical style of attack came near enough to make a bayonet charge. You can see any number of the little hollows they had scooped out for themselves to get a little cover while preparing for the next rush. “ Having captured Unshakovo they could also attack the Yelnia salient from the south, and did so with such success that the Germans, who were some eight miles east of Yelnia, had to withdraw. Now they are well to the west and still retreating, since the bottlenecks through which they get their supplies have been narrowed down to a bare three miles. “ Yelnia itself is a great sight. It is a forest of brickstacks—it is a wilderness of rubble and cinders. I wondered whether this was the result of the famous scorched earth policy of the Russians but was told that when the Gex-mans decided they must evacuate the place they locked all that remained of the civilian population in a church and set the town on fire.” GERMANS DIGGING IN TREMENDOUS LOSSES (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 23. There is evidence that the Germans are digging in along hundreds —one might say thousands—of kilometres, Major-general Sokolovsky, representative of the Soviet High Command on the central front, told British journalists to-day. He added that what lies ahead of the Germans is trench warfare, mud, Russian roads, and winter. Germany’s blitzkrieg had been converted into a blitz destruction of German men and material closely resembling Verdun, but many times greater. Major-general • Sokolovsky estimated the proportion of losses in the past two months as two to one in favour of the Russians in man-power and five to one in favour of the Russians in material. The Red Army’s advance in the central sector was due to the superiority of its tanks, planes, and artillery. The Germans, it was estimated, had lost 1950 planes on the central sector since the beginning of the battle of Smolensk. Since the beginning of September Russian counter-attacks had resulted in the recapture of territory to a depth of frhm 6 to 30' miles along a 60-mile front. Ten German divisions had been totally or partly wiped out in these engagements, and the Germans were recently compelled to throw in 10 additional divisions, hoping to localise the Russian advance.

He said that the additional divisions which the Germans had been compelled to throw in against the Russian counter-attack on the central front had been brought from other parts of the front, but there was no evidence that any had been brought from the Leningrad sector. He added that the Russians were now some 25 miles from Smolensk. An important factor in the German’s failure on the Smolensk front was a weakness in the rear in consequence of guerrilla activities and the hostility of local populations. This weakness was increasing, and a very large number of troops must have been sent from the front to take care of the rear lines. Only the main roads, for instance, the Minsk, Orsha, and Smolensk roads, are properly under German control. The Germans hesitate to venture from the main roads except in large force, and guerrillas are continually attacking convoys. The failure of the drive against Moscow compelled Hitler to divert forces to Leningrad and the Ukraine. “How will it end there? Of course, we do not possess all particulars, but, judging from present information, I think it will end just as badly for the Germans as here.”

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