SOVIET DRIVE ON KURSK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25136, 29 January 1943, Page 3

SOVIET DRIVE ON KURSK

TRAP FOR NAZIS IN CAUCASUS (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Rec. 1 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 28. The Russians report further gains in their winter offensive, especially in the Voronezh sector. Following the announcement yesterday that 5000 Germans had been forced to surrender, the Russians in this area have made further progress to the west. Axis forces which tried to stem their advance were compelled to give ground after they had suffered heaVy losses. The Russians are now only 75 miles from the great German base of Kursk. The Soviet forces driving on Rostov from the north, north-east, and south-east are reported to be making progress. The column advancing from Salsk, in tile south-east, was last reported to be 65 miles away from its objective, while another column in the same area is now threatening Tikhoretsk, which has been described as the escape gap for Hitler’s forces in the Caucasus. . Moscow announces that the Russians on the Voronezh front captured the large railway station at Gorschechnoye, about 60 miles to the southwest of Voronezh on the Yelets-Valuiki railway. On the southern front they captured Egorlyk and Novoalexandrovskaya, 50 and 40 miles respectively to the east of Kavkaskaya, and also Srednyegorlik, 50 miles to the north-west of Salsk and 70 miles to the south-east of Rostov. Neftegorsk, 30 miles to the north-east of Tuapse, on the railway to Armavir, has also been captured. The Stockholm correspondent of The Times says the German forces ■re becoming congested on the railways in the western Caucasus with the Russians in the immediate approaches to the Kavkaskaya and Tikhoretsk junctions. The barrier which the Germans hope to defend apparently includes an arc drawn from Tikhoretsk, with Rostov near the centre. It is unlikely, however, that the Germans really expect to stem the Russian offensive so far eastward, but hard fighting is certain before the Russians overcome this delaying barrier and surge into the heart of the basin. The German armies in the Caucasus, whose retreat the Russians threaten to cut off, may attempt to escape by the Black Sea. Turkish reports state that all Axis ships in Turkish and Bulgarian ports have been ordered to Novorossisk, the German-held port on the Black Sea coast in Western Caucasia. This would suggest that General von List’s forces have abandoned their attempts to reach Rostov. Military observers have predicted that the speedy Russian advances through the Northern Caucasus would cut off the German line of retreat, leaving the sea as the only means of escape. If the Germans attempt to escape from Novorossisk they must run the gauntlet of the Soviet Black Sea fleet. ‘ The Vichy radio to-day said that the Germans on the southern sector of the eastern front had begun a methodical and orderly withdrawal. Heavy fighting continues in the Velikie Luki and Leningrad regions, though no fresh changes have been reported. New activity is recorded in the Volkhov and Rjev areas.