FURTHER GAINS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25306, 17 August 1943, Page 3

FURTHER GAINS

RED ARMY’S SWEEP NEARING BRYANSK ADVANCE FROM KARACHEV (Rec. 1 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 16. Front-line despatches this afternoon say that the Russians have advanced eight miles beyond Karachev, which they captured early yesterday, and have reached a point about 16 miles from Bryansk. Karachev was aflame when the Russians captured it. Correspondents cabling from Moscow before the announcement of the fall of the city had dwelt on the stubborn delaying action the Germans were fighting in the streets of numerous villages scattered before the outskirts of Karachev. - The Russians, since the capture of Demensk on Friday in their newest important threat against Smolensk, have maintained intense pressure, with advances of a few miles every day, but correspondents agree that the strength of the German resistance thus far has not allowed the Red Army to gain spectacular advances. The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press says the latest development in the Demensk sector

is the Russian threat to Roslavl, which is a rail junction and base between Smolensk and Bryansk. The fighting has been most vicious around Roslavl, and the Germans at one point counterattacked and pierced the Russian lines, but were driven back after a fierce engagement. The Russians are continuing to pour tanks and infantry through a gao in the German defences between Bryansk and Smolensk in order to build up the wedge. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent reports that the Germans brought reinforcements up to their threatened front east of Smolensk and have thrown them into the counter-attacks. The correspondent adds that the Germans were forced to abandon big stores in this sector, and German planes have already returned and bombed their own stores. , The Germans are making a fierce last stand around Kharkov, but are still losing ground and have been forced to abandon, much of their supplies. To-day’s information shows that the Germans have not yet been reconciled to abandoning Kharkov immediately, says the Stockholm correspondent, of The Times. The Germans managed to bring up strong reinforcements, which are now in action in two main directions—one from Dnepropetrovsk with the obvious task of keeping the escape corridor open, and the other in the Sumy-Lebedin area. The Red Air Force has complete mastery over Kharkov. The Red Star, commenting on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Red Air Force, says: “ Russian factories are providing our armies with planes superior to anything the Germans have.”

The Russians who captured Karachev had to overcome -great difficulties of the wooded terrain as well as incessant rains which bogged the tracks, states a front-line despatch to the Russian newspaper Pravda. In a- daring night operation the Russians split the remnants of several German tank and motorised divisions before Karachev. The Russian Guards, after capturing the heights dominating the town, broke into the suburbs on the heels of the retreating Germans. Fierce fighting went on in the streets before the Germans were thrown to the west of Karachev beyond the river barriers. The Germans at Kharkov are continually launching counter-attacks in desperate but unsuccessful attempts to stem the powerful Red Army thrusts. The Moscow correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph says the Germans, after their- expulsion from Orel, tried to withdraw man-power and material in good order to Karachev, but the Red Army forced them to give battle the whole way by swift flanking movements, by which the Germans expended much of their strength, which they had hoped would serve for Karachev’s defence. The Germans were forced to dig into the strength of their Bryansk garrison to maintain resistance at Karachev. Now that Karachev has fallen the battle might switch immediately to the eastern outskirts of Bryansk, just as the capture of Mtsensk was speedily followed by the storming of Orel.