EVACUATION OF CRIMEA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25372, 2 November 1943, Page 3

EVACUATION OF CRIMEA

GERMANS USING SEA ROUTE

BARGES AND SAILING BOATS

, LONDON, Oct. 31. With the Russians only seven miles from Perekop, on the isthmus linking the Crimea with the mainland, the Germans have begun the evacuation of the Crimea by sea. Barges and sailing boats are being used to get the Germans and Rumanians away. The single-track railway across Perekop Isthmus through Kherson has been crowded with escape trains. The Germans are blowing up convalescent homes and hotels in the Crimea as they leave. The Russian capture of Genichesk gives them command of the eastern approaches to the Crimean Peninsula. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says the Germans panicked when the Russians stormed into Genichesk from two sides. Their officers tried hard to restore order, shooting down some of the fleeing men with revolvers. Thq Russian capture of Sergievka, 23 miles southrwest of Nikopol, means that General Tolbukhin’s Fourth

Ukrainian Army has reached the lower Dnieper, thereby cutting off the Germans who are still south of the lower Dnieper and east of Sergievka. The Red Army to-day also captured Novotriotskoe, 10 miles north of the Sea of Azov, between Perekop and Genichesk. It also captured Novaloeyevka, 12 miles north-west of Genichesk, which is the terminus of a branch line from Genichesk and the last important mainland station on the railway crossing the causeway over the Sea of Azov coast to the Crimea. Graphically describing the fighting south and south-west of Melitopol, the correspondent of the Moscow News says: “I watched Soviet mobile forces rushed into the breaches after the smashing of the second German line south of Melitopol. . The plains are literally black with our tanks, which came down like an avalanche against the retreating Germans. The blow was so powerful that the retreat of the German units was turned into a rout. They abandoned vast quantities of material on the roads running to the west from Melitopol. The remains of artillery pieces and machine-guns were crushed under our tanks and the corpses of German officers and soldiers could be seen everywhere. “ Our mobile forces struck first against road junctions to intercept the retreating enemy, and as the result of the capture of these junctions the Germans lost a chance to offer prolonged resistance, consequently they retreated in a rout.”

The newspaper Red Star, describing the Germans’ retreat from Melitopol as confused, adds: “ German officers vainly tried to restore order. They dashed among the soldiers, threatening them with revolvers, but were unable to halt the panic.”