FACING LAST HOURS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25454, 8 February 1944, Page 3

FACING LAST HOURS

RELIEF ATTEMPTS FAIL RUGBY, Feb. 6. Dealing one blow after another, the Soviet troops are inflicting heavy losses on the encircled enemy divisions in the Kanev pocket, states a supplement to the Soviet communique. The Germans attempted to break through to the encircled army group from outside, throwing into the battle four regiments of motorised infantry and over 100 tanks. The Soviet troops repelled this counter-attack, and the enemy was thrown back to his initial position, leaving on the battlefield 65 tanks and over 1500 dead. Among the 22 transport planes brought down by the Soviet Air Force on Saturday was one carrying 15 German officers attempting to escape from the encircled area. The Soviet Air Force also attacked the aerodrome from which the enemy planes had flown to the encircled area, and 29 German planes were destroyed on the ground and a great number damaged. Battle Against Hunger

•Moscow correspondents express the opinion that the 10 divisions trapped at Kanev ara facing their last hours. The enemy’s battle against the Red Army has already merged into a battle against hunger. Von Manstein’s men are reported to be eating horses and dogs for their one daily meal. German officers captured In the Kanev pocket admit that the position is hopeless. Germans who have been taken prisoner say that many of the entrapped companies have only 30 to 60 men left.

The German transport planes are carrying out not only wounded officers, but officers in good health. One Junker? which was shot down was carrying German officers, all of whom were fit. The German army group in the Kanev pocket is suffering from lack of fuel, ammunition, and foodstuffs, states the Moscow radio. All the enemy attempts to supply the encircled force by transport planes have failed because of the successful activity of the Soviet Air Force. All enemy efforts, even on a narrow sector, to break through have also failed, and the Germans, while launching desperate coun-ter-attacks, are building up defence positions in order to gain time, with the hope that aid will come. Soviet troops are constantly tightening the ring around them. On one sector, the Moscow radio adds, Red Army men captured one artillery battery, including the crew and the commander. The prisoners reported that the Soviet artillery fire was terrific, and that after a few moments all the German firing points were silenced? There are no good roads in the encircled area, and this hampers manoeuvring, hundreds of German lorries being stuck in the mud. It is reported that in the town of Bogoslav Soviet troops captured ammunition dumps and food stores. The retreating Germans had no time to destroy stores of sugar and grain. German General’s Appeal

General von Seydlitz, president of the Union of ex-German Officers and vice-president of the Free German Committee in Russia, broadcast from Moscow a dramatic appeal to the trapped divisions in the Kanev pocket to surrender. He made the appeal “on behalf of, and with the full agreement of, the Soviet High Command.” He offered terms of surrender to the 10 divisions.

The appeal is now being repeatedly broadcast over radio networks and by front-line propaganda units working with the Red Army.