STILL MORE SUCCESSES

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLXII, Issue 15239, 4 January 1943, Page 3

STILL MORE SUCCESSES

FOR RED ARMIES | IMPORTANT BASE CAPTURED. MANY GAINS ON 1300-MILE FRONT. United Press Assn. — By Electric Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, January 2. German desperation produced the bloodiest fighting of the war at Velikiy© Luki where the Russians are already pressing on. They are also beating back the efforts of the enemy to break out westward of Itjev where their position is worsened since the fall of Velikiye Luki. The Russians on Saturday continued their attacks on the five fronts extending over 1300 miles, from Velikiye Luki to the Cauucasus. The Red Army on the middle Don is exploiting last-moving tanks using giant caterpillars admirably suited for movement over the deep snow. Two Russian forces are converging on Tsymlyanskaya and the advance on the Kalmuk Steppes is continuing. Russian mobile units cut off and badly mauled the German garrison retreating after th© fall of Elista.

With the capture of Velikiye Luki by the Russians, the Germans have lost one of their four main bastions on the central front. Velikiye Luki was taken at the bayonet point. The Russians began to storm the city at dawn with a hurricane of artillery and mortar fire, after which masses of infantry and tanks fioured through the breaches in the fortifications.

The Russian artillerymen took their guns deep into foe defences and silenced the forts and machinegun nests with direct fire. The next phase was a series of savage streetbattles. Tlie Germans resisted from

house to house a.y the Russians attacked under smokescreens. The Red Army captured an order signed by General Sherer threatening that any German who ceased fighting would be shot and his family penalised. The handsome city is changed beyond recognition. The libraries, hospitals, club houses, colleges d? n d schools have been destroyed and only women and children were left. They crept from cellars to greet the Red Army. Correspondents in Moscow say that General Sherer’s warning that Germans who ceased to fight at Velikiye Luki would be shot, and their families penalised, was made at Hitler’s order which applies also to von Hoth’s troops. # Reuter’s Moscow correspondent say 3 the capture of Velikiye Luki places tlie Russians astride the Sokolniki-Rjev-Moscow railway,, one of the mam German supply lines from the Reich via Riga, at a more westerly point than previously reached. The Russians now have th© possibility of thrusting westward against Sokolniki on the Lenin grad-Vitebsk railway 7 Hitler's principal rail link between Lenin-' grad and the central front. The German chances of holding Rjev through the remaining three months oi winter are greatly lessened. The Berlin radio denied that Velikive Luki had fallen and added: “Almost all the sectors on the eastern front are comparatively calm. Only local engagements occurred at Terek, the Kalmuk Steppes and between the Volga and Don.” Warm appreciation is expressed by London military observers of the dour Russian tenacity which resulted in the fall of Velikiye Luki. Not only is the capture of such a strong position notable in itself and of great psychological value but it clearly releases Russian troops, v hicli can now turn round and look w estwards. Strategically it- is not considered that the town’s fall makes a great immediate difference. The railways all round had previously been cut and the fact of its capture does not necessarily open a new situation of great intensity. If, however, the Russians can cut the railway between Leningrad and Vitebsk, at, lor instance, Neve], or Sokol niki, that will be of great importance.