HOW MOJAISK FELL

Southland Times, Issue 24650, 23 January 1942, Page 5

HOW MOJAISK FELL

DEFENCE SYSTEM BATTERED PINCER MOVEMENT DECIDES ISSUE (Rec. 5.30 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 21. General Govorov, broadcasting on the Moscow radio, told .how his troops took Mojaisk. He said the Russians entered the town on Monday morning, thus ending the second stage of the offensive operations in the direction of Mojaisk, which began in December. In the first stage the enemy was pushed from Zvenigorod. Russian units on January 10 broke through the enemy defence line in the area south of Kublina. The Germans attempted to stand on an intermediate line of defence. The Russians by-passed their strong points and infiltrated with great skill behind the German supply lines, causing panic. The Germans retreated. Fighting began for Mojaisk proper on Sunday.. The Germans had constructed blockhouses on the northern, eastern and southern outskirts of the town and had also transformed brick houses in the centre of the town into strongpoints. This formidable defence system could only be overcome by a concentrated artillery and trench mortar attack. Russian artillery smashed the strongpoints on the eastern sector with terrific point-blank fire. The Russians then began a pincer attack, which made a considerable advance in the area north and south of Mojaisk. The enemy was forced to evacuate the town under threat of being surrounded. The Germans left a small unit to cover their retreat. The Russians charged, entered the town and cleared out the German snipers and machine-gunners. According to Russian railwaymen five or six trains of wounded arid frostbitten Germans were sent away from Mojaisk daily. There are German cemeteries all around the town. GERMANS’ HEAVY TASK The Daily Telegraph’s Stockholm correspondent says: “If, as is likely, Mojaisk’s capture forces the Germans to retreat precipitately to Viazma, the large German bulge in the centre of the Moscow front will be eliminated, freeing an important. railway network. The Germans are facing a heavy task because, in addition to extricating thousands of men and machines through the Russian snows from Rjev, Latashing, Mojaisk and Viazma, they must also combat the Russian encircling movement from the north and south. Riev itself is further threatened by the capture of Ostashevo, which is also another step towards freeing the MoscowLeningrad railway.” The Russian Army newspaper, Red Star, says that fighting is going on day and night on a number of sectors of the Moscow front. The Russians are completing the liberation of villages from the Germans, who continue to burn villages, shoot prisoners of war and forcibly take away male, civilians as they retreat. The Red Army has cleared the enemy from another 150 in-habited-localities. . Moscow radio says that despite deep snow and impassable roads the Russians are irresistibly pursuing and annihilating the Germans on' the Moscow front. The radio quoted ap Ankara report that over 150,000 frost-bitten Germans had been sent to Bulgaria from the Russian front.

The capture of Mojaisk is regarded authoritatively 'in London as important, as this strong bastion was the only remaining place from

which the Germans could threaten Moscow. The immediate threat to the capital, therefore, appears to have been removed but it is too soon to predict any extensive German withdrawal as a consequence of the loss of the town.

The Evening Standard’s correspondent on the Eastern Front reports that the Russians have begun a massive onslaught against Novgorod from Lake Ilmen. The Germans are fighting off wave after wave of Russian tanks. The Russians admit heavy losses but claim satisfactory progress. It was announced in Moscow that the Germans between December 6 and January 15 lost 300,000 killed. ON FROM MOJAISK The Daily Telegraph’s Stockholm correspondent says that a strong German rearguard is fighting advanced Russian motorized units outside Borodino. The battlefield is now 12 miles west of Mojaisk. The main German forces are engaged in a race with the pursuing Russians for Viazma. If the Russians win the race 100,000 Germans will be cut off, but the whole district between Mojaisk and Viazma is strongly fortified. Colonel Gurov, writing in The Moscow News, says: The Red Army is making a clean sweep of the Germans in the immediate vicinity of Leningrad. The German losses there in the past four weeks-have been 18,000 killed, and 74 tanks, 184 guns, 247 mortars, 494 machine-guns and a huge quantity of other equipment have been captured.