RUSSIAN PUSH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 62, 14 March 1942, Page 5

RUSSIAN PUSH

FURTHER PROGRESS ON WIDE FRONT STRAUSS LINE BROKEN TIMOSHENKO'S OFFENSIVE ißy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright ) Recd. 9 p.m.) London March 12. The Russian westward bulge between Leningrad and Lake Ilmen appears deeper than earlier information suggested, and a large-scale Russian push from the Chudovo region is now enabling further progress, despite German reinforcements, says the Stockholm correspondent of The Tinies. The Germans still hold Novgorod but the position is becoming precarious. The Russians threaten to bypass the town and encircle it. The Strauss line, which the Russians have broken through, follows roughly the crest of the watershed running from Rje\; to Yartsevm. says the Stockholm correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. Russian artillery pounded the line and then tank forces pierced it and advanced to Nikitinka, which is one of the keypoints of the German second defence line. These and other spectacular events on the northern and central fronts tend to overshadow the Russian push in the south. ' Marshal Timoshenko’s great new offensive is gathering momentum south of Kharkov and in the Taganrog-Stalino regions. “UNENDING STREAM” RUSSIAN REINFORCEMENTS London. March 12. The German radio has told listeners that an unending stream of Russian reinforcements has been pouring into the Soviet lines on the central front. It speaks of ourticularly heavy concentrations of tanks. Although claiming that Russian attack east of Taganrog and Stalino had slackened, the Nazis admit that many Russian divisions, strongly supported by tanks and artillery, are being thrown into the northern part of the Donetz front. Moscow claims that the 29th German Division, which has seen action in many parts of Europe, has been practically wiped out. In the north, the Finns speak of more Russian attacks. The Finnish radio announces that more than 10,000 Finnish children have been evacuated to Sweden and that others are getting ready to go. SOVIET SUCCESSES MATERIAL CAPTURED Rugby, March 12. Important Soviet successes have been announced in a special communique broadcast by Moscow. It is announced that in the four days from March 5 to March 8, the Germans lost in killed 49,700 officers and men on the Kalinin front. A total of 161 localities have been liberated. Much booty was taken, including 78 tanks, 172 guns, and 209 trench mortars, 824 machine-guns, hundreds of rifles, 1177 lorries, and a vast quantity of other war material. During the same four days’ fighting 277 German planes were destroyed and 39 tanks, and 142 guns, 70 machine-guns, 2629 lorries, two railway engines. 17 oil tanks, seven ammunition dumps, and other materials were destroyed in addition.—B.O.W. NAZI ATROCITIES CHILDREN VICTIMS London. March 11. In Moscow's Russakovsky hospital are 160 children, mostly orphans, from villages in the Smolensk, Rjev. and Staraya Russa districts, each wounded by deliberate action on the part of the German soldiery, says The Times Moscow correspondent. Each child knows some man in field grey who tried to do him or her harm with rifle, grenade, fire, or exposure. Their disfigured faces, scarred and seared flesh and frost-rotted limbs constitute a terrible indictment. Victor Khopotov, aged 10, was with his family in a cottage. They refused to quit it, and the Germans burned the house, barring the exit. Victor watched his grandmother, brother and sister burn. Then his mother took him, jumped out o£ a window, and was shot and wounded. He was thrown clear, and the Germans shot him through the shoulder when he tried to crawl to his mother. He lay for three days unattended before being picked up by strangers. A little girl, Ina Malacheva, from the Rjev district, was in a house when a Geerman threw a grenade through the window. He returned after the explosion, saw people moving, and threw in four more grenades. Ina has little face left, both jaws are smashed and the cheeks reduced to pulp. Seraphim; Sarokhine, aged four, from the Smolensk region, was sent with her family by carl over a minefield. An explosion threw her into the snow. Her hands and feet were trost-bitten away Seventy-nine more children, 319 men, and 108 women were tortured to death or murdered in one district, namely, Dzerzhinsky, in the Smolensk region.