BIG STRATEGIC VICTORY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 40, 18 February 1943, Page 5

BIG STRATEGIC VICTORY

BATTLES IN CITY STREETS NAZIS FACE FURTHER DEFEATS (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) • (Reed. 9.30 pan.) London, Feb. 16. Stalin’s armies have won their greatest strategic victory of the war. This is the capture of Kharkov, which was announced in a special message from Moscow. The loss of Kharkov must be an even greater blow for Hitler than the loss of Stalingrad, for it was the main supply base for his whole offensive operations in southern Russia, and the second greatest railway centre • in the Soviet Union. The city has been in German hands since October, 1941. It is the fourth city of Russia, and has a normal population of nearly a million people.

Before it was overwhelmed, plants, but most of these, togetli of war materials, were destroyed they withdrew. The last phase of the Kharkov battle began early on Tuesday morning, when General Vatoutin’s armoured divisions smashed the ring of German defences northward and eastward of the city, driving two wedges into the suburbs, says the Daily Telegrapn’s Stockholm correspondent. Fighting raged all day in the blazing streets, where German tanks and crack troops offered the last deliberate resistance in order to 3over the evacuation of the main body to Poltava and the Dneiper line.

Kharkov had vast factories and ier with rolling stock and stores or removed by the Russians when

Russian artillery, massed wheel to wheel behind the attacking armies, poured a stream of shells into the city, while waves of Russian bombers and dive-bombers droned overhead and Soviet tanks rolled in in irresis.ible numbers against the German positions.

Many German units, encircled by superior Russian forces and with ammunition exhausted, fought with bayonets, spades and rifle butts until overwhelmed and annihilated.

The Moscow communique says: “In the Rostov area we occupied two district centres and five large inhabited places, including Sinyavka and Nedigovka, which are respectively 15 and 30 miles from Taganrog, on the Rostov-Taganrog railway.

Train-loads of German troops and tanks are reported to be pouring in a ceaseless stream from western Europe into Russia, says Ankara radio. The greater part is moving towards Kiev. Newly-equipped Rumanian divisions are also reported to be moving up to the front.

The German armies in the Donetz Basin have been driven out of one centre after another. Within the Donetz bend the Germans have now been rolled right out of a large area between Rostov and Voroshilovgrad. Along this 80-mile front the Russians have captured 56 places in the last 24 hours, and they are now pushing forward far west of Rostov. Here the Germans are fighting stubbornly to retain what Moscow calls “their intermediate positions.” This probably means that strong German rearguard forces are fighting delaying actions to enable their main force further west to get safely away before they are cut off.

New details have come to hand about the capture of Rostov. The Germans thought they had made the city impregnable by strengthening the fortifications and later by blowing up all the bridges across the Don, but a Cossack detachment upset their calculations. One night the Cossacks secretly crossed the icebound river south-west of the city, at a point where they were least expected, and captured an important tactical position. This daring move enabled other Russian forces to swarm over the delta and establish themselves in force on the north bank. Before the Germans fled from Rostov they destroyed the most beautiful part of the city, including the famous Maxim Gorky Theatre. The German radio made this statement: “There is not one word of truth in rumours that Hitler has given up command of the German armed forces.’’

The radio quoted a report that Hitler had handed over the supreme command of the German armies on the Russian front to Field-Marshal Mannstein. It also quoted reports that Hitler had consented to a drastic shortening of the front and had accepted personal responsibility for the present retreat. These reports were described as untrue.