“ACCORDING TO PLAN”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 200, 25 August 1943, Page 5

“ACCORDING TO PLAN”

EVACUATION BY GERMANS Reed. 6 p.m. London. Aug. 23. Berlin radio that ‘la-.i nignt German troops, alier destroying °ail military in, tai at ions ana v.ituoin being subjected to enemy pressure, evacuated Kharkov accordjig to plan. Since Kharkov has changed hands several tunes in the course of tierce lighting k is no longer, in its presen. condition, of any value as a traffic or supply centre. “The German lines were considerably shortened and improved as the result of the disengagement.” The fall of Kharkov means that the Germans have lost their biggest strongpoint in South Russia ana the last big base before reaching the Dnieper* 120 miles to the westward. The Russians recaptured Kharkov in February and evacuated it in March. The Germans made Kharkov, with its vital railway links with the Ukraine, the linchpin of their lines east ox the Dnieper, and from it they could threaten every key point from Moscow to the Caucasus. It is the fourth time in under two years that the city nas changed t hands. Before it was Russia’s biggest tank-producing centre and was called “Tank Town,” with 900,000, and also had, amongst other important industrial undertakings, one of Russia’s biggest aircraft factories, with a monthly production reaching four figures. When the Russians first abandoned the city they scorched it. blowing up many of the great tank factories, the electric installations, and water mains, and leaving whole blocks and streets as shattered, empty shells. They ' evacuated the industries and factories to the Urals.