“DEATH VALLEY”

Waikato Times, Volume 129, Issue 21534, 24 September 1941, Page 5

“DEATH VALLEY”

SMOLENSK BATTLEFIELD TERRIFIC SLAUGHTER STORY BY JOURNALISTS (United Press Assn.—Elcc. Tel. Copyright) NEW YORK, Sept. 22 A first-hand story of the Smolensk battlefield, which is described as a vast German graveyard, is published in the New York Times from its Moscow correspondent, Carl Sulzberger, who, with other nonRussian journalists, motored for seven days over this tank-churned Death Valley where hundreds of thousands of men have perished in the effort to bar the road to Moscow*. “There is no major battle going on,” says Mr Sulzberger, “but there is intense activity, with field guns and supplies being drawn by tractors and horses, as the mud prevents the use of swift transport. The Russians are bringing up padded winter uniforms, and throwing branches and sods into the slimy roads. “The fields are chewed up by tractors and tanks and pitted with shell holes and bomb craters 18ft deep and occasionally as much as 30ft wide. “One’s feet sink into covered bomb craters which entomb uncounted Germans, and there are pieces of Messerschmitts sticking out of the earth as far as the eye can see. “Between the smashed and torn villages the landscape is littered with the remnants of tanks, punctured helmets, sodden uniforms and soggy bone.!. “With the winter developing, all the roads are bogged down. The Russians have organised strong and deep defences, and it is unlikely that Hitler will ever reach Moscow by this route.” Heavy Losses on Enemy Giving his impressions of a tour of the Smolensk zone, the London Daily Telegraph’s correspondent, A. T. Cholerton, says: “Everywhere I went I was received with real RusIsian kindness, and even enthusiasm, but always there was an undertone of anxiety as to what active help i Britain could render immediately, j When I told them the Royal Air Force was already in action on the Russian front and that stores and equipment of every kind were arriving in ever-increasing quantities their response was always moving. “Marshal Timoshenko’s men had inflicted very heavy losses on the enemy in 38 days of fighting, and their morale was still high. Timoshenko praised the heroic qualities of his men, and repeatedly emphasised the magnitude of their task and the need for assistance.” The British commentator, Mr Vernon Bartlett, M.P., broadcast to Lory don after visiting the Yelnia battle\ field. He said the Russian army was as cheerful and confident as seen anywhere. Yelnia itself was destroyed and desolated.

“The place looked a little like Hampstead Heath after a bank holiday, but instead of thousands of pieces of paper the ground was littered with thousands of delicate instruments for the taking of ' life,” said Mr Bartlett. “There were unexploded land mines, hand grenades, shells, cartridges, broken machineguns and German newspapers. Many Germans were piled into shell holes and buried there.” Burned out of Revenge Mr Bartlett said it seemed that the Germans had burned the town out of sheer revenge. Mr Bartlett states that the bottleneck through which the Germans are getting their supplies has been narrowed down to three miles by the Russians. Reuter’s correspondent says the recaptured piece of Russia contains many “Guernicas” destroyed by the Germans in terror raids, also villages flattened out by shellfire, and the graves of thousands of Russian and German soldiers. When the Germans on the night of September 4 decided to evacuate Yelnia, they ordered the few remaining inhabitants to assemble inside the church, which was then locked, after which the Germans systematically set fire to every house. Thus Yelnia was an inferno when the Russian troops re-entered it. The Moscow radio, referring to the German practice of concealing their losses, says a village in the central sector that was recaptured by the Russians contained 40 graves, with 40 crosses bearing the names of 40 German soldiers; but there were 300 soldiers buried in the graves. Guernica was a township in Spain which was systematically blown to pieces during the Spanish Civil War, allegedly by German air attack.

NAZI OPPRESSION , UNREST IN EUROPE HUNGER AND MISERY (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Cops-rlg-ht) LONDON, Sept. 22 The boomerang nature of Nazi oppression in occupied countries is described by the influential Swiss newspaper Journal de Geneve. “In all occupied countries,” it states, “ relations between the people and the German authorities are getting worse. “ It would be a mistake to attribute the reaction to Communists. It is equally possible that hunger and misery, from the food shortage, would induce a state of desperation. In Norway resistance has assumed that it can only be attributed to a revolt of national feeling. “ Force can install any regime, but it does not suffice to render it popular or even acceptable. It is not only by the martyred, groaning peoples that Europe can be saved.” DEPUTY=CONSUL RESIGNS TO JOIN FREE FRENCH (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) NEW YORK, Sept. 22 The French deputy-Consul in New York, M. Francois Charlesroux, has sent his resignation to Vichy. He said he was joining General de Gaulle because Marshal Retain was advocating collaboration with Germany.