KUBAN REGION LOST

Waikato Times, Volume 132, Issue 22153, 27 September 1943, Page 5

KUBAN REGION LOST

ADMISSION BY GERMANS

LONDON, Sept. 26 The Berlin radio admits that the Kuban region has been finally lost and is being evacuated.

The German overseas radio says the Germans are systematically evacuating heavy equipment, important installations and civilians from their Kuban bridgehead. Other reports say that the Germans are retreating from the Kuban in disorder. Many are escaping in boats and barges. The Russians are reported to have stormed into the suburbs of Kiev. Moscow reports say the bitterest fighting is taking place in the Kiev area, where three Russian groups are converging on the city. The Red Army is smashing its wa) across the broad Dnieper River at half a dozen points along a 400mile front from above Kiev to oelow Dnepropetrovsk, state despatches from Moscow'. Greatest Battle in History Millions of men and incredible numbers of guns and tanks are deployed in this battle for the Dnieper —termed the greatest battle in history since the smashing of the Hindenburg Line in the last war. Powerful tank and motorised Russian spearheads are tackling the tremendous task of crossing Europe’s third largest river, which in some places is a mile wide. Hundreds of rafts, rubber dinghies and flat-bot-tomed boats are ferrying across the river under the protection of a heavy artillery barrage where resistance is encountered. • The mopping up of the remaining centres of German resistance between the Red Army and the whole of the east bank of the Dnieper is going on.