Evening star., 1942-01-21
Russian Armies Drive
Past Mozhaisk After
Taking Key City
Germans Admit Enemy
Breok- in
Khurkov Sector
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
Russia celebrated her greatest
victory of the war today as the
Red Armies drove 6 miles beyond
fallen Mozhaisk, 81 miles west of
Moscow, in pursuit of Adolf Hit
ler's battered invaders along the
Napoleonic road of retreat to
SmolenSk.
London military quarters esti-
mated that 100000 Germans had
been forced to withdraw toward the
narrowing Vyazma Gap as result
of Mozhaisks capture. Vyazma is
about half way between Moscow and
Smolensk.
simultaneously, bulletin from
Hitler's rield headquarters acknowl-
edged that Soviet troops had broken
through German lines on the upper
Donets River-presumably in the
fierce battle for the big Donets
River steel city of Kharkov, Rus
sias Pittsburgh in the Ukraine.
The high command asserted, how
ever, that Nazi counterattacks had
thrown the Russians back.
Hitler's high command emphasized
the bitter fighting in the Donets
River basin, reporting that the Rus
slams lost 1,100 killed in one battle,
and asserted that total OF 10,605
Soviet prisoners had now been cap
tured at Feodosiya, in the Crimea.
No Hint Given Germans.
No hint of the defeat on the
central moscow front was given
the German nation.
While Hitler's winter -scourged
armies fell back along tie 70-mile-
wide escape corridor from MOI
haisk. threatened by @.ussian flank
ing thrusts on both . fes, the Berlin
radio broadcast this :ersion of the
struggle:
The German line on the eastern
front, reaching from the Sea of
Azov to encircled Leningrad, is in
tact in spite of many and heavy
Soviet attacks.
These attacks resulted in heavy
losses being suffered by the Soviets
but without achieving the occupa-
ton of any important points,
Bloody Street Fighting.
The fall of MozhaiSk. climaxed
by bloody street fighting in the
glare of burning buildings. was an
nounced in four words by the Rus
sian command:
Our Units captured Mozhaisk"
The city, forward anchor of Hit
lers winter defense front, was occu-
pied by triumphant Red Army forces
at $50 am. 12:30 am, E. S. TD
Monday. 1t had been captured by
the Germans just three months ago
in the heyday of their now broken
offensive against Moscow-the drive
which Hitler proclaimed would be
"the last great, decisive battle" of
l94l.
In London. Soviet quarters de-
clared that the fall of Mozhaisk
would signal a titanic continual
ton of the battle" and that the
Russian Army now had hundreds
of thousands of completely fresh re-
serves ready to hurl into a giant
offensive along the entire 1900
mile front.
Nazi Losses Enormous.
Tass, the official Soviet news
agency, said the Germans suffered
enormous losses in an attempt to
obey Hitlers order to hold Mozhaisk
at all costs.
Tass said Red Army troops, storm
ing into the city after smashing
earth-and- timber forts so to 100
yards apart, found a scene of chaotic
destruction and carnage.
The whole defense belt was dug
with huge craters and Uttered with
German bodies-Soviet foot soldiers
moved relentlessly toward the GEN.
ter of the town, driving out or killing
automatic rifemen in their hideouts
the dead piled up in cellars. attics
and stairways and spilled through
dOorways. ="
City Torn by Blasts.
Torn hv explosives and Scared by
fire, Mozhaisk was tak"n by Red
Army troops under 1t. Gen. Leonid
Govorov.
Wounded and FROST bitten Ger
mans were reported to have been
moving to the rear from Mozhaisk
at a rate of from five to six trains
daily before the fall of the town.
The road of retreat was insecure,
flanked by Red hrmv speerheads for
more than half the distance to
Smolensk, site of a German field
headquarters on the Dnieper 230
miles west of Moscow. Borodino,
Gzhatsk, Vyazma, Durovo. Yart-
sevo-these were potential way sta
tions of interception and ambush.
Probable successors to Mozhaisk
as obiectiveS in the Russian strategy
are German bases at Rzhev, a rail
and communications center on the
upper Volga 125 miles northwest of
Moscow. and in Orel, 200 miles below
the capital.
A Russian spearhead which re-
Gently bypassed Rzhev to capture
Selizharovo, on the upper Volga ITS
miles northwest of Moscow, was re-
ported to have moved ahead 20 miles
to take Ostashkon, on Lake Seliger
about half way between the capital
and Leningrad.
Railway Reported Damaged.
Russian staff headquarters on the
Karelian Isthmus were attacked
effectively by Finnish airmen. and
horse-drawn and motor vehicles
were destroyed in the Soviet rear
south of the Svir River yesterday,
the Finnish high command said.
The Murmansk railway was re-
ported damaged In new bombing
attacks.
Anti-aircraft fire was said to have
beaten of small formations of Rus
sian airmen who raided Helsinki
There was no damage and one Red
Army plane was shot down, the high
command said.
While conceding increased Rus
sian patrol activity on the Leningrad
front, the communique said that all
attempts to pierce Finnish lines
were repulsed and that Finnish
artillery fire silenced one Russian
T. i