The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-08-06
Continued from Page D

the Bryansk area.
 Orel and Belgorod fell a month to the day after Marshal Gunther von Kluge launched his abortive offen- sive against the Red Army's Kursk salient.
 Troops of the "Steppe" and "vor- onezh' fronts smashed the offensive and routed 38 German divisions numbering upward of 500,0O0 men, then lashed back.
 In the last phases of the Orel cam paign, the Russians struck unex- pectedly Wednesday morning on the Belgorod front, crumbled the Ger man defenses and stormed into the city from the northeast.
 Fierce street fighting followed, the Russians clearing the city house by house and street by street under in- tense machine gun fire from the rooftops and balconies. A hanking maneuver by Soviet tanks and tommy gunners threatened to en- circle substantial German forces, which broke and retreated.
 AIT FOrce support
 The Red Air force, supporting the Russian offensive with the greatest concentration of aerial might ever employed on the Soviet front, was blasting relentlessly at the retreating German armies.
 Some of the heaviest aerial fight ing of the summer ragged over wood- lands south and southwest of Orel, where German columns were re- treating frantically over two dirt roads in an attempt to escape en- circlement by eight converging Rus sian columns.
 The Russian air command yas de- ploying its maximum effort to transfer the enemy retreat into a rout that would dispose and destroy the German forces before they could reach prepared defenses.
 A Soviet correspondent just re- turned from the Orel front esti- mated that Russian planes flew more than 2000 sorties daily over a six-mile sector during the height of the Russian attack. All reports indicated that the Russian high command has concentrated air power on the southcentral front on a scale never before witnessed in this country.
 Hedge-Hoppers
 ge-hopping roads, Red air force bombers and Stomovik assault planes blasted and strafed tanks, armored vehicles, trucks and infan- try clogging the two escape routes, leaving them filtered with flaming wreckage and the bodies of German dead.
 Seventy-two German planes were shot down in air combat over the Orel front yesterday and 66 over the Belgorod area.
 Moscow was jubilant over the capture of Orel and Belgorod yes- terday, first announced by Premier Marshal Josef Stalin in an order of the day. It was by his orders that the 120 guns boomed a 12- salvo salute last midnight. Happy crowds damned the capitals streets until 2 a. m. under special relaxa- tion of the curfew.
 Stalin in his capacity of supreme commander of Soviet armed forces, told the south-central front armies that their victories had exposed the German legend that Soviet troops allegedly are unable to carry out an offensive in the summer"
 Eternal Glory
 Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the struggle for freedom of our country!' the order of the day concluded. Death to the German occupants!"
 The fall of Belgorod indicated that a flanking drive against Khar- kov, 40 miles to the south, may be next. Kharkov, like Belgorod, was recaptured by the Russians last February in their winter offensive, but they were forced to yield both to a German counter offensive launched from the banks of the Dnieper river.
 Though the pursuit of the enemy from Orel was bringing the Rus sians constantly closer to Bryansk, 75 miles to the west, some sources suggested that an all-out attack on that bastion would await the cap- ture of Kharkov, whose defenses are less formidable.
 Important Railroad Cleared
 The capture of Orel and Bel gorod also cleared the important Moscow Kharkov railroad to a point less than 40 miles above Kharkov, enabling the Russians to move sup plies and endorsements quickly to that front for large-scale attack.
 The Soviet high command said that 5000 enemy troops were killed and vast stores of war material and other booty captured in the fighting Orel. Simultaneously, an important for Belgorod, l65 miles south of "enemy communication" in a near by sector was cut by a Russian tank detachment that destroyed or captured 57 German tanks and nine self-propelled guns in beating of enemy counter-attacks.
 More than 1900 Germans were killed. 28 tanks destroyed and more than 30 towns and villages liberated in the Soviet pursuit of German forces northwest. south and south west of Orel yesterday, a con- munique said. Much booty and un- counted prisoners also were seized. a possible successor to Badoglio, saw King Victor Emmanuel twice yester- day. He is believed to have Socialist leanings.