The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-08-31
City Called Important
 Railroad Center
tContinued from Page D

WUuSkuuSQ Of Tsganrog by abandoning the Ku- ban bridgehead and the whole of | the Crimea soon, military experts believed today.
 They pointe.. out that a Nad re- Hrement toward the Dnieper line was in motion along almost the en-
 tire Russian front.
 The Kuban, Donets and Crimea
 represented the most extended Ger
 man positions on the Russians front
 where the Nazis have been forced to shorten their lines approximately 25 per cent by the winter and summer
 Russian offensives.
 The German retirement has fol-
 lowed a consistent pattern with the ' geratest withdrawals in almost di-
 rect ratio to the length of German communications with the various
 fronts.
 Caucasus Withdrawal Caucasus withdrawals cut more
 than 400 miles off of the distance which had to be covered by the
 strained German transport system.
 Withdrawals west of Stalingrad
 averaged 200 miles from the deepest
 penetrations.
 On the Leningrad front where the
 Germans have easy communications
 with their Koenigsberg base in east
 Prussia the withdrawals amounted
 to only few s.iles.
 Russian advances in the present
 offensive have reached a depth of
 100 miles on the Kharkov and Orel
 fronts. As the Russians reduced the
 German Salients the resultant
 strengthening of the front enabled
 the Germans to maintain the new
 lines with only about half the num-
 Der of troops previously deployed.
 Emphasis On Destruction
 The Germans placed emphasis
 upon the destruction of rail lines
 as they retreated- clearly indicating
 the Russo German war is becoming
 increasingly battle of communica-
 tions and transport.
 { The Russians appeared content to allow the Germans to hold the Kuban bridgehead while the main Soviet strength was in action else where, due to the constant strain which the bridgehead imposes upon German transport.
 The fact that Stalin's initial and main blows were struck in the cen- ter of the front rather than on the exposed Kuban or Taganrog areas was believed to fit into the same pattern of Russian strategy. Observers believed the Germans { would pull back considerably furth- CT than Taganrog mainly because the best communications are con- siderably to the north and already
 have been threatened by the Rus sian offensive in the Voroshilovgrad area.
 ] Battle Of Humiliation BY HENRY SHAPIRO United Press Staff Correspondent Moscow, Aug. 31-(UP)-Russian forces waged a battle of annihila- ton today against the remnants of ] the German garrison of Taganrog. the first Axis army encircled since Stalsngrad, aud pounded deeper into the mineral and grain-rich Ukraine along a front stretching 400 miles to the north. { German troops who escaped the 7 Russian trap at Taganrog were fall 1, ing back rapidly toward the Kal- mius river, 60 miles to the west and there was a possibility that the overwhelming weight of the Soviet offensive may drive them all the way back to Melitopol, 100 miles ! farther west.
 More than 150 towns and villages , were engulfed by Soviet cavalry and mechanized units that slashed into the enemy's rear from Amvrosievka, 1, 50 miles northwest of Taganrog, then ! raced southward to capture Veselo voznesenskaya on the Sea of Azov. Death or Surrender Simultaneously, other Russian ' forces holding positions 10 miles east of Taganrog advanced and oc- , cupied the town and harbor. Caught . in between Taganrog and Veselo 2 voznesenskaya were thousands of { German troops doomed to death O. surrender.
 { A special order of the day from Premier Marshal Josef Stalin an- ! nounced the liberation of Taganrog, in it's potentialities the greatest vic- { tory of the summer offensive, and ! 12 artillery salvoes from 124 guns at sMoscow saluted the victorious forces. The fall of Taganrog knocked out . the southern anchor of the German ; defenses in the Ukraine and spurred other Soviet forces pushing vest , ward toward the Dnieper river along ia line reaching northward to Sevsk, s. 30 miles south of Bryansk. z 50 Sites Captured z More than 50 localities were cap- tured by the Russians in advances