The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1943-11-26
MAJOR OFFENSIVE
Moscow Says 1000 Ger
mans Killed In Great
New Drive
CITY REPORTED TAKEN
Escape Corridor Is Mar
rowed To Meager Thir,
ty-Three Miles

LONDON, Friday. Nov. 26
Red army has
torn a 37-mile-wide gap in the
German lines north of Co.
mel in new major offensive
in white Russia, killed 1000
Germans, captured 1870 popu-
lated places and charged to
within six miles of the up
per Dnieper river in three
days, Moscow announced to-
day, while unconfirmed Stock
holm reports said GomeI itself
fell to the Soviets.
The new drive is in the Pro-
poisk area, about 60 miles
north of Gomel, pointed for
the German Orsha-Mogilev-
Iomel line at the Dnieper, 10
miles east of Minsk and the
road to Berlin.
Stockholm Report
The Stockholm report that Go.
mel, almost surrounded for weeks
by the Russians. was captured.
was printed by the London Daily
Express.
Another important advance, al
most obscured by the dramatic
new smash. the Russians cut the
Zhlobin Kalinkovichi railroad
northwest Of Rechista at the towns
OF Ostankovichi and Zherd, about
five miles apart.
The one escape railway from Co.
mel still open to the Germans runs
northwest through Zhlobin to Bob
ruisk. Today's Russian advances,
announced by the Moscow mid
night communique and recorded
here by the Soviet monitor from
a broadcast, narrowed the escape
corridor to SO miles between Zherd
in the south and the town of Jura-
vichi in the north.
Highwater Mark
Juravichi was the highwater
mark of the new offensive's west.
ward surge as it carried forward
as much as % miles. Juravichi,
ON the Minsk-Moscow highway, is
five miles east of this roads juno
ton with the Vitebsk-Gomel high
way and II miles east of the Leu
ngrad-Odessa north-south rail-
way.
The Germans, who for several
days have been limiting at ma
jor Russian attack in the area
southwest of Krichev," admitted
in a Berlin broadcast today that
their covering forces had to be
taken back to new positions in the
face of numerically superior So
Wet units
The Russians successfully cross
ed the Sozh and Pronya rivers in
the drvie and carried almost as
far west as the Newell salient to
the north and the Kiev bulge to
the south.
To The South
The drive was moving near the
historic Snolensk-Mi highway
inland out-of Russia which Ma
poleon used in his retreat. The
latest advances were to the south
but in the general direction of the
shortest road to Berlin.
In the Kiev area Gen. Nikolai
Vatutin's divisions grinly fought
the German "armored avalanche
OF a standstill for the second day
in a battle which the Germans
described as one Of the bloodiest
in the whole Russian war.
The Soviet bulletin said German
attacks were beaten off in the
Korosten area. As miles north Of
Zhitomir, suggesting that Field
Marshal Cen Fritz Won Mannstein
was broadening the front in the
most serious German threat in
Russia in four months. In the
Chernyakhov area, 10 miles north
of Zhitomir, and the Brusilov area,
IS miles west of Kiev, German in
fantry and tank attacks also were
successfully stemmed.
Moscow dispatches said the Fed
army appeared to be successfully
overcoming this last gasp" Ger
man attack after II days of violent
fighting. Foreign military observ.
ers in the Russian capital said the
chances the enemy would mount
further major counter-offensives
Were extremely slight.
The Soviet army newspaper Red
Star said the Germans in this area
were forced to retreat leaving doz.
Continued on Page Nine; Col. ~