The Wilmington morning star., 1943-11-04
RUSSIANS RACING
TOWARD KHERS0N
Continued From Page One)

| IAOiA 1AA1VOl mug LII tl1C DlllGpGr
bend where the Germans said they
had made gains with a counter
attack.
Fighting around Krivoi Rog, an
iron mine center, ragged so close
to the bitterly-defended town that
three Russian tanks were able to
reach the center of the town I'M
der cover of fog. The Berlin radio
said they were destroyed, as were
other Russian armoured vehicles
which tried to enter Krivoi Rog's
suburbs.
| The Russians were said to have
thrown heavy forces into this fight
as the Germans battled to main
tain an escape corridor for their
forces eastward in t h Dnieper
bend.
The Germans also reported a
Russian offensive east of Cherkas-
sy between Kremenchug and Kiev
and heavy fighting to the north
in the Newell area where the Soviet
lines reach close to the Latvian
frontier. The Germans were using
long railway guns to meet this
threat and claimed they had de-
stroyed IS Soviet tanks.
The spectacular Russian ad-
vance through the Nogaisk steppes
toward Kherson and the mouth of
the Dnieper estuary on the Black
Sea had washed up to the banks
CT the Dnieper from Gornostaevka
to Kakhovka and had reached far
beyond Perekop to Shadovka on
the Black Sea.
Front line dispatches to Red
Star, Soviet army newspaper in
Moscow, said surprise attack by
a Red army unit which erep
through high reds and deep
swamps to the enemy's rear paved
the way for the capture of Kak-
hovka Tuesday. German defenses
had been established in a series
of villages and settlements north
of Kakhovka covering the flank of
the German forces withdrawing to
the Dnieper.
Red Star said the Russian unit
penetrated the line so secretly that
It's presence was never detected.
Rushing out of the reeds at
points where the Germans never
expected an attack, the Russians
drove the enemy out of three set
Elements which constituted the
main bases of their defense. With
the gap opened, Red army guards
units and Cossacks stormed into
Kakhovka meeting no serious re-
sistance until they reached the
town. The Germans, retreating
across the river, tried to fight back
with mortar and artillery fire
from the west bank but Kakhovka
was quickly occupied.
There was no word Of a Rus
sian crossing to Bereslav across
the Dnieper where the Russians
could be expected to fan out to-
ward Nikolaev to the west and
Krivoi Rog to the north.
The Germans announced they
had established barrier position
in the western Nogaisk steppe and
contended that it had broken sew
eral waves of Russian attack. The
Berlin broadcast located the bar
rier vaguely as south of Nikopol,
Manganese mining center, and at
the northern entrances to the Cri-
mea and east of Kherson. Fierce
fighting for the Crimean gateway
was reported especially on h e
Perekop isthmus.
The Russians have won back $685.
600 square miles from the Ger
mans, who have invaded total
CT $4,000 square miles of Russia,
although not all at one time.
In the autumn of 1941 the &C.
mans held $4,000 square miles,
when they rushed toward Moscow
and failed to take it. In 1912,
when the Moscow salient had been
beaten back, the Germans again
thrust out toward Stalingrad to
reach a high-water mark of $685.
900 square miles.
This fall, as the Russians sue
cessful summer campaign contin-
ued with scarcely an interruption
into a mighty autumn offensive,
the Germans had reeled back I'M
til they now hold an estimated
1886, 900 square miles. Moscow dis
patches said.
Dmitri Manuilsky, member OF
the Central Committee of the Com
munist party, in an article read
on the Moscow radio, said 80 Ger
man divisions had been wiped out
by the Russian eight month often
sive which he descibed as the
longest by any single army in this
war.
GAS a result of Red army sue
cesses almost two-thirds of Soviet
territory seized by the Hitlerite
scoundrels has been liberated" he
said.
1.-THE Red army offensive is tax
ing place along an enormous front
$40 miles in length. 1t is well
known that the Germans were ca
Fable of conducting an offensive
On such a scale only in 1871. In
1912 they attacked on a front OF
about $50 miles. In 1943 they made
an unsuccessful attempt at an Of
c;,,o m restricted sector OF