THE CHINA MAIL, SEPTEMBER 23, 1941.
REUTER VISITS SOVIET FRONT
Desolate Yelnya Grim Evidences Of Heavy Fighting
(By Reuter's Special Correspondent in Russia, on the Yelnya Smolensk Front).
“I AM WRITING THIS DESPATCH FROM YELNYA, PRINCIPAL TOWN OF THE LARGE SALIENT WHICH THE RUSSIANS RE-CAP- TURED AFTER SMASHING EIGHT GERMAN DIVISIONS IN A MONTH- LONG BATTLE WHICH PROVED ONE OF THE WAR'S FIERCEST STRUGGLES.
"It is now nearly a week since I left Mos-
FOR
cow for the first trip to the front accorded to CALL any foreign journalist. Since then I have tro- velled along many roads often incredible MAXIMUM
roads along the Smolensk sector of the Eastern front.
"One re-captured village I visited remains very vividly in my memory. Unlike so many others there are few houses still standing, but the only inhabitants were one peasant and three children, and one blind woman who had been rendered insane through the experi- ences through which she had passed.
{
"I saw her wandering through, hut where I was given supper carrying from place to place her by the local commander and only possessions one pail, one put up on heaps of straw. sheepskin and a few pathetic rags, will tell about the Russian off).
cers later.
the
Devastation
#2
EFFORT
DR. HENRY GRADY, PRESI- DENT ROOSEVELT'S SPECIAL
Battlefield
ANOTHER
New
LETTER FROM Height In
KONOYE?
Replying to a ques- tion by newspapermen yesterday whether on- other letter has been received by President Roosevelt from the Ja- panese Prime Minister, Prince Konoye, Mr. Cordell Hull said he had no information about it.-Reuter.
ABLE TO
MEET ALL
ECONOMIC INVESTIGATOR IN THE FAR EAST, IN BOMBAY ON REUTER THAT THE PART OF DEMANDS
HIS WAY TO COLOMBO, TOLD
THE WORLD REPRESENTED BY
INDIA, BURMA, MALAYA, THE SOUTH CHINA, WAS HIGHLY THE UNITED STATES DE-
Boldness
(SPECIAL TO “CHINA MAIL")
Anti-Japanese terrorism reached new heights of boldness in Shanghai yes- terday afternoon when a Japanese civilian named Shimada was critically wounded in Nanking Road, the city's main thoroughfare.
The shooting occurred at the height of business activity when a lone gunman opened fire on the victim walking on the pavement. The crowded street was thrown into panie by the sounds of shots.
One bullet struck Shimada in the vide and other slightly wounded a Chinese pedestrian.
While the crowd stood petrified, the gunman calmly walked away.
Shimada is in a serious tondi- in hospital International
N.E. THE PHILIPPINES AND
PROGRAMME HAS IMPORTANT IN RESPECT
OF FENCE RAW MATERIALS BOTH® MIN-REACHED A POINT WHERE IT tion
IS ABLE TO MEET ALL DE-News Service. ERAL AND VEGETABLE,
MANDS FOR TANKS,
SMALL
It was, therefore, tremendously GUNS AND AMMUNITION, DE- important that this area should CLARED MR. WILLIAM KNUD-
make the fullest contribution by SEN, DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF HUNT
intensifying its production of the THE OFFICE OF PRODUCTION IN CHICAGO materials needed for war produc- MANAGEMENT,
YESTERDAY, tion.
V
HELPED FLYING
"But the three children were already busy digging up 'potatoes from the recaptured
belds.
"This morning I drove across Emphasising the need for a maxi- Calling for still greater effort, Hereabouts, and to the mast, a town that looked like
de- mum effort, Dr. Grady said that he declared, that it was time for the countryside was devastated vastated piece of Stepney. The while the tide seemed to be turn- the country to "get behind the by the Germans before they Ariny was generally taking care ing against the Axis at present, it armament programme and see it were driven out by the Rus. of the people whose homes had would be a vital mistake to be through regardless of the sacrifices elan pincer movement further been burned, but in the villages complacent, because complacency we may have to make in our com-packs of hounds taken by British west.
around life seemed to go on, has been the cause of the failure fortable standard of living. ***The result of this pincer strangely normally despite the of many countries conquered by movement was that thousands of fact that many thatched roofs the Nazis.-Beuter. Germans were killed or captured, have been blown away by the while other German forces were blast, and there were many craters compelled to withdraw rapidly in the roadside. from the bottle-neck, abandoning strong positions and masses of equipment.
Yelnya Ruin
"The Germans are now 11 miles from Yelnya and are being driven further away. Smolensk is_still in German hands, but the Rus- sians are not very far off. In Yelnya the only building rela- tively intact is one church.
The remainder of this town, which formerly had 6,000 in. habitants, now consists mainly of a few chimney stacks and heaps of rubble and ashes.
V
MORE WOMEN TO REGISTER
"I think it beloves us all wake up."-Reuter.
There is no record that the
Regiments to the Continent còn- totributed in any way to Welling- ton's successes over Napoleon. But it can be truthfully stated that the Habbaniya Hunt helped the Royal Air Force to find and
INSPECTOR ROBBED destroy "Iraqi rebel positions.
"There were pigs, geese and heng on the roads, but things were different on entering a
Inspector A. L. Hopkins, of No.
In normal times the, Habbaniya country which had either been
All women born in 1914 are re- 150, Caine Road, has reported the Hunt, boasting a number of cou- No Man's Land or occupied by the Germans who had systema quired to register on September theft of two cameras, a fountain ples of English foxhounds, hunt- tically destroyed or taken away 27 under the Registration for pen, and a cigarette lighter, to the ed jackals all over the surround-
British total value of $177.50, between ing desert. To all livestock which there had Employment
12.15 and 7 a.m. yesterday. not been time to evacuate be Wireless. fore they arrived.
In No Man's Land, one of the fiercest battles had been fought in wide fields of over-ripe flax and ryc' still uncut. 1-got to a vil- lage which had been the centre of left of this battle. Nothing was it but at few burned stumps.
Labyrinth Of Trenches
"A large number of inhabitants, trapped by the sudden arrival of
"Called Ushakovo. it stands on the Germans, were formed into an
advantageous height over- forced labour gangs and sent to looking a semi-circle of woods a the German rear, and nobody couple of miles distant which was Imnows what has happened to held by the Russians. The Ger- Then, though some escaped into mans made this village their the woods or managed to reach stronghold, but it was the Rus- The Russian lines, while others siams who advanced, step
are still trickling back, though step, digging themselves as they
Order.
INTER-ALLIED CONFERENCE IN LONDON
THE MAIN ITEMS for debate at the
members of the Hunt, with an eye for country, the neighbourhood of Habbaniya ceased to be more miles of anony- mous wilderness and acquired scores of readily identificable fea- tures.
This knowledge able in the
was invalu- air. Observation · from any altitude is dimcult enough över desert country and miracles of camouflage can be performed with a few yards of fabric and an abundance of sami. But to be able to tell, by re-, cognising a clump of rock, that there is a deep wadi round - the corner which might be the very
chosen for their gun or・ dump,”
by half.
by forthcoming inter-Allied conference in Lon-hide-out which the Iraqi had there is nowhere in town left for advanced during several weeks don will, says Reuter's diplomatic correspon-made the airman's problem less
them to live in.
from three directions until the
Germans were finally forced to dent, probably be:--
withdraw.
"Allotments round and through of Ushakovo were a labyrinth
Thus Habbaniya's "John Peels'
(1) the Atlantic Charter, signed by Mr. made many Ands. German trenches. Some 500 yards Churchill and President Roosevelt. distant, were lines--rapidly con-
(2) Plans for post-war reconstruction in
Burning Inferno "When the Germans decided to evacuate the town on the night of September 4, they ordered the remaining few hundred inhabit structed
by night of ... Russian.........
ants, mostly old people and child- trenches and in between these all the allied countries.
lines...
German
ren, to assemble inside a church were indentations where the ad- which they locked up. Before vancing Russian soldiers ducked leaving the town, the Germans when approaching the systematically set fire to every house which had so far escaped destruction, and it was into this burning Inferno" that Russiań itroops re-entered.
"The terrain occupied by the) Germania" was Miko а lunar landscape with shell craters proving the accuracy of Aus: sian artillery.
THOUSANDTH
Mr. Churchill will be the prin- COMMUNAL
pers, tin hats and even letters cipal British representative. Rus- stlillegible despite the rain, sia will be represented for the
There was also the wreckage of first time at these conferences RESTAURANT
a German armoured car and the and her delegate is expected to be: carcnse of a horbo
the Soviet Ambassador, M. Mai-
travelled to-day along the rond where the Germans rë- treated before abandoning
Mournful Scene Velnya: I started in the morn-
The fierceness of the battle was
It is thought that postwar In 'n speech the food Minister Ing from: Dorógobüzh which had
plana will be discussed for: a mever been in German hands, shown by the large mound fenced
switchover from war to peace- said that although the enemy had but which was almost com- off and decorated with fir brauches
time production, including the done his best for two years, Bri- pletely destroyed by terror and wild flowers where hundreds
collection and storage of raw tain was still in the war and in raids during the month of July, of Russian soldiers, were buried.... "German bodies filled numerous "It was uncanny, driving in
materials and their distribution spite of some disasters, better covered anun- shell-holes now the darkness, through
where the need to greatest in equipped than before. the countries, concerned.
The restaurant opened by Lord known town with the silhouettes Around this mournful scene, un-
The idea it is assumed, is that Woolton seats 250 people and pro- of nothing but burnt out houses cut rye fields and potato patches with the sky showing through all grown by peasants in the now
reconstruction shall be tackled as vides two course initals-meat, the windows like skulls instead non-existent village were whippedThis position was clearly has an international problem with two vegetables, Sweet prd a cup of faces.
by the aütumn raid.
dily abandoned when the bottle-mutual cooperation Instead of of tea-at prices from tenpence British Wire- "After wading through deep
"The grbung was littered with role further west threatened to leaving each country to act as it to one shilling.
finds itself possible, Reuter, less. mud, 1 at last resoned an Army) · German equipment and newapa?! close in altogether-Router."
"A couple of miles north was n sky A
The One thousandth “British German observation posta quar All the Allied countries will ry sliced into the side of a hillock naturally subscribe to the aims of Restaurant" was opened yester with well-made galleries and dug the Atlantic Charter.
day by Lord Woolton. outs furnished with furniture stolen from the villages. Above artillery this were the German, positions.
It was a stronghold protected rby a stream, and the construc-
tion of it as wall an the equip-: ment, left behind clofe the im- pression bf great "thoroughness and efficlanby.
up