1941-09-23 — Page 18

THE CHINA MAIL, SEPTEMBER 23, 19

REUTER VISITS SOVIET FRONT

Desolate Yelnya Grim Evidences Of Heavy Fighting

(By Router'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.

ABLE TO

"It is now nearly a week since I left Mos-| cow for the first trip to the front accorded to any foreign journalist. Since then I have tra- MEET ALL velled along many rrads often incredible roads — along the Smolensk sector of the DEMANDS

Eastern front.

THE UNITED STATES

DE- PROGRAMME HAS REACHED A POINT WHERE IT)]

DE- TO MEET ALL MANDS FOR TANKS,, SMALL!

Battlefield

*******6*660***** GERMANS

ANOTHER

LETTER FRO

KONOYE?

Replying to a quest tion by newspapermen yesterday whether an

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.

›00000+

BURMA IMMIGRATION

AGREEMENT

TELL

OF TRUTH!

Increased weight of bombing by the Royal Air Force has driven the Nazis to change their policy of attempting to conceal air raid' damage from their people.

Their communiques now make a virtue of necessity, and with a great show of moral indignation they assert after a night of vig- orous attacks on Berlin and the Ruhr, that "damage was done to buildings in residential quarters, but no military damage was caus ed." After î very heavy attack, like the attack on the Ruhr un | the night of June 11 they are even franker and: admit that "in Cologne, Duisburg: und Bochum, "One re-captured village I visited remains FENCE

great destruction was caused in residential: quarters." But the very vividly in my memory. Unlike so many is ABLE

communique also says that "in- dustrial plants and railway lines others there are few houses still standing, but GUNS AND AMMUNITION, DE-

suffered only slight damage."

This is the well-worm German the only inhabitants were one peasant and CLARED MR. WILLIAM KNUD- SEN. DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF

An agreement relating to Chin- trick of a lie which is a distorted truth. Great destruction three children, and one blind woman who had THE OFFICE OF PRODUCTION

ese immigration into Burma has hull MANAGEMENT. IN CHICAGO

been reached on various import- certainly was caused in Cologne, on the been rendered insane through the experi-YESTERDAY.

tant points at the conference be- Duisburg, and Bochum

much was Calling for still greater effort. | tween the Chinese and Burmese night of June 11-so ences through which she had passed.

he declared: that it was time for delegates in Rangoon yesterday. true. Some of it may well have not detalled in been in residential quarters, for the country to "get behind the The points are

indust armament programme and see ft the communique, which; however, in the thickly populated through regardless of the sacrificos | states That they are subject to trial areas of the Ruhr and the munition govern- Rhineland, houses and

being factories are packed tightly to- Industrial' plants and lines suffered damage railway that also was true. What was false was that the damage to them was slight.

"I saw her wandering through, carrying from place to place her only possessions one pail, one sheepskin and a few pathetic rags.

"But the three children were already busy digging up

the potalbes from: the recaptured felds.

hut where I was given supper by the local commander and put up on heaps of straw. will tell about the Russian off. cers later.

Devastation

"This morning I drove across Hereabouts, and to the cast, a town that looked. like

a. .de- the countryside was devastated vastated piece of Stepney. The

Germans by the

before they | Army was generally talking oare were driven out by the Rus- of the people whose huines had alan pincer movement further been burned, but in the villages west.

around life seemed to go o11, **The result of this pincer strangely normally despite the movement was that thousands of fact that many thatched roofs 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

"There were pigs, geote and hens on the roads, but things were different on entering country which had either been No Man's Land or occupied by

а

the Germans who had systema all livestock which there had

tically destroyed or taken away

"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 In No Man's Land, one of the

not been time to evacuato. be. fore they arrived.

we may have to make in our com- acceptance by fortable standard of living.

ments ana

-Reuter.

the two to agreement

"I think it behoves us all to reached on the remaining points, guther. wake-up/-Reuter.

INTER-ALLIED CONFERENCE

IN LONDON

The whole truth was that in- dustries, railways and houses all destruction, shared in the great for when factories were hit; hau-

destruct / ses suffered also. The tion of their homes could not be concealed from the German pro- ple; so much therefore the Nazis were forced to admit.

In recent attacks on Homburg over 5,000 houses are reliably re- ported to have been destroyed or damaged, Devastation

THE MAIN ITEMS for debate at the seriously

on such a scale is quite impos- propagandists have had to face

forthcoming inter-Allied conference in Lonsible to conceal; and the German

don will, says Reuter's diplomatic correspon- dent, probably be:-

(1) the Atlantic Charter, signed by Mr. building rela- fiercest battles had been fought in Churchill and President Roosevelt.

Yelnya the only tively intact is one church.

The remainder of this town, which formarly had 6,000 in habitants, now consists mainly of a few chimney stacks and heaps of rubble and ashes.

wide fields of over-ripe flax and rye still. uncut. I got to a vil- lage which had been the centre of this battle. Nothing was

left of

it but at few burned stumps.

by

"A large number of inhabitants, Labyrinth Of Trenches trapped by the sudden arrival of

"Called Ushakovo, it stands on the Germans, were formed into forced labour gangs and sent to an advantageous height over the German rear, and nobody looking a semi-circle of woods a knows what has happened to couple of miles distant: which was them, though some escaped into held by the Russians. The Ger- the woods or managed to reach, mans made this village their the. Russian lines, while others stronghold, but it was the Rus-

trickling back, though stans who advanced, støp are: still there is nowhere in town left for step, digging themselves as they them to live in.

advanced during several weeks! from three directions until the to Burning Inferno Germans were finally forced

withdraw. "When the Germans decided to "Allotments round and through

labyrinth the night Ushakovo were a evacuate the town on of September 4, they ordered the German trenches. Some 300 yards remaining few hundred Inhabit distant, were lines-rapidly con- ants, mostly old people and child- structed by night of Russian ren, to assemble inside a church trenches and in betwveen, these which they locked up. Before were indentations where they ad- leaving the town, the Germans vancing Russian soldiers ducked systematically set fire to every

when approaching the German lines. house which had so far escaped destruction, and it was into, this Russlan burning Inferno that troops re-entered.

of

"The terrain occupied by the Germans was likellad, füṇari landscape with shell crators proving the accuracy of Rus- sian artillory, i

Mournful Scene

(2) Plans for post-war reconstruction in all the allied countries.

the fact and make the best use of

it they can.

But there is other destruction

which they do not and dare not

the yards

admit. For example, hits were scored on the Blotun and Voss shipbuilding yards in Hamburg, in which many of Germany's submarines are built

More recently, on the June, 25 they admitted that "British 'planes dropped H.E. and incen- diary bombs in Western and N.W population suffered some losses in dead and injured but there was no damage to military or in- portant, war objects." The use of the word "Important" is signifi cant!: The German admission fol lowed the British announcement of heavy attacks on objectives at Cologne, Dusseldorf and the naval base at Kiel:

Mr. Churchill will be the prin- an international problem with cipal British representative. Rus- mutual cooperation instead of sia will be represented for the leaving, each country to act as It; Germany," adding, "the civilian Arst time at these conferences Ands itself possible. - Reuter. and her delegate is expected to be. the Soviet Ambassador, M. Mai- sky.

naturally subscribe to the aims of All the Allied, countries will

the Atlantic Charter.

อ

that It is thought

postwar plans will be discussed. fór switchover from war to peace: time production; including the collection-and- storage- of- raw materials and their distribution where, the need? is” greateat.... In the countrien concerned”.

The idea, it is assumed. Is that!

V

ON MURDER CHARGE

AT 18

An eighteen-year-old

GREEK

reconstruction shall be tackled as cinema operator, Leslie PREMIER'S

Walter Hammond of

Buckland-avenue, Dover, MESSAGE pera, tin hata and even letters was charged with the IN A MESSAGE. TO THE

German equipment and newspa-

--still legible despite the rain, murder of George Thomas BRITISH PEOPLE ON THE OC

There was also the wreckage of

WITH-

a German armoured car and the Roberts, 50; manager of CASION OF HIS ARRIVAL KING GEORGE OF the Plaza Cinema, Dover. GREECE IN BRITAIN THE carcase of a horgė: "A couple of miles north was a Hammond Is employed at the GREEK PRIME MINISTER * M. German observation posta quarcinema.. rý sliced into the side of a, hillock with well-made galléries and dúg- outs furnished with furniture stolen from the villages. Above this were the German artillery positions.

1

TSOUDEROS, SAID: “WE ARE EXTREMELY HAPPY TO FIND. OURSELVES HERE AMONG THE BRITISH PEOPLE.

travelled to-day along the road, where the Germans re- treated before abandoning

Before the arrest, waa: made Yelnya. Latarted, in the morn.

known Hammond was Inter Ing from Dorogobuzh which had

The fierceness of the battle was

Vlowed by Detective-Superin. We intend to carry on to the never been In German hands,

shown by the large mound fenced

tendent Rawlings, of Scotland very end this struggle at the side but which was almost com-

Yard in a firal-floor room at of the British against the Nazis pletely destroyed by torror off and decorated with fir Branches

the police station

and Fascist tyrants of Europe. ralds during the month of July; and wild flowers where Kundreds

Heavy black curtains were "We are going to build up, our "It was

uncanhy, driving in of Russian soldiers were buried,

to continue: this night drawn acrosa ona of the win- | resources the darkness, through anun "German bodies filled numerous

covered

dows throughout the Interview until the victory of which I am known town with the silhouettes shell-holes now

to conceal thora: Inaldos from confident. It is impossible to of nothing but burnt out houses Around this mournful scene, une]

passers-by.

any how long we shall stay hero. with the sky showing through all cut rye fields and potato patches]

This position was clearly, has- MN Roberts, who had, boen We are tremendously proud to the windows like skulls instead grown by pensants in the now of fates.

non-existent village were whipped tily abandoned when the bottles manuger only four months, was come to London, capital or not tanecky further west threatened to found dead in a cellar, under the only the British Empire but of all -“After wading through doop by tho!autumn rain.

Reute

cinema.

freedom loving peoples. Reator. Thfud;"t^at*fhstroäbliod am Army! “Thö^ground/was:¡ittered with close in altogether.

It was a stronghold protected by a stream, and the constract tion of it as well as, the equip. up.ment left behind. Jeft the im

pression of gebat», thoroughnesà and efficiency.