Current Events Novemer 16, 1943;

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY NOVEMBER 16, 1943:
Russian forces drove west of isolated Gomel and Zhitomir today in a great battle to collapse the Nazi center and open an avenue for the eventual invasion of Germany itself. Gomel was virtually surrounded.

 American and Yugoslav bombers soared again Into the Balkans, bombing the Greek airdromes of Elevsisand Kalamaki near Athens.

                                                  Jap Ships CrippledAllied planes exploded a 1,000- pound bomb inside another Japanese cruiser and crippled another large merchant ship near Rabaul. Some 260 miles away from, the big Japanese base, American troops on
Bougainville in the northern Solomons "sent patrols against the JapaneseIn a month; the" Allies by "sea '
and air had sunk four cruisers, at least 10 destroyers and. a gunboat. They claimed to have damaged 13
to 15 cruisers, 15 destroyers and four other warships.

               The Portsmouth Herald

          PORTSMOUTH, N. H., TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 16, 1943

NORWAY BOMBED;
REDS TRY TO OPEN
NAZI CENTER LINE
Gomel Circled;
Greek Air 'Dromes
Hit by Yankees
(By the Associated Press)
Russian forces drove west of isolated Gomel and Zhitomir today in a great battle to collapse the Nazi center and open an avenue for the eventual invasion of Germany itself. Gomel was virtually surrounded. Only one escape railway remained open after the Russians' captured Demekhi, 34 miles west on the railway to Warsaw. At Demeklu, the Russians were within 320 miles of East Prussia and in the Nevel area farther north, tite German border was only 275 miles from Russian field guns.
The Berlin radio asserted that massed Russian forces had dented their lines in eight sectors—around
Dnepropetrovsk, Krivoi Rag, Cherkassy, Zhitomir and Kiev in the Dnieper rlv.er bend area; and near
Rechitsa, Smolensk and Orsha in the north. The Russians were said
to be driving west of Smolensk with 250,000 men.
The whole pattern of the Russian campaign appeared to be one of Isolating and annihilating German forces which have been ousted from all but about 150,000 square miles of prewar Russia. The drive toward old Poland from Kiev and Zhitomir had effectually severed the German armies of the south from those of the center and north. Advanced Russian forces were 300 miles west of the Germans still fighting in the lower Dnieper marshland, and Berlin said a violent battle was In progress in this area with a "vastly superior force"
of a half million Russians.
North of Pripet Marshes The campaign which isolated Gomerand"brotight the rail junction of Rechitsa within artillery range appeared aimed at cutting, the German central armies adrift from those of the north, besieging Leningrad.
The Russians were swinging north of the 30,000 square miles of Pripet marshes, which will be frozen
hard in another month. U. S. heavy bombers attacked undisclosed targets in Norway this morning after British Mosquitos Had bombed western Germany by night. The Nazis struck back at a southwest English coast town and at London's outer suburb a southwest English coast town and at London's outer suburbs.---


                                                                Bombs in Balkans
American and Yugoslav bombers soared again Into the Balkans, bombing the Greek airdromes of Elevsis
and Kalamaki near Athens.
Another Turkish report said Greek troops which reinforced the beleaguered British and Italians on the Aegean island of Leros had turned the tide just when the German attack nearly succeeded. The situation
on Leros remained critical. Determined German assaults in Yugoslavia forced Gen. Josip Broz's partisans to quit the Peljesac peninsula in southern Dalmatla and to make a general retreat in Macedonia. Gen. Georges Catroux strove to pacify Lebanon where General De
Gaulle's French Committee of National Liberation had ordered the republic's high officials jailed because
they demanded promised independence. An armed truce was ineffect.
                                                                   Jap Ships Crippled
Allied planes exploded a 1,000- pound bomb inside another Japanese cruiser and crippled another large merchant ship near Rabaul. Some 260 miles away from, the big Japanese base, American troops on
Bougainville in the northern Solomons "sent patrols against the JapaneseIn a month; the" Allies by "sea '
and air had sunk four cruisers, at least 10 destroyers and. a gunboat. They claimed to have damaged 13
to 15 cruisers, 15 destroyers and four other warships.