TIMOSHENKO STILL RETAINS INITIATIVE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 125, 29 May 1942, Page 5

TIMOSHENKO STILL RETAINS INITIATIVE

KHARKOV SECTOR

Russians Advancing On Main Front U.P.A. and British Wireless. Rec. noon. LONDON, May 27. Soviet sources declare that Marshal Timoshenko is retaining the initiative and is throwing further forces into the struggle around Kharkov. Moscow radio says the Russians are advancing on the main Kharkov front and are successfully counterattacking within the Isyum-Barven-kova sector. Further evidence that Marshal Timoshenko retains the initiative is seen in German reports that the Red Army is staging diversionary manoeuvres no.rtn-east of Kharkov, and in Moscow it is announced that the Red Cavalry penetrated 40 miles behind the German lines between the Isyum battlefield and the Sea of Azov, killing 3000 of the enemy.

The military correspondent cf the Daily Express says tnat from the melee of this confused battle two facts emerge. First, the Russians still have their backs to the Donetz River, and second, reinforcements to replace heavy casualties arc arriving with clockwork precision. He adds:

"For the Germans, success in this battle is vital. If they lu.se it, they will be thrown out of strategic positions necessary for any advance through the Ukraine and along the coastal belt towards Rostov. For this reason von Bock is using up men and material at a prodigal rate, and by now he may be drawing on his major reserves." Reports irom Stockholm say that the Germans are rapidly throwing in troops drawn from ether fronts.

The Daily Express military correspondent adds that if the Russians are compelled to fall back they will at least have secured a fortnight's to a month's postponement of the long-prepared German all-out offensive.

To-day's German communique states that the battle of the pocket south of Kharkov has led to a great final victory for German and allied arms, adding that 105,000 Russian prisoners have already been counted and only isolated Russian groups are still resisting. Soviet headquarters reveal nothing of the struggle still proceeding to the west of and on the Donetz River south-east of Kharkov, says British Official Wireless, except that the repetition of the same names during the last eleven days suggests that the German attacks are making no progress towards encircling the Russian bulge in the Kharkov region. It is indeed still doubtful whether any very large Russian forces have been surrounded, as has been insistently claimed by the enemy. There seems little doubt, however, that the Russian counterattacks with tanks have stopped the Germans from going further north than the Isyum neighbourhood, as well as having prevented them from pushing across to the east of the Donetz.

Operations have been marked bv the use of paratroops and guerilla fcprces behind the lines by both sides. The Soviet authorities report the repulse of two attacks on the Kalinin front in which the Germans lost 850 men, and the killing of 400 of the enemy on the north-western frcnt. The bombing of targets in East Prussia, which was announced bv the Germans, is the first instance of this since last autumn.