BITTED CLASHES FOR DON BRIDGEHEASDS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 176, 28 July 1942, Page 5

BITTED CLASHES FOR DON BRIDGEHEASDS

NAZI PENETRATION Enemy Claims Capture Of Railway Junction U.P.A. and British Wireless Rec. 1 p.m. LONDON, July 27. Earlier Soviet official reports were of further heavy fighting on the outskirts of Rostov when superior German forces, constantly attacking the Russian positions, had penetrated at one point. In the region of Tsymlyanskaya bitter fighting was going on for bridgeheads. Although in some places the enemy advance had been successfully resisted, the Russian forces at one place withdrew to new positions. The Russians continued their offensive operations in the Voronezh and Briansk regions. According to the Berlin radio the whole of the Don delta is now under German control. The German communique states: After two days' fighting the Germans captured by; storm the strongly fortified railway junction town of Bataisk. ten miles south of Rostov. Farther eastward German mobile forces pushed far to the south. German and Rumanian infantry on the great Don bend, co-operating with tanks and aircraft, repulsed the enemy and reached the river along a wide front. The Vichy radio, quoting a Stockholm report, says von Bock has now established four bridgeheads on the south bank of the lower Don, two eastward and westward of Rostov, and the other two between Rostov and Tsymlyanskaya. Hun Tank Crews Inferior The Izvestia war correspondent says the Germans have only a few good tank crews left from last year. This year the men are not of the same quality, and when they cannot operate in a mass they are not heroes. Corn and grass are now high on the steppes, and the Germans are like herds in the mist. The Russian pilots have a new slang term when they set out against them. They say: "We are going out to graze."

The Russians north-west of Voronezh are firmly holding the crossings gained from the Germans and are nghting toward another crossing says the Moscow radio, quoting the latest front line reports. It addshands 1 " 6 remain s firmly in our

Fierce engagements are going on south of Voronezh, where the Germans failed to dislodge the Russians from the west bank of the Don. A group of Russians on Friday night crossed the river by pontoon and by swimming, and then diverted the attention of the enemy while the main body crossed the rive r Elsewhere, the battle lasted all night' and the Russians on Saturday morning broke into the outskirts of a populated place. The Moscow correspondent of the Times says the Germans on this sector are throwing in heavier infantry forces drawn hastily from the rear but some of these divisions may have to be rediverted to the Briansk front, where increasing Russian pressure threatens the north of the German salient.