CAUGHT IN TRAP

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 18, 27 October 1942, Page 5

CAUGHT IN TRAP

GERMAN INFANTRY SoA'iet troops were said to be cutting down a German infantry column mouse-trapped behind a minor Nazi tank penetration southwest of Stalingrad. A Russian communique reported the invaders had lost, heavily in that sector—centered along a 95mile railway line from Kotelnikovski—and were throwing in reserves. Twelve tan'ks of a 50-tank formation were declared knocked out of action and about 300 Germans killed in a battle against an unyielding Soviet front. However, new Russian withdrawals were recorded belo\Y both Pyatigorsk and Krasnodar, but the Soviet Information Bureau said Red Army motor crews of one unit killed over 1,000 German officers and men in three days and destroyed i 2 tanks and a number of trucks.

Russians on the northwestern front—part of an area in which they have been probing on the offensive —were reported to have driv-> en the Germans; from a populated place, killed several hundred, and destroyed six German tanks and four enemy blockhouses. The German High Command in a radiocast from Berlin said that German and. Rumanian troops had captured Kryms'kaya, and Kurtsljanskaj*a,- towns in the lower Kuban River Valley, Avhile other Axis forces had dislodged the Russians from fortified mountain positions in ' the Caucasus. Weather conditions and. terrain were described as extremely difficult. , On the front west of Moscow, several Soviet tank attacks failed east of Vyazma and Rzhcv, the German communique said.