ALL OVER AT STALINGRAD

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 106, 29 January 1943, Page 5

ALL OVER AT STALINGRAD

Gigantic Squeeze On Voronezh Front SPATE OF CAPTIVES (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received January 28, 11.10 p.m.) LONDON, January 28. A special Moscow announcement last night stated that liquidation of the German Sixth Army before Stalingrad has been completed. It was also announced last night that 5000 more of the encircled Axis troops in the Voronezh front were forced to surrender (bringing the recorded total for this area to 80,000). A communique today, which says that the Red Army has kept up its pressure on all six fronts, adds that further progress was made on the Voronezh front. "The enemy tried to stem the advance in the region of two inhabited localities, but were forced to give ground, and suffered heavy losses in men and material.” •

A Moscow correspondent says that the main Russian strategy on the Voronezh front still seems to be aimed at the ultimate encirclement of the big German force in the Donetz Basin. A large number of the enemy are already surrounded.

The Russians on the Voronezh front have captured the large railway station of Gorschechnoye, about 60 miles south-west of Voronezh, on the YeletsValuiki railway. On the southern' front they have captured Egorlyk and Novo Alexandrovskaya, 50 and. 40 miles respectively east of Kavaskaya, and also Srednyegorlik, 50 miles northwest of Salsk and 70 miles south-east of Rostov, and Neftegorsk, the oil centre) 30 miles north-eastward of Tuapse on the railway to Armavir. Barrier in South. The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times’’ says that the German forces are becoming congested on the railways of the western Caucasus, with the Russians in the immediate approaches to the Kavkaskaya and Tikhoretsk junctions. A barrier which the Germans hope to defend apparently includes an arc drawn from Tikhoretsk, with Rostov near the centre. However, it is unlikely that the Germans really expect to stem the Russian offensive so far to the east, though hard lighting is certain before the Russians can overcome this delaying barrier and surge into the heart of the Bonetz Basin.

The most important other operations on the southern front, says this correspondent, are west and south-west of Voronezh, where the Russians are again demonstrating their superior winter mobility. and the Germans and Hungarians are doomed to suffer further encirclements before their lines are shortened by the retreat. . Heavy fighting continues in the Velikiye Luki and Leningrad regions, though no fresh changes are reported. New activity is recorded in the Volkhov and Rzhev areas. Yesterday’s German communique said that the Russian offensive was spreading to new areas. Good news is expected to be announced shortly from the Leningrad sector, says the “Daily Express’s” military correspondent, Morley Richards. Last night there were new reports of fierce fighting south of Lake Ladoga. Vichy radio reports major fighting m the Leningrad, Shlusselburg and Velikiye Luki areas, where the Russians are attacking with enormous forces. Black Sea Dunkirk? The German armies in the Caucasus whose retreat the Russians threaten to cut off. may attempt to escape through ihe Black Sea. Turkish reports state that all Axis ships in Turkish and Bulgarian ports have been ordered to Novorossisk, tlie German-held port on the Black Sea coast of western Caucasia. This would suggest that von List’s forces have abandoned their attempts to reach Rostov. Military observers have predicted that speedy Russian advances through the northern Caucasus would cut off the German line of retreat, leaving the sea only as a means of escape. If the Germans attempt to escape from Novorossisk they will have to run the gauntlet of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. Vichy radio said today that the Germans on the southern sector of the eastern front bad 1 egun a methodical and orderly withdrawal. A Russian communique records the sinking of an enemy destroyer in the Barents Sea by Russian naval units.