GERMANS STILL HELD

Evening Star, Issue 24287, 31 August 1942, Page 3

GERMANS STILL HELD

Stalingrad’s Firm Defence Russians Advance Through Ruins Of Rjev (British Official Wireless.) Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright (Bee. 9.50 a.m.) RUGBY, August 30. The Russian defence of Stalingrad still appears to be preventing the Germans from making any further territorial progress toward the Volga city. North-west of the city a Russian counter-attack dislodged the enemy from two localities. On another sector of the same front several enemy attacks were repulsed and 14 German tanks destroyed. A Moscow message says an important settlement was recaptured and that on several sectors of the Stalingrad front the Germans have been forced to assume the defensive and regroup their badly-mauled troops. • In the Kletskaya area, inside the Don bend, the Russians continue their activity. A Russian supplementary communique admits some enemy advance southward of Krasnodar. Here the Germans occupied several heights after fierce artillery and mortar fire. Soviet troops, however, counter-attacked, and compelled the Germans to retreat to their original positions after an infantry battalion had been wiped out. No official mention is made by the Russians to-day of the progress of their offensive on the central front, nor of the Russian counter-attacks which the Germans say have been launched south-west of Kaluga in the direction of Bryansk. In one mass raid on the central sector Russian planes ■ destroyed 50 out of 80 German bombers on the ground, states a Moscow message. Several other aerodromes were raided as assistance to the ground forces who are slowly battering their way- through the ruins of Rjev. The Russian positions in that area have been improved. The Red Army broke across the Volga west of the city and through debris fortified with barbed wire and anti-infantry and anti-tank fortifications. The crossing was made on cable ferries under a hail of enemy shells and bullets and attacks by dive-bombers. Very fierce fighting is raging near the former military barracks, where each building has been converted by the Germans into a stronghold. The enemy is constantly rushing up new forces of tanks and infantry, but the Russians continue to advance on several sectors of this front.