SITUATION CRITICAL

Evening Star, Issue 24291, 4 September 1942, Page 3

SITUATION CRITICAL

German Drive On Stalingrad Stubborn Russian Defence Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyrigb t (Received 1 p.m.) LONDON, September 3. Latest Russian messages describe the growing intensity of the critical battle of Stalingrad. A great struggle is raging not far from the city itself. Thousands of dead Germans testify to the stubbornness of the Russian resistance, butfresh enemy units are thrown into the battle as others exhaust themselves. The position in Russia can be summarised as follows: The costly Russian progress north-west, west, and south-west of Moscow counter-balances the equally painful German progress in the Caucasus, but the continued Russian progress in the Kletskaya area on the distant flank of the Axis multitude before Stalingrad does not redress the deterioration on the city’s approaches. All sources, even German, admit that the stubborn Russian defenders show no signs of cracking. After a lull following the virtual destruction of the Fourteenth Panzer Division, the German command at dawn threw in about 20,000 infantry and 80 tanks under strong air cover in two columns south-west of Stalingrad. The Germans were held up for hours by artillery and heavy mortar fire, and the Russians were forced back only at isolated. points. Hundreds of Stukas were thrown in at midday, but the Russians rose up from cover, driving back waves of German infantry. The artillery stood off, and the tank brigade routed 40 truckloads of shock troops. The Germans in the evening altered their tactics, Messerschmitts heavily machine-gunning artillery positions as tanks and infantry again attacked. The Germans broke through, but the Russians regrouped on a new line, which they are holding. Meanwhile, Marshal von Bock’s upper thrust north-west of Stalingrad is facing an increasingsly difficult situation. The Russians are gnawing and thrusting against the exposed flanks. Russian gunfire trapped relief columns. A small group of the most powerful Russian tanks broke up a sortie by 50 German tanks, which turned back after 17 were destroyed. The Yiohv radio says the Axis forces have reached the Volga at Pichuga, which is 22 miles northward of Stalingrad, and Krasnoarmetsk, south of the city, thus cutting off all supplies for the city via the river.