DESPERATE ASSAULTS

Evening Star, Issue 24328, 17 October 1942, Page 5

DESPERATE ASSAULTS

Decisive Battle For Stalingrad

Germans Throw In Masses Of Tanks And Troops (British Ofticml Wireless.) Proas AssuciaMoh—Uy Telegraph—Cop> ny, at (Rcc. 11.80 a.m.) RUGBY, October 16. The latest German assault on Stalingrad opened with intensive bombing of Soviet positions, according to a Moscow message. On tho north side of the city from the front line back to tho Volga crossing the Germans had made 1,500 individual bights by 5 p.m. on Wednesday in a sector just over a mile-wide and a few miles deep. The enemy New in waves of 80 to 40 planes without cessation, and so low that the defending ground forces alone shot down 16. Concentrations of tanks also advanced into the same deep narrow sector, with new tanks ever taking tho places of those' wrecked and burned. After 39 enemy tanks had been knocked out the Russians counter-attacked with their own tanks. The enemy s numerical advantage in armour and man power, however, along with overwhelming air superiority, enabled them to advance on a number of sectors. . The significance attached to the present situation is indicated by the ‘Red Star,’ which says: Ihis is a decisive battle for Stalingrad. We must hold the city at any cost. There must be more stamina, stubborness, and skill of manoeuvre and we shall repel the new fierce enemy attacks. The Germans are launching desperate assaults in their effort to capture Stalingrad. The proximity of winter is driving them on. The German High Command is replenishing diviisons incessantly and hurling reinforcements into the battle straight from the march.” In the Soviet offensive north-west of Stalingrad the Red Army captured several trench lines and some prisoners. German counter-attacks were ineffective. In the Mosdok area several German attacks, supported by tanks, were repelled. Soviet armoured trains are taking an effective part in the fighting. In the Caucasus foothills a German alpine regiment was dislodged from a dominating height and routed. South-east of Novorossisk superior enemy forces succeeded in .taking one height, but Soviet infantry counter-attacked, supported by mortar fire, and recaptured the position and took some prisoners.