RUSSIANS’ COUNTER-STROKE MOSCOW THRILLED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20874, 28 August 1942, Page 3

RUSSIANS’ COUNTER-STROKE

MOSCOW THRILLED

MORE ADVANCES FIGHTING IN RJEV BLOODY SORTIES OCCUR (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Noon) LONDON, Aug. 27. News of the Viazma-Rjev offensive thrilled Moscow. Rumours of the attack spread throughout the capital for days, but last night’s communique was the first public reference. Several more localities were occupied on the central front, where the Russians are making further advances. The latest despatches speak of street fighting on the outskirts of Rjev, where the Germans are reported to be resisting fiercely and desperately, trying to cling to this important rail and road centre. Last winter the Red Army half encircled. Rjev, but the Germans were determined to hold the town at any cost and reinforced the six divisions operating in that area by three in July and another five in August. They have also continued to strengthen the fortifications of adjacent towns. The Pravda says that masses of artillery, trench mortal’s and planes were involved in stubborn and bloody battles. The Russians have broken into Rjev from the north and street fighting is progressing. Russian tanks more northwards are going into battle in the rear of the German fortifications. Rjev itself is in ruins. The Germans strongly fortified this district and their ferro-concrete dug-outs are engineering feats. Germans’ Stubborn Fight The Germans have orders to stop the Russians at all costs. They are clinging to every inch of ground, but the Russian artillery is pounding the fortifications, tanks are destroying German dug-outs, and automatic riflemen are finishing off Germans who are trying to escape from the ruined dugouts.

Russian troops move forward yard by yard, occupying trench after trench. Each trench holds dozens of German dead and many machine-guns and rifles. Sometimes whole batteries of Germans are loath to leave the block-houses and scores are buried beneath the debris of them. Dozens of prisoners, exhausted and dishevelled, are being sent to the Russian rear.

The Russians’ counter-stroke northwest and west of Moscow recalls the perfect timing with which M. Stalin launched the winter offensive last December in order to save Moscow. The Russians then held their blow until the danger had swept up to the very ramparts of Moscow. Now General Zhukov’s armies moved a week after the Germans broke through north-eastwards of the Tsymlyanskaya bridgehead on the Lower Don and began a fierce drive through Kotelnikovo, which to-day is battering against the outer defences of Stalingrad. Strategic Centres

It is still too early to forecast the effect of General Zhukov’s attack upon the crucial battles within a day’s march of Stalingrad, but the figures contained in the special Moscow communique clearly indicate the weight of the Russian attack along the ,70mile front. German official reports in the past fortnight indicated a strong Russian attack in the Rjev and Viazma areas. The Moscow communique indicates that these attacks have been on a considerably more substantial scale than the continuous probing activity conducted throughout the earlier part of the summer. Rjev, Gjatsk, and Viazma —all strongly-defended hedgehogs to which the Germans clung when the Russian winter offensive forced westward — comprise a formidable triangle of great strategic importance, covering Smolensk, which is the pivot of the German front in Russia.

Rjev is nearly 700 miles from Stalingrad and even if the Germans wished to transfer to the central front some of their strength from the Stalingrad and Caucasian fronts it is doubtful if the communications are sufficiently good to make such an operation quickly feasible. Thus the Russian offensive in the centre is not regarded in informed circles in London as likely to have any immediate effect on the situation around Stalingrad, which remains extremely serious.