STILL ADVANCING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20876, 31 August 1942, Page 5

STILL ADVANCING

ZHUKOV'S ARMIES STALINGRAD STAND FIERCE AIR BATTLES (Bv Tclfßi-nph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (2.30 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. '2B. While the Russians are continuing to advance on the central front and have opened a counter-offensive near Shlusselburg, they have also had success before Stalingrad. The British United Press’ Moscow correspondent reports that the Russians have retaken three villages in a counter- 1 Hack north-west Of .Stalingrad. In this counter-attack, the Russians cut the communications of a force which "breached the Russian lines- a few days ago.' ■ They arc steadily wiping out the remainder- of JOO .tanks which was the ■ original force, despite determined German attempts to supply thorn from trans--port- planes. The Red Star says that the Russians in the Kletskaya area' are pressing the enemy-at-many points' on'-the Don 7 bend. The Germans, attempting to wrest the initiative, pul -in cavalary for the first time on the southern . front, -but Russian .tanks routed them-and killed 500, 1 - ' The Moscow radio states that the Russians on the central front repelled counter-attacks and - occupied eight fortified inhabited -' localities.- 'The Germans are reported to-be moving up large forces of tanks and pianos in the F>jev sector. The Russians continue to advance on the Kalinin front.- The Germans are killing the inhabitants ■ in the villages-'they are forced to leave. A Stockholm message reports .that the Russians have " begun a new counter-offensive near ■ -Shlusfselburg. The Germans only partly checked the attacks, which are continuing. Rotterdam Tactics Unceasing air ' battles L are raging over the • Stalingrad battlefront. German bombers! and 1 dive-bombers are swarming l in day and- night -to bomb the central residential areas of the city and’ roads ■■ arid 1 railways leading from it. ■ The Russians are nutting up a screen' of fighters and claim that dozens off German planes have been shot down. They-also.claim that German ; planes have -not - succeeded in reaching military objectives in ‘ the city, although parts of the centre and residential areas are burning. The German High Command states that the Luftwaffe burned , down several ammunition 1 factories-'and--set fire to-two large Volga freighters'and a tanker. « V r ; 1 ’ r'"’”’*

Reports from Stalingrad to-day describe how the Germans are pattern bombing Stalingrad- in thersame'way as they made mass raids on Rotterdam. The Luftwaffe dropped'-hun-dreds of high explosives as wave after wave of machines went over the area. The Germans divided the residential area into squares find systematically bombed square after square.-- Leaflets were dropped announcing the day and hour of the Gm-man -march- into 1 Stalingrad. •• ' ' "» '• '*

The Vicny radio declared that the Germans in the Kalach sector crossed the Kalach-Stalingrad railway.* halfway between the Don and the Volga. The Germans also reached an extreme point in the Taman Gulf." ' A German communique states that the Russian offensive south-west of Kaluga and near Rjev has " been smashed. Strong Russian forces south of Lake Ladoga attacked German positions but were repulsed in fierce fighting. _