STALINGRAD ASSAULT RESUMED

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 245, 17 October 1942, Page 5

STALINGRAD ASSAULT RESUMED

ALL-OUT ATTACK

RUSSIANS HOLD ON FIRST WAVE CHECKED ONLY SLIGHT WITHDRAWAL

P.A. Cable.

LONDON, Oct. 16.

After reorganising the Germans have now launched an allout attaek against Stalingrad, using every available man, gun, tank and plane, says a Wilhelmstrasse spokesman. The present fighting is heavier than anything hitherto. The High Command is convinced that the city can now be conquered by one terrific push. The fate of Stalingrad is admitted to be in the balance. It is not possible to predict the outcome of the furious new thrust by the Axis forces. So far the enemy has gained no more than a few more streets in the industrial quarter. The new attack burst on the defenders of the ruined city at dawn on Wednesday, when 1500 planes began to batter at one narrow sector hour after hour. They dropped many thousands of bombs. This terrific bombardment dovetailed into a heavy artillery barrage, followed by an attaek by 100 tanks leading 2500 infantry. Under the first imipact the Russians withdrew slightly, then they stood their ground and poured a deadly fire into the packed hordes of the enemy over open sights.

The German advance was checked, but a resumption of the heavy attacks is expected. Moscow radio says that the Russians, after artillery preparation at one point north-west of Stalingrad, drove a wedge into the German positions and with grenades killed 100 Germans. The remaindler were forced to retreat. In operations in both the east and west Caucasus very large forces of tanks, infantry and planes are involved, and new fighting areas are being opened up as each side brings in more effectives, says the Moscow correspondent of The Times.* The Russians in the Mosdok area are mainly on the defensive. The German offensive, which has been fitfully progressing for many weeks, has been resumed, but the length of the supply lines is preventing sustained action. A violent battle has been raging for a week for an inhabited locality on the road from the Kuban plains to the Black Sea at Tuapse. The Germans are carrying out a large scale offensive in these forested mountains and are clearly making an effort to break through to the coast to liquidate a position which for many weeks has hampered their plans. The Germans are also increasing their pressure south-east of Novorossisk. The Germans, according to the Red Star, are maintaining fierce attacks in northern Stalingrad, while bringifig up new forces by land and air. The Russians have withstood all attacks and knocked out 23 tanks in the last 24 hours. Paris radio stated that advanced German forces, after penetrating several points of the inner defences, contacted the Russians in the suburbs of Tuapse. A German eommunique states that German and Slovak troops in the Caucasus penetrated Russian positions in mountainous terrain and captured more than 500 strongpoints. Bitter fighting in the Terek sector resulted in the Russians being thrown back. German infantry forces at Stalingrad broke the resistance of the Russians and penetrated deeply in a northern town area.