GERMANS HAVE UPPER HAND.

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 247, 20 October 1942, Page 5

GERMANS HAVE UPPER HAND.

HARD FIGHTING AT STALINGRAD. Reports from Moscow to-day suggest that the Germans have the upper hand in the Stalingrad area, at least temporarily, although there is costly fighting ahead before the German Army can make good Hitler's boast that Stalingrad will be taken. The renewed German assault against north Stalingrad is now in its sixth day. In it the Russians have suffered what the Moscow correspondent of The Times describes as the most merciless and persistent air bombing the war has known. The Luftwaffe, without interruption, has been attacking a narrow sector, using 500 iplanes of all types and making at least 1000 sorties a day, and sometimes 1600. . Reports from Berlin say that the Russians are massing for a renewed drive between the Don and the Volga north-west of Stalingrad, to which Russian troops, tanks and artillery are continually moving *up. The Germans in capturmg one block of buildings at Stalingrad lost 46 tanks and about 5000 killed in 24 hours, says Reuter's Moscow correspondent. Berlin is continually emphasising the maojr dimensions of Russian movements in the Toropets area. The Luftwaffe for a fortnight has maintained round-the-clock attacks against Russian troop deployments in the whole region between Toropets and Kalinin, where a large scale Russian offensive can be exuected. —

London

P.A. Cable.