SUFFER RESISTANCE BY RED ARMY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 1 September 1942, Page 5

SUFFER RESISTANCE BY RED ARMY

Voronej to the Caucasus

STALINGRAD POSITION UNCHANGED Mammoth Battles of Attrition Raging London, Aug. 30. ’There have been no spectacular territorial changes in Russia during the past 72 hours, but mammoth battles of attrition rage with unabated fury in the Stalingrad-Kletskaya-Kotelnokovo triangle and also at Rjev, dwarfing the bitter conflicts at many other points on the 1200-mile front between Leningrad and the Caucasus. There have been no significant changes on the Stalingrad front in the past five days and the rot apparently has been stopped in th« Caucasus where the Russians with their backs to the mountain wall are holding off the Germans from the Grozny oilfields and from the naval bases of Novorossiisk and Tuapse. However, Russian reports state that the Germans are bringing up considerable reinforcements to the Rjev, Stalingrad and Caucasus fronts, an indication that Hitler still commands a great reserve pool of men and machines. The Moscow correspondent of “The Times’* says Russian resistance has stiffened from Voronej to the Caucasus. The Red Army appears to hold the initiative northwards of Voronej and continues to develop the successes west and north-west of Moscow, also a.t Leningrad, and also to consolidate slight gains on the Briansk and the north-western fronts. The Russian front falls in two halves and the whole outcome of the campaign depends on the Russians’ ability to make the halves interdependent.

The German commanders at Rjev, Gjatsk and Viazma are exhorting their men to fight so resolutely that General Wehrmacht will not need to transfer troops from the south. On the contrary the Russians in those sectors are told they are fighting for Stalingrad and the Caucasus. The Russian counter-offen-sive aims at doing what it is hoped the Allies are doing by now—the drawing off German pressure from the south. The Red Army counter-offensive is progressing slowly because the terrain—unlike the southern tank country—requires the capture of each town to control the highways radiating from them. Otherwise the attackers are handicapped by swamps and forests. The Russians have enabled General Zhukov to swing his troops in three directions against Gjatsk and Viazma and also due west athwart the Rjev-Viazma communications.

The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” says further Axis reserves are arriving before Stalingrad where a supreme Axis attempt is impending. German spokesmen betray markedly diminished confidence, one stating: “Only heavy artillery and mortars are able to the Russians from the formidable strongholds and also underground bastions which engirdle Stalingrad like a smaller Maginot Line. It is impossible to think in miles, only in yards, each of which costs material and lives. Russian air resistance has strikingly hardened.”

Persistent local activity continues around Lake Ilmen along to Volkhov. Russian operations from Leningrad continue. The Red Army broke into an unnamed town and have so far beaten off nine counter-attacks. The Finns report that heavy Russian attacks were beaten off between Lakes Ladoga and Onega. SECOND BATTLE OF THE VOLGA Reuter's correspondent “somewhere on the Volga” describes a second battle of the Volga going on only a few miles from the front—a battle to keep open the Volga supply line in defiance of the Luftwaffe. Great tanker-barges loaded to the gunwales are fighting their way upstream, reinforced with everything that will float, including very small passenger steamers and ferries towing lighters and also rafts (some of which are 200 feet long), composed of giant logs lashed, spiked and chained together by giant sweeps. Many women are manning the vessels and rafts with which the Russians are moving the greatest possible amount of oil and grain from the threatened regions. Oil workers at Baku are straining every nerve to increase output, while intense activity is going on in the steppes east of the Volga and north of the Caspian, known as the second Baku. Many new wells have also begun to flow in the past few months at Buguruslan. which is of Kuibyshev and also Bashkir, north of Kazakhstan. The Oil Commissar, M. Sedin. says war needs can be met from the eastern regions provided the second Baku maintains its output.—P.A. NO FURTHER ADVANCE BY ENEMY (Rec. 12.50 p.m.) Rugby, Aug. 31. A Soviet communique for the fifth consecutive time reports no material change on the front. Thus for two and a half days apparently the Germans, despite the intensity of the Stalingrad battle have failed to advance. On the Rjev front the Russians recaptured several localities.—B.O.W.