GERMANS ON DEFENSIVE

Southland Times, Issue 24884, 26 October 1942, Page 5

GERMANS ON DEFENSIVE

NO GAINS MADE AT STALINGRAD (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 20. The Germans have not gained a yard anywhere in Stalingrad in the last 24 hours, says Reuters Moscow correspondent. All the fighting is now concentrated in one workers’ settlement and the outskirts of the city. The Germans in some areas were forced into the defensive within captured blocks of houses. The Russians by counter-attacks improved their positions in several streets. The Germans are rushing up reinforcements from nearly 200 miles away. The Red Army newspaper Red Star says that 15 infantry, three motorized and four tank divisions are still attacking Stalingrad, backed up by 1200 guns, 1000 mortars and more than 800 planes. According to the Moscow radio the enemy launched furious abortive counter-attacks in an attempt to recover positions lost north-west of Stalingrad. The Rumanians lost 400 dead, also prisoners and booty. The Germans are practically at a standstill at both ends of the Caucasus, says an agency message from Moscow. The British United Press says the Germans in the Mozdok area and the wooded foothills south-east of Novorossisk are meeting increased Russian resistance. They have hardly gained any ground in the past four weeks in the Mozdok area, despite large attacks days after day, carried out with infantry, supported by tanks. Russian artillery smashed up the latest assault, which was carried out with 60 tanks and a regiment of infantry. GERMAN FORTIFICATIONS The Germans in the Stalingrad area give their fortified points every protection possible so that in these places the Russians when they attack are compelled to concentrate considerable fire and forces against every house they storm. Nevertheless, the Russians recovered several blocks of houses in the western suburbs two days ago. Red Star says that, where a deadlock is reached in the fighting inside Stalingrad, the Germans are using new methods of street fighting in which batteries are broken up and single tanks accompany tommy-gunners and infantry in charges. Light guns have been mounted on roof tops and the tanks are very vulnerable in street fighting. Therefore, they are used with extreme caution, often merely as a hide-out for small groups of tommygunners. North-west of the city the Russians on the German left flank have dislodged the enemy from an important height. Rumanian troops freshly thrown into the battle here have suffered severe casualties. An enemy group, which was reported in yesterday’s communique to have driven a wedge into the Soviet positions in the Mosdok area, has been mopped up and the position restored. RUSSIAN AIR ACTIVITY Moscow radio reports activity by the Baltic Sea Air Arm, which attacked enemy naval units and damaged a torpedo-boat and a cutter. Another group of aircraft has silenced eight enemy gun batteries and six mortar batteries and has destroyed anti-air-craft installations, railway trucks and station buildings in several places. Confidence in Russia’s ability to defeat Germany was expressed by M. Mikhail Kalinin, president of the Soviet Supreme Council, in a broadcast to young Russian farm-workers. He said that Russian losses were not small, but that the Germans were losing considerably more. Russia’s difficult task was in the realm of agriculture as a result of the Germans’ seizure of the Ukraine and the Kuban, for a heavy agricultural burden had been placed on the eastern regions, but if this task were efficiently undertaken Russia would emerge victorious. “When we rout the Germans —and rout them we shall, it will be youth’s task to restore what has been destroyed, and to build up the world of the future,” he said. DEMOCRACIES AND RUSSIA Deteriorating Relations NEW YORK, October 22. The United States and British Governments are anxious to repair their deteriorating military and political relations with Russia, says The Christian Science Monitor’s Washington correspondent. It is learned reliably today that there is no longer any attempt to disguise the fact in Washington, London or Moscow that the Soviet military leaders and the Soviet people are bitter and disillusioned over the Bri-tish-American failure to take a sufficient offensive in Europe to relieve them of some of the German pressure which they have borne steadily for more than a year. This is gravely impairing Russian relations with Britain and the United States.

Both frankly recognize that unless they begin soon to play an aggressive military role there is likely to be little chance of effective collaboration with Russia in the post-war world, regardless of how the war comes out. From the most direct routes, American officials know that there is a mounting judgment, in Moscow that, if Russia is going to win the war by herself. Russia is going to make the peace by herself. The feeling is not that Russia seeks to dictate the peace of the world, but that she will not be disposed to collaborate unreservedly with the other United Nations in securing world peace unless the United Nations soon begin collaborating unreservedly with Russia in winning the war.