DRIVES BY RUSSIANS

Southland Times, Issue 24887, 29 October 1942, Page 5

DRIVES BY RUSSIANS

GERMAN FLANKS ON DEFENSIVE (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 28. Marshal Semion Timoshenko’s relief drives from the north-west and from south of Stalingrad at last are apparently having an important effect on the central position. The Russians in the south have pushed back the German front-line beyond the city’s boundaries and the Russians in the north-west simultaneously captured a strategic village near Stalingrad’s most northern suburbs. Both German flanks have now been brought to the defensive. Reports from Stockholm say that the German High Command, through the Red Cross, offered the Russians a fourday suspension of hostilities around Stalingrad to enable both sides to P' c k up their wounded and bury their dead. The Russians agreed with the stipulation that the terms of the agreement should be published in Germany. The Germans refused, whereupon the negotiations were terminated. A practical stalemate prevails in the factory area. Major-General Rodimstev, the Russian commander, still directs the resistance from his cellar headquarters, which are like a coal mine with tree trunks buttressing the walls. POSITION IS TENSE That Stalingrad’s position is extemely tense is emphasized in the latest dispatches from Moscow, but reference to successful Russian counter-attacks in the Stalingrad area and other active fronts are constantly coming in. The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press says that the Russians after a fortnight’s fighting, have driven the Rumanians and Germans to the steppes beyond the ridge of hills surrounding Stalingrad’s southern approaches. The Russians as a result of tnis success now have the Germans on the defensive on both flanks of the army attacking Stalingrad itself. The Germans gained some ground at Stalingrad yesterday, but the Russians before dusk reoccupied their original positions, except for one 300 yard stretch, which they are still struggling to recover. The Russians north-west of Stalingrad recaptured a large village street after street fighting. The correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain reports that the Luftwaffe continues to concentrate against the sectors holding out in the Stalingrad area. Red Army Cossacks and the Marines are holding off the Germans from the Tuapse area. Across the Caucasus towards Novorossisk Russian scout detachments are constantly infiltrating the enemy’s rear. Fighting on the whole Caucasus front is mobile.

ATTEMPT TO TAKE KRONSTADT The Russian Baltic Fleet has smashed a major German attempt to capture the Kronstadt naval base. The Russians attacked and crippled the German invasion fleet before it could leave its home port. A Stockholm report says the Germans had assembled barges and landing-craft for the attack when Russian cruisers and destroyers, supported by bombers, blasted hundreds of barges massed in an unidentified Nazi-occupied harbour in the Gulf of Finland. The Daily Telegraph’s Stockholm correspondent says that the German operation was prepared by Admiral Rolf Carls, Commander-in-Chief of the German Fleet and planner of the invasion of Norway and of the unattempted invasion of Britain. The Germans were determined to take Kronstadt because submarines operating from this base had inflicted such heavy losses on German troop transports in the Baltic Sea.

The Moscow correspondent. of The Times says that there is a significant difference between the Battle of Stalingrad now and last September. The Germans sought a broader front in September. Now they are endeavouring to narrow it. It is the Russians who are forcing the pace from the northwest and south of the city. The battles north of Stalingrad went on all night with undiminished violence, with the enemy not gaining an advantage. The Germans are constantly throwing in reinforcements which serve no more than to compensate for the colossal losses. Heavy fighting is continuing at Mozdok and Novorossisk, where storm troops of the Viking Division were so badly mauled that they retired to the rear to reform after three weeks’ fighting. Berlin radio describes the Russian resistance in the Caucasus as truly fanatical.