Russian Pride In Stalingrad Inspires Epic Resistance

Taranaki Daily News, 25 August 1942, Page 3

Russian Pride In Stalingrad Inspires Epic Resistance

By Our Special Observer.

City of amazing industrial development.

Just as Moscow was last year the centre of Russian resolution and German hopes, so this year it appears that 'stalingrad is the most vital factor in the eastern front campaign. With their long flank Teaching down into the Caucasus, the Germans in the south are vulnerable. They are, so to speak, in a sack. But the Russians can only take advantage of this circumstance if they are able to close the neck of the sack by operations from the north. German boldness in striking so far and so fast with an exposed flank argues that the German staff does not fear such a development. Nevertheless, if the terrific battles in front of Stalingrad result in the Red army maintaining its tenure there, the position will be hopeful for its possible ultimate results. Stalingrad could be a pivot for a flanking movement and could at the same time guard the vital Volga supply route to the Russian armies of the centre and the north. There is every reason, therefore, that Stalingrad be regarded as a strategical key-centre. Miracle City. There are other reasons why the Russians fight so hard and so desperately to hold it. Some of these are stated in an article in the Melbourne Herald 'by Mary L. Turnbull, an Australian woman who has visited the city. Approaching by river-boat, one sees an impressive panorama lof Stalingrad a great, industrial city extending for 35 miles along the high west bank of the River Volga. Giant chimney -stacks and factory buildings reflect in the waters of the grand river where there, only 100 miles from the delta, is half a mile wide. ; The Russian people are justly proud of Stalingrad, one of the miracle cities, which in an incredibly short time grew from a small town of miserable wooden houses and sandy, unmade roads, into an important industrial city with asphalt or cobble-stone streets and fine apartment houses for some 450,000 inhabitants. Tractor Plant. Passengers from the Volga river-boats disembark at the southern, residential end of Stalingrad, where are situated the hotels, the administrative buildings, the spacious city squares and gardens, and the Park of Culture and Rest. Stalingrad first came into the world news when the now farnous tractor works were built under thte direction of American engineers. Technical men watched what seemed a miracle. A pro-

vincial trading centre developed an xihdustry which, by 1936, was turning out 140 tractors a day— and ready . to switch to tank production at .the first sign of war. Stalingrad is very flat and dusty, for behind it lie plains stretching westward to the River Don. The long, unprotected road to the tractor works showed promise of a fine avenue of shady trees. In all possible places around about the works were young trees, lawns and flower-beds. Huge Factory. The factory is a city in itself. Buildings connected with jit face on to a fina square. Raised on a high pedestal is a colossal statue of the man to whose foresight the tractor works owe their existence. We walked for miles through th« works, and saw the manufactuxe from the molten-metal stage to the. painting o£ smart tractors carried along slowly ahd steadily by a revolving rack. We were ehown the wall-newspaper, where workers can air grievanoes or post the names of record -breakers. We were introduced to woman stakhanovites; saw the casual-ty-room, with doctor and nurse in attendance; the creche where mothers leave their very young babies and attend to them at meal times, even during working hours. , We inspected the kitchen factory supplying the restaurant, which even then cerved 30,000 meals • three times a day; the special tables for workers on diet, the rest-room and couches for those ordered rest after meals; and all the other conveniences which are a part of the modern factories of the U.S.SJt. Great Wheatfields. In the long twilight Stalingrad prevented a happy picture. The hotel din-ing-room was gay with a dinner party of the railway management committee, as well as with young men and girls who had come to dine and dance. Outside in the garden square parents in light, simple clothing and low-heeled summer shoes sat on the many seats and watched happy children playing on the grass and round a fountain, charmin'g with stone frogs and tortoises perched on the rim of the catchment basin, and six life-sized child-figures dancing hand-in-hand round the water-jet The following day we passed across the plains to the north-west of Stalingrad and saw wheatfields stretching in all directions as far as the eye covild see. And at times on both sides of the rail-' way line were vegetable gardens for many miles on end with . every little while the clustered houses of a collective farm. It is for its strategic, industrial and food-producing value that the Russians strive so hard to hold Stalingrad; and their great pride in it makes them fight harder.