Steel Spearheads Fiercely Stabbing Towards Stalingrad

Taranaki Daily News, 27 August 1942, Page 3

Steel Spearheads Fiercely Stabbing Towards Stalingrad

Russians deternimedly battle tank forces on outskirts of city. Rec. 11.30 p.m. London, Aug. 26. 'J'HE Russians reveal that Stalingrad is now actually in the operational area of warfare. German tanks have pierced the defences of the city. Several attacks have been repelled. The enemy is now about 30 miles from Stalingrad and enemy communiques claim that the city has been repeatedly bombed and large areas are ablaze. The battle for Stalingrad is growing in intensity. German armoured forces and infantry with formidable air support have pushed one steel spearhead after another from the Don towards Stalingrad. On the afternoon and night of August 24 the Germans re-grouped immediately they crossed the Don elbow in the central sector and then swept on against the first Russian defence line. The Germans are also pressing attacks from northeast of Kotelnikov, where another fierce battle is in progress. It is from this direction that the Germans claim to have penetrated 12 miles. The Russians have not yet admitted such a wedge but state that the German force thereabouts is being persistently attacked from the flanks. It is clear that the major German stabs from the northwest, west and south-west have not been halted though they haVe been somewhat slowed up in the centre, where German tanks and troops are still pouring across the Don.

The Stockholm correspondent of the Daily Express says General von Bock, seeking to counter the heavy resistance and hasten the smashing of the Russian defence around Stalingrad, landed large forces of paratroops behind the Russian positions. Paratroops in groups of about 100 were dropped around railway and road junctions 12* to 20 miles to the rear. The Russians are engaging them strongly. Junkers 52's are continuously carrying paratroops, motor-cycles, tanks, antitank guns and mortars with which to reinforce the men with tommy-guns and grenades. German heavy bombers launched the first intensive mass attack against Stalingrad yesterday. Russian fighters attack-

ed qnd anti-aircraft batteries put up terrific resistance. It is feared that th» civilian population suffered heavily. The raiders aimed principally for the central railway station, Volga shipping, and armament factories. General von Bock is reported to be smashing against Stalingrad with 58 divisions. His weakness is the- army'e exhaustion. He has been fighting without a halt for three months. He has traversed nearly 500 miles of the Klietskaya hills and the Kotelnikov steppes at a cost to him of from 20,000 to 50,000 men, probably 1000 tanks, and perhaps as many planes. The question is: Will this exhaustion evidence itself as before Moscow last November, when the Red army struck back? „