TANK BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 October 1941, Page 5

TANK BATTLE

NAZI COLUMN WIPED OUT

FEROCIOUS COUNTER-ATTACKS AT LENINGRAD. 8 NO CONFIRMATION OF LOSS OF ODESSA.

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, October 17.

While the battle for Moscow continues with mounting ferocity, there is no news of any substantial German progress in the past 24 hours. Reports from the front indicate that the Germans are still battering a the chain of defence posts about 60 miles outside the city.

The midday Moscow communique says that during the night Russian troops engaged the enemy along the entire front, fighting being particularly stubborn in various sectors of the central front. It adds that both sides are suffering heavy losses. The communique also speaks of successes by guerilla forces fighting in defence of the capital. In.the Kalinin district these guerillas killed 1000 German soldiers and destroyed ammunition lorries, bridges and pontoons. An entire column of German lorries rushing up with fuel for the Orel front was destroyed. In a description of the tank battle raging all day long outside Moscow, the correspondent of ‘Tsvestia ’ says that one German' tank column striking along a broad highway was dispersed and battered by Russian tanks. The enemy flinched before the fierce onslaught and sought refuge in nearby woods. The Russians pursued them and them out. In another battle the Germans tried to destroy eight Russian tanks buried in the ground •as forts, but were routed. In this engagement nearly 600 German officers and men were killed or wounded. At Leningrad the Russians are continuing their ferocious counter-attacks. The Leningrad radio says the Germans have been thrown out from another fortified village. Snow and thick fog envelopes the city. There is no confirmation from Russian sources of the Rumanian and German claim to have entered Odessa.