SPLENDID STAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 October 1941, Page 6

SPLENDID STAND

MADE BY RUSSIANS IRON DEFENCE OF MOSCOW EFFECTIVE COUNTER-ATTACKS. SUBSTANTIAL NAZI FORCES WIPED OUT. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.10 a.m.) RUGBY, October 28. Moscow broadcast messages state that operations on October 26 and 27 were conspicuous for Russian counter-attacks. Soviet units are increasingly taking the initiative. In several counterattacks they forced the enemy to retreat in a number of sectors. The Germans in front of Moscow are meeting with an iron resistance. In the course of an attempt to break through -to a town in the north, the Germans concentrated strong forces. Fighting started on the night of October 26 and lasted all the following day, and it was only at the cost of heavy casualties that the enemy succeeded in occupying several lines of minor importance. Next morning the battle again flared up. Three German regiments were thrown against the Russians in an attempt to take a road leading into the . town, but all these attacks were repelled and further German forces were wiped out. In the Mojaisk sector the Russians forced the enemy back. FACTOR OF WEATHER PROSPECTS ON EASTERN FRONT. ACUTE TRIALS IN STORE • FOR GERMANS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 1.5 p.m.) RUGBY, October 28. Illuminating details of operations on the Eastern front are even more conspicuously absent than usual. For this reason commentators tend to concentrate their attention on the weather. “The Times” Stockholm correspondent says the Germans outside Moscow have already had a taste of snow, followed by a mixture of snow and rain, with a temperature hovering around freezing point. They admit .that this is very; trying and are consoling themselves in such periods with thoughts that they will not endure it long in Central Russia and that a “firmer” winter must soon settle down. Competent observers in Stockholm believe that only parts of the gigantic German army are likely to be suitably protected, whereas the winter has no surprises for the Russians. The discussion of the weather was stimulated today by the sudden descent of cold on Sweden, with a temperature of eight to ten degrees below zero (Centigrade). In a single night such cold inevitably would affect inadequately sheltered and clothed troops very depressingly, especially when they realise that it is merely a foretaste of the unknown horrors of A a real Russian winter in the open. ’ Therefore the German .supply problem is greatly intensified by the necessity for providing the soldiers' with . tolerably comfortable warmth.