DESPERATE EFFORTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 November 1941, Page 5

DESPERATE EFFORTS

TO ENCIRCLE MOSCOW ON NORTH & SOUTH FIGHTING IN EXTREME COLD. ENEMY AIR OPERATIONS HAMPERED. LONDON, November 4. With a hardening of the ground caused by more intense cold on the Moscow front there are many signs that the new German offensive is ;under way, while Russian reconnaissance shows that more and more .enemy reinforcements are coming into the battle zones. The Moscow “Pravda” states, “The enemy is doing all he can to capture the capital and is making desperate efforts to encircle Moscow from the north and south, using his numerical superiority in tanks to try to break through at various points of the defence lines. The tanks are meeting with a withering fire from the Russian artillery.” A Soviet communique reports particularly heavy fighting on the northern wing at Kalinin. The Moscow radio says that the enemy are still held in the south at Tula and enemy attempts to cross the Naro River in the southwest met with no success. A Russian attack gained ground at a point west of the capital. It is commented in London that the relaxation of the intensity of the frontal attacks against Moscow is explained by the Germans’ avowed tactics designed to cut off Moscow from southern Russia and later complete an encirclement of the capital. Hence only slight positional changes are reported from the direct approaches. Moscow was raided in daylight yesterday. The temperature round Moscow is now 15 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. This is hampering the German air operations, because the German long-range petrol freezes in the tanks whereas the new Russian bombers run on high-grade non-freezing mixtures and are also equipped with an antifreezing system, enabling the Russians to use their new aircraft very effectively against the German tanks. The Russian communique confines its reference to the Crimea to a report of particularly heavy fighting. The Germans yesterday claimed continued progress. It is learned that an initial success by the Germans in crossing the upper Donetz in several places was followed by a check when Cossacks flung the enemy back across the river, but the Germans claim that they hold long stretches of the west bank of the Donetz.