RUSSIANS HITTING BACK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 November 1941, Page 5

RUSSIANS HITTING BACK

IN DONETZ BASIN AND ON MOSCOW FRONT

Heavy Enemy Casualties Reported FOUR HUNDRED NAZI BOMBERS DESTROYED BY GUNS OF CAPITAL GERMANS CLAIM PROGRESS IN CRIMEA LONDON, November 9. Messages from the Russian battlefront give the first news for several days of the course of events in the Donetz basin, north of the area in which the German spearhead is at a halt west of Rostov, on the Don. A correspondent of the “ Pravda ” reports Russian counter-attacks in the Donetz basin in which heavy casualties were inflicted on the enemy. A German Alpine division suffered serious losses and Italian and other units were wiped out when the Russians captured the positions in which these troops were stationed. The “Pravda” correspondent states that a German general was crushed to death under the caterpillar tractors of Russian tanks and that 43 of the German tanks were destroyed. A local break-through at one point on the Moscow front is claimed by the Germans, but more circumstantial accounts are given of Russian counter-attacks on several parts of the front. The Russians admit that at some points they were unable to penetrate the enemy defences, but the counter-attacks are continuing. Some villages have changed hands several times. The Russians are strengthening their defences all along the Moscow front.

Russian newspapers state that since the Germans started their air offensive against Moscow, 400 enemy bombers have been destroyed by the anti-aircraft guns of the capital alone. The only news from the Crimea is a German communique which claims the capture of the town of Yalta, on the south coast of the peninsula and states that German and Rumanian troops are pursuing the Russians towards Kerch.