IN SMASHING ENEMY TANK ATTACKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 November 1941, Page 6

IN SMASHING ENEMY TANK ATTACKS

STALIN COMMENDS VALIANT BRIGADE ENORMOUS TOLL TAKEN OF GERMANS STORMOVIK PLANES WRECK BIG NAZI COLUMN (By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m.) LONDON. November 12. M. Stalin, in an order of the day, has commended the • valiant operations of the Fourth Tank Brigade, which between November 4 and November 11 halted two German tank divisions and one motorised division, and in fierce battles smashed 133 tanks, 49 guns and eight planes; also infantry regiments. The Moscow radio says Stormovik dive-bombers heavily .attacked a ten-nrile long German tank column between Orel and Mtsensk. The column, headed by armoured cars, consisted of heavy and medium tanks and supply lorries. The Stormoviks shelled and machine-.g’unned the column, wrecked several score of tanks and blew up supply lorries. A German communique states: “German and Rumanian troops in the Crimea, in sharp pursuit fighting, have reached the coast southwards of Kerch. The Luftwaffe continues to bomb the harbours of Sebastopol, Kerch and Anapa. We repulsed concentrated Soviet forces attempting to break out from Leningrad. Our planes bombed Moscow day and night and attacked munition factories in Gorki.’’ , It is announced in Berlin that Major-General Felix Vara, chief of the Department for Fortification in the German High Command, was killed on November 3 in the west, “by an enemy air attack during a voyage on official business.’’