HALTED & HELD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 November 1941, Page 5

HALTED & HELD

GERMANS ON THE MOSCOW FRONT ’ SPLENDID RUSSIAN DEFENCE OF TULA. ASSAULTS AGAINST ROSTOV PETER OUT. LONDON, November 13. While the Germans are now most active on both wings of the Moscow front, 'the Soviet information chief, M. Lozovsky, told pressmen at Kuibyshev that the Germans’ / losses in their assaults against Moscow have been so great that they might not be ready to risk another big assault this winter. 1 The Germans are firmly held at the nearest points to the city, and they are still trying to break through in the Tula sector in the south. Moscow says, that the enemy have orders to take Tula at any price, but so far the antitank traps erected by the local citizens have frustrated the enemy. It was learned last night that the attackers, in the southern suburbs were routed and pursued miles from the town. Moscow says this morning that during the past 24 hours the Germans in a sector north-west of Moscow (presumably ■ Kalinin) have brought up a Fresh Storm Troop division. Bitter and intense fighting has developed in the Kerch direction in the eastern Crimea, says the “Pravda’s” ,Jl war correspondent. Enemy attacks p have been repelled. Near Sebastopol enemy bombardments of the fortifications and repeated tank assaults have failed to achieve a break-through. The “Red Star’s” correspondent says that General von Kleist’s tank assaults against Rostov have petered out after the loss of 80 tanks. Winter is still exercising a considerable influence on the Russian fronts, and the German military spokesman last night said that large-scale operations on the Moscow front were at present impossible. He added that the Crimea and the area round Leningrad were the only sectors where heavy fighting was going on at present. “The situation in the northern half of the Moscow front is at present definitely favourable to the Russians,” said the Stockholm correspondent of “The Times.” “The fighting at the northern tip, near Kalinin, has markedly abated, but nearer the centre the Russian initiative is causing the Germans serious difficulty. “Indeed, it is reliably indicated that the Russians have managed,to turn the tables against their adversaries by applying the favourite German annihilation process to several isolated German groups of wedge-tips. “One particularly large German unit, which is enveloped between Mojaisk and Kalinin, has not yet managed to fight its way out of the pocket, and the German command is apparently unable to rescue the Surrounded men from the outside bacause it is bending all efforts with the available reserves against the Tula wing.” The Moscow radio stated that heavy losses in the Kalinin sector have compelled the Germans to bring up re-' serves. The enemy in the last few days occupied several populated centres in this sector, but some of these have been recaptured.