MAJOR REVERSE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 December 1941, Page 6

MAJOR REVERSE

INFLICTED ON ENEMY ELITE ARMY PRECIOUS MONTHS GAINED BY RUSSIANS. FURIOUS THREATS MADE BY GERMANS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON. November 30. “The Times” Stockholm correspondent says the Germans at Rostov suffered very seriously indeed. It was their first noteworthy defeat of the war. The latest information shows that this is no mere episode but a major reverse inflicted on one of General Rundstedt’s elite armies. While the remnants of General von Kleist’s army are retreating along the shore of the Sea of Azov, Hungarians and Italians, further inland, are falling back to Stalinc. The consequences of the operation cannot be assessed beyond the immediate effect of delaying the Caucasus campaign for a few very valuable months for the Russians. .

The correspondent adds that the position in Russia has distinctly improved since November 27, as the Germans have not succeeded in regaining the general initiative on the Leningrad front and have lost in some degree the initiative on the Moscowfront. Sebastopol is holding • out as firmly as ever, the defenders even regaining strong points despite a determined fresh German assault with reinforcements.

New and furious spasms can be expected at any moment against Moscow, where the crisis cannot be considered to have passed. A spokesman in Berlin said reprisals against Rostov are designed to turn the city into a smoking pile of debris covering tens of thousands of Russians. The destruction will exceed that of Warsaw, Rotterdam and Coventry. These reprisals at present were being effected by the Luftwaffe, attacking in waves, and also concentrated artillery fire.

The Moscow radio declared that the Germans shot hundreds of women, children and elderly men in Rostov before they were driven out of the city. The Moscow radio declared that the enemy had been cleared from the road between Rostov and Taganrog. i Russian forces are stubbornly defending their positions in the Klin sector, where a further fifty tanks havebeen destroyed. Fierce battles are raging at Volokalamsk, where new positions have been recaptured, and new positions have also been retaken at Malo Yaroslavets. The Russians defeated repeated German efforts to break through the defences on the Mojaisk sector. A British United Press correspondent at Kuibyshev says the Germans are within 36 miles of Moscow at several points in the Mojaisk sector, but the German attack is showing signs of slowing down as a result of continuous counter-attacks. The situation, however, remains threatening, particularly in the Klin, Volokalamsk and Stalinogorsk sectors.