RED AIR FORCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 December 1941, Page 5

RED AIR FORCE

IMMENSE DAMAGE DONE TO ENEMY. HEAVY LOSSES INFLICTED BY GUERILLAS. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 16. A Soviet supplementary communique today states: “On December 14 the Soviet air force operating on the central front destroyed or damaged 42 tanks and more than 1050 lorries containing troops and supplies, destroyed 30 field and A.A. guns, 300 ammunition wagons, and 24 oil tanks, and routed and annihilated three regiments of infantry. “Our units operating in one of the sectors of the Kalinin front have in seven days destroyed seven tanks, 33 field-guns, 51 machine-guns, 41 mortars and a great number of lorries. They have captured three tanks, 44 guns, 35 mortars, 117 machine-guns, 65 automatic rifles, 24 lorries, 4500 shells, about 200,000 rifle cartridges, four flags and a quantity of other war material. During this period the German losses in killed and wounded amounted to 8000 officers and men. “One group of Soviet partisans on the Moscow front on December 10 destroyed a big ammunition transport which was en route to the front. This group in-, the last few days has inflicted heavy losses on the enemy in men and material and damaged lines of communication to the front.