DEVELOPED BY THE GERMANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 July 1942, Page 3

DEVELOPED BY THE GERMANS

On the South Russian Front GROUND LOST AT SOME POINTS BY SOVIET FORCES ENEMY CLAIMS TO HAVE REACHED RIVER DON LONDON, July 5. A big pincer movement is now being developed by the Germans at each, end of the 150-jnile KursK-Kharkov front, in'an effort to cut the vital Moscow-Rostov railway, about 130 miles east of Kursk. The enemy has made some progress in. the north, and south. Yesterday the Russians admitted a withdrawal in the Kursk sector. The “Red Star” states that the numerical superiority of the enemy in one sector has made the position complicated and. difficult.’ The outnumbered Soviet defenders are being veryhard pressed. The Germans claim that Axis forces have broken through the Russian defences and reached the River Don, 110 miles east of Kursk. There is no confirmation of this claim from Moscow. The enemy has concentrated enormous numbers of tanks and ’planes on a wide front, and as one force is checked others are pushed up to maintain the pressure. Although heavily outnumbered, the Russians are fighting hard and inflicting tremendous losses. Three new German drives are reported further north, one being 100 miles west of Moscow and one at Kalinin. In the lat- ' ter sector the Russians made a slight withdrawal, but the position is now being stabilised.