DON CROSSED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1942, Page 3

DON CROSSED

BY STRONG GERMAN FORCES AT COST OF IMMENSE LOSSES. RUSSIANS MASSED IN VITAL AREAS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, July 13. The Germans have now got several hundred tanks and five to six divisions of troops across the Don and concentrated them at the gates of Voronezh. All through yesterday, Moscow reports, gigantic battles were raging west of Voronezh and to the south-east and south. The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” says that though Voronezh’s position is serious, Marshal Timoshenko's withdrawal thereabouts has been orderly; his armies are not disorganised, and the battle is costing the Germans immense losses in men and materials without anything vital yet having been achieved. Fresh, wellequipped Russian forces await the long-foreseen struggle on the lower Don, where the' Russian supplies are not vitally affected by any loss of sections of the Voronezh-Rostov railway. The Germans hitherto have outnumbered the Russians on all the most important battlefields, but Russians are massed at most points that are vital from the Russian viewpoint, and the lowei’ Don is one of these. The Russians, though claiming that Voronezh is still defended, admit that the position deteriorated when the Germans established additional brideheads across the Don and shifted the main battlefield to the east bank. The Russians held back the early waVes of Germans, but reinforcements came up and the Germans have pushed on toward the city. The fighting at Voronezh is growing more violent, says the “Daily Telegraph’s” Moscow correspondent. The Germans are throwing in masses of aircraft. A Russian counter-attack on a vital point has caused a German withdrawal. The “Pravda” reports that only 30 to 40 men are left in most of the German companies attacking Voronezh, and the German tank formations have lost one-third of their machines, but the situation remains grave for the Russians. The Germans are hastily re-> grouping for more attacks.