SERIOUS THREAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 July 1942, Page 3

SERIOUS THREAT

TO OIL AND WHEAT AREAS BEHIND TWO VITAL CENTRES. / ENEMY FACING OPEN PLAIN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, July 16. The threat to the Soviet centres of Rostov and Stalingrad is increasing. Al! messages say that the German drive to reach the oil and wheat behind the two vital centres is on a scale unprecedented for its fury and slaughter. Day after day the German command flings fresh might into the breaches, through the Soviet gunfire. A Soviet communique last night announced the evacuation of Boguchar and Millerovo, north-west and west respectively of Stalingrad. The latest communique says that fighting continued last night in the area of Voronezh and south-east of Millerovo. Stalingrad is now only about 150 miles in front of the advancing armies, and the terrain is on the side of the, enemy, being dead flat without natural defences.

If they captured Stalingrad the enemy would have severed the main Russian armies, and they would probably turn south against the Caucasus, bypassing the Rostov defences, together with a direct attack from the Crimea. The “Red Star” said: “The Germans cannot for long sustain the frightful tension demanded by Voronezh, and also the battles along the Don. To stop them now means to clear the road to victory.” The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” says the Germans are maintaining heavy pressure south-east of Lisichansk and also from the Chert-kovo-Millerovo sector on the VoronezhRostov railway. This'movement is designed to induce the Russians to withdraw from their positions bulging west from Taganrog under a threat of encirclement. The Russians, however, show no signs of retiring. The German frontal onslaught toward Rostov is likely to precipitate the year’s most furious battle. Elsewhere Marshal Timoshenko is retreating methodically under pressure and without serious disorder, as though the withdrawal was foreseen as a probable necessity. “Surely,” the correspondent comments, “such a complicated large-scale movement is no mere improvisation.” The “Daily Telegraph’s” Moscow correspondent says that the battle for Voronezh—the bloodiest and fiercest of the whole war—has reached its zenlith, with the Russians and Germans crowding more and more reserves into the fork between the Don River and the Voronezh River.

According to the Stockholm corresi pondent of “The Times,” the latest information indicates that the fate of Voronezh has been settled; the Germans now hold a large part of the town, and fierce house-to-house fighting is continuing. The Moscow correspondent of the “Daily Express” earlier reported that the Germans dropped waves of paratroops round Voronezh, but the Red Army “was delivering, increasingly strong blows in a southward direction west of the Don. The Germans are trying to squeeze out the Russians by flanking drives through the semi-rural northern and southern suburbs and also attempting to widen the encirclement. “The Russians are fighting back with unexampled fury, while striking with some success at the northern German flank, the correspondent says. “Several thousand tanks are battling in the once verdant fork, crushing down everything. On the city’s ap-

proaches the mangled wheat and rich black soil are stained deep red round mangled heaps of shattered bodies. Never was a quiet rural scene so suddenly and swiftly churned into war and filth.

“Major Boiakov, the tank commander, said that our tanks are gnawing through the German defences on the northern flank, though the enemy several times every day sends in strong tank groups under air support. The Germans, attacking with savage violence, are rushing up a colossal amount of material. At least half the tanks are knocked out in each engagement. The Russian counter-blows on the Voronezh front have intensified in the past two days, said an earlier message. The enemy has been forced to dig m and fortify his lines at some points. Many German tanks are standing in deep pits and have been reduced to the role of pill-boxes.