HUGE LOSSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 July 1942, Page 4

HUGE LOSSES

INFLICTED ON GERMANS IN THE VORONEZH REGION. AND ON SOUTHERN RUSSIAN FRONT. (.By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.20 p.m.) LONDON, July 21. Russian, and also many neutral reports emphasise the huge losses that are being inflicted on the Germans in the Voronezh sector. One estimate places German losses here at between 3,000 and 4,000 daily. The Moscow radio says the Germans are also suffering huge losses southwards of Millerovo, including 3,000 in two days in attempts to break through the Russian defences. The Russian artillery at this point accounted for 82 tanks. Artillery in another sector destroyed 42 tanks. The German radio tonight admitted that the Germans were compelled, a few days ago, to retreat from several forward positions in the Voronezh sector, but claimed that a counter-attack had largely restored the position. The radio said hundreds of Russian tanks were being employed in this area, and that both sides were flinging in tremendous air armadas. According to a Moscow report, the Red Air Force, between July 12 and 18, smashed 470 tanks, twenty infantry battalions, one cavalry squadron ’ and 1,410 troop supply lorries. In the same period 211 German planes were destroyed.

A recent heayv Russian raid in the rear of the Germans’ Bryansk front damaged a railway in 47 places and suspended traffic for two days. The Luftwaffe is now intensifying its attacks against Rostov. The Berlin radio says the latest raid severely battered warehouses, while fifteen trains were set on fire at yards southwards of the city. Ilya Ehrenburg, the noted Russian author and war correspondent, detailing in the “Red Star,” German preparations for a further big drive on the southern front, claims that eight infantry divisions and one tank division were recently transferred from France and Holland. He adds that the Germans have massed thousands of tanks and fresh infantry for a drive against Rostov and Stalingrad, where the terrain is suitable for tank operations. Ehrenburg said that from Murmansk to Voronezh, the Germans are on the defensive and that the Voronezh situation is improving daily.