STILL IN PROGRESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 July 1942, Page 3

STILL IN PROGRESS

NAZI DRIVE ACROSS STEPPES BATTLE FOR ROSTOV BEGUN. REPORTS OF FRIGHTFUL CARNAGE. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, July 22. The rearguard battle of the Donetz Basin has ended and the battle for Rostov has begun, says the Stockholm correspondent of the “Daily Express.” A hundred thousand Russians of all arms stand in a solid phalanx round Rostov, the battle for which has opened with 10 hours of non-stop bombing by hundreds of Stukas. The carnage is frightful. Russian guns and hidden mortars have been mowing down the advancing enemy. The Lower Don for days past has been throwing up mangled bodies and entangled battle wreckage washed down from the supper reaches. The “Daily Mail’s” Stockholm correspondent says Field-Marshal von Bock is employing almost the entire weight of his strength on the southern Don in the drive against Rostov. Vast forces of men, guns and tanks, heavily supported by the Luftwaffe, are driving on toward the city from the north, north-east, and west. The Moscow “Red Star” admits that columns driving south-east from Voroshilovgrad are breaking through at different points, and the Germans are apparently beyond Shakhtui, 20 miles north of Novo Cherkassk. Moscow also officially indicates that the German armies are still rolling forward across the lower Don steppes. The latest communique says that during last night the Russians fought the enemy in the area of Voronezh and south-east of Voroshilovgrad. A supplement states that in some sectors of the southern front the Russian troops have withdrawn to new positions under the pressure of numerically superior forces. There is again no indication that any important group of Russian troops has been encircled. Moscow reports as part of the southern rearguard action a powerful counter-attack on the German flank in one sector, in which the equivalent of a German regiment of troops was killed. The Soviet official news agency says the Germans are throwing fresh forces into the battle for Rostov. The Russian defence is ferocious, and at one point yesterday Soviet troops made several bayonet charges and by evening had regained their original positions. Berlin claims that the eastward offensive toward Stalingrad has been continued, and that the spearhead is now 100 miles from the city. Field Marshal von Bock is slowly progressing without outflanking or enveloping the Russian main forces, which are resisting strongly under cover of their aircraft, says the Moscow'correspondent of “The Times.” The Russians are making a stand at some points where the terrain is more favourable for the defence, and elsewhere their methodical retreat continues, still covered by fierce rearguard actions. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent reports that an energetic counter-attack, in which Don Cossack cavalry participated, defeated a determined German attempt to encircle an important body of Red Army troops south-east of Voroshilovgrad. The Germans have not | once succeeded in penetrating the rear of the Russian forces. The Germans have lost 3000 tanks in the past nine weeks, but they are still concentrating great tank strength, and also a huge air fleet for the southward drive.

BITTER SACRIFICE

MADE BY THE RUSSIANS. DESTRUCTION OF DON BASIN MINES. LONDON, July 22. The Moscow correspondent of the “Daily Express” reports that the Russians have destroyed the great Don Basin coal mines, whose development, associated with the Don Basin industries, has been one of the greatest achievements and prides of the Bolshevik regime. Russia has now destroyed possessions that are dearer to her than the Dnieper clam, and Moscow has not disguised that the destruction of the mines represents a heavy blow to Russia’s industrial war potential.