HEAVY LOSSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 July 1942, Page 4

HEAVY LOSSES

SUFFERED ON BOTH SIDES POSITIONS OF THE ARMIES. IN LOWER DON REGION. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) RUGBY, July 23. Soviet headquarters report heavy losses during two days’ fighting against superior enemy forces in the Novocherkask area, north-east of Rostov. Russian troops there have retreated to new positions. Offensive operations have continued at Voronezh, where the Russians captured a place on the main railway line, after overcoming stubborn resistance and inflicting enormous losses. In a local engagement on the Leningrad front, the Russians took an important height and held it against counterattacks. It is assumed that the Russian forces in the south are now generally in position along the west bank of the Don, from about half-way between Stalingrad and Rostov to the Sea of Azov. On the right bank they hold semi-cir-cular positions round Rostov, probably about twenty or thirty miles from the city. There may also be other Russian forces still on the right bank, between Taymlyanskaya and the confluence of the Don and Donetz. In the direction of Stalingrad, the Germans apparently are still driving eastwards into the elbow of the Don, but there is no evidence that they have yet occupied all the ground inside that bend. Above the bend, the Russians appear to hold the left bank all the way on to the'Voronezh region, where the Germans are believed to hold only one of the four bridgeheads they originally established.