NAZI WEDGES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 August 1942, Page 3

NAZI WEDGES

CHECKED OR HEADED OFF . ■■■■■■» EXCEPT ON APPROACHES TO CAUCASUS. GERMANS SUFFERING HEAVY CASUALTIES. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, August 4. The Germans yesterday continued to make progress toward the Caucasus, but elsewhere on the southern front they were being held. Great battles are still raging at Kletskaya, north-west of 'Stalingrad, says the Stockholm correspondent of the "Daily Mail.” Russian reports suggest that Marshal Timoshenko is wresting the initiative from Field-Marshal von Bock in this area, and Berlin admits heavy Soviet counter-attacks. The Stockholm correspondent of "The Times” says: "Another day has passed without the Germans making palpable progress in the Don elbow or at Zymlyanskaya. The Germans have been obliged to expend tremendous energy and sustain heavy casualties, but their wedges are being checked or headed off. In the south-west, though the progress to the Caucasus has been relatively easy, the Germans are sustaining heavy casualties from the Russian rearguard, particularly from the Cossacks, equipped with anti-tank guns. The Russian communique again, as m the previous few days, reports fighting in the Kushchevka and Salsk sectors (towns respectively 50 miles south and 100 miles south-east of Rostov). The Germans claim they are well past the towns, and the Vichy news agency says that advanced German armoured forces have reached the. Kuban River at a point about 60 miles east of Krasnodar and established a bridgehead. The German official military spokesman last night called attention to the "extraordinary resources” of Russia and said that because of these the achieving of “ordinary victories” is not enough.