STAND IN MOUNTAINS?

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 August 1942, Page 3

STAND IN MOUNTAINS?

TIMOSHENKO’S POSSIBLE • PLANS RUSSIAN BLACK SEA FLEET AT BATUM. STOUT DEFENCE OF APPROACH TO NOVOROSSISK. LONDON, August 14. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Stockholm correspondent says: “Two facts emerge from the confused north Caucasian position—von Bock has begun an assault on the Caucasus, and the Russians are slovzly but surely being driven back to the mountains. “We will now see whether the Russians have the strength left to turn at bay and beat their tormentors, or whether the suggestion is true that Timoshenko, faced with the choice of two evils, has concentrated everything to save Stalingrad and left the Caucasus and the holding of the oilfields to a handful of Russian divisions, backed by the British forces in Iran. “The Russian Black Sea Fleet has arrived at Batum, which is its base for further operations.” The Russians at Maikop and Krasnodar are taking full advantage of the terrain being more favourable to defence. The strongest stand is being made at Krasnodar, where Timoshenko is preventing the Germans from crossing the Kuban in strength for an allout attack against Novorossisk. There is no confirmation of the Vichy report that the Germans have captured Krymskaya, though it is possible that weak German advance guards have penetrated into the vicinity. The fighting at Krasnodar is going on in tropical heat. Heavy battles are raging at Cherkess. The Voronezh news continues to be satisfactory, with the Russians steadily pressing back the enemy southward of the town, /where a German unit is threatened with en■circlement. The Russians, using flamethrowers and tommy-guns, drove the Germans and Hungarians from one locality street by street and ruthlessly exterminated nests of resistance established in houses. “The Time.-;” Moscow correspondent says an important Russian offensive, probably with limited objectives, appears to be developing satisfactorily in the Voronezh area. Three Hungarian brigades have been severely mauled. The correspondent adds: “If the advance can be maintained the Russians will enter country only recently conquered and not yet fully organised for defence.” “Soviet v/arships sank an enemy submarine in the Gulf of Finland. In the Barents; Sea, Soviet wraships sank three transports totalling 28,000 tons.’

SOMEWHAT SLOWED

GERMAN DRIVE TOWARDS CASPIAN. SOVIET DEFENDING LINE OF KUBAN RIVER. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.50 a.rn.) RUGBY, August 14. The German advance eastward across the North Caucasus region, towards the Caspian Sea, continues more slovzly. Mineralnyevody, where fighting is now reported by the Soviet, is close to Vyatigorsk, which the Germans claimed to have reached some time ago. Further north, on the wide Kalmuck steppe, the Germans now claim to have reached Elista, 160 miles west of the Volga Delta, and half-way between Stalingrad and Georgievsk. In the North Caucasus, further west, the Russians report that they are still stubbornly defending the Kuban River line at Krasnodar, where, however, they have retreated at one place, and in ‘the foothills about Maikop. No further advance up the railway to Sukhum from Cherkessk is reported.

BATTLES IN NORTH.

Ou other parts of the vast front there are signs of increased Russian activity. The Russians on the Leningrad front have recaptured a strongly fortified railway and road junction after the German positions had been softened by heavy shells from the Kronstadt long-range batteries. The Russians still are giving less information than the Germans concerning the Rzhev operations, says “The Times” Stockholm correspondent. The Russians have gained an appreciable success in the Lake Ilmen region since July. The Germans in the middle of July consistently reported a battle zone south-east of Lake Ilmen, and at the end of August they altered the description to south of the lake. The Germans at present are reporting hard fighting south-west of Lake Ilmen. The Moscow Press generally presents a rather brighter picture of the situation, though it still emphasises the need for a supreme effort.