FURIOUS ATTACKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 August 1942, Page 3

FURIOUS ATTACKS

BROKEN BY RUSSIAN GUNNERS GROUND LOST IN NORTH CAUCASUS. BUT NO OIL LEFT FOR GERMANS AT MAIKOP. LONDON, August 17. The Germans are nearer the Don than at any other time during the three weeks’ battle in the Kletskaya sector, but the Russian gunners’ iron will before Stalingrad is reported to be holding the positions in the hills of the Volga basin. The Germans have thrown in huge tank forces hereabouts, but the persistency and ingenuity of the defence in the crook of the Don elbow clearly indicate that the Russians are undaunted and are fighting back successfully enough to stave off a critical break-through. The Caucasian armies further to the south are clearly not attempting to fight tank warfare without tanks, and are therefore losing the rich Kuban territory while realistically saving the armies for fighting again under more favourable conditions. The Russians are maintaining resistance round Maikop and also Krasnodar. Another army, trained for alpine warfare, is reported to be waiting on the mountain borders of Transcaucasia. “The installations of the Maikop oil industry and all available oil stores have been removed and the wells destroyed,” a Russian communique stated. “The Germans did not get the oil, and they will not get it,”