NEW ONSLAUGHTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1942, Page 4

NEW ONSLAUGHTS

-o I BY GERMANS IN DON BEND UNSPARING CALL ON RESERVES. VIOLENT FIGHTING REPORTED NEAR NOVOROSSISK. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, August 19. The German two-fisted drive for Stalingrad has been intensified with new onslaughts in the Kletskaya region and north-eastward of Kotelnikovo. The latest Moscow reports say the Germans are attacking on all directions in the Kletskaya region with fresh reserves and bombers. They are doing their utmost to reach the east bank of the Don. The Germans have resumed largescale action on the front south-west of Stalingrad. North-east of Kotelnikovo, the Germans concentrated huge forces of motorised units, tanks and massed heavy artillery and barraged the Russian positions, hurling hundreds of tons of metal against the Soviet forces. The Germans then threw in tanks and motorised infantry. Seventy tanks in one sector fought 24 Russian tanks. Twenty-six tanks rushed to another sector but were turned back. Then a wave of forty tanks appeared and also failed. Finally eight tanks attacked and cracked the Russian front line. The Germans then advanced 31- miles before the Russians threw them back. The battlefield was strewn with German dead, mangled tanks and lorries. A Stockholm report states that violent fighting has broken out near Novorossisk between the Russians and advanced German elements which crossed the lower Kuban River at Krasnodar. A Moscow message says the threat to the Black Sea ports is increased as fighting in the Krasnadar area spreads eastwards and southwards from the Kuban River. The Germans in a number of sectors have driven fresh wedges into the Russian lines and increased their pressure. Heavy fighting is raging in the Voronezh area, where enemy tanks, infantry and cavalry are vainly attempting to recapture lost positions.