THRUST IN CAUCASUS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 August 1942, Page 3

THRUST IN CAUCASUS

ENEMY TROOPS TRAPPED IN PLACES. BUT SOME PROGRESS MADE < TOWARDS CASPIAN. TREMENDOUS MECHANISED ATTACK. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, August 24. The Germans, it is reported, have crossed the Don in force 40 miles north-west of Stalingrad, and the Russians are making a tremendous effort to destroy the bridgehead. The Germans at the weekend made further territorial progress in the western Caucasus, while the fighting along the Caucasus range toward the Caspian Sea is reported to be going on in valleys and gorges among the foothills. Russian alpine-trained troops occupy strong defensive positions in many places, and the Germans have already fallen into some carefullyprepared traps in the Pyatigorsk sector, but the Russians are still withdrawing. A supplement to the routine Soviet night communique said that the Russians) improved their positions in the Kletskaya area. Guards ousted the Germans from several points and destroyed 14 tapks, and also shot down four planes with machine-gun fire. South-east of Kletskaya fighting continued for crossings o£ the Don. The enemy in one sector effected a crossing with troops and tanks, and Soviet troops were engaged in a fierce struggle with this enemy group. In another sector of the same front an Italian division was attacked and destroyed. In the area north-east of Kotelnikovo large enemy forces of infantry and tanks were encountered, and in some sectors the Germans broke through at large cost, the communique added. Reporting that Stalingrad’s defenders in the upper part of the Don bend have driven the enemy from a number of points and heights, the Moscow correspondent of “The Times” says that this has slightly relieved the Russian position on the most dangerous sector. The Germans here control a stretch of the river’s right bank broad enough for several simultaneous crossing attempts. Russian reports indicate that the Germans who are across the Don are getting no freedom of manoeuvre, but they admit a critical situation calling for the utmost vigilence along the waterline. MASSED PLANES & TANKS. Von Bock’s southern prong, pushing toward Stalingrad north-east of Kotel-*'--nikovo, is reported to possess a heavier weight of tanks and men than at any other time since the offensive was intensified on August 5. The Stockholm correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says that 3000 planes are blasting a way for the German panzers converging on Stalingrad from the north-

west and south-west. The Russians who are counter-attacking on the east bank of the Don are • handicapped by the enemy’s superiority in tanks and planes. The fighting round Orel (150 miles north-west of Voronezh, and the scene according to enemy reports on August 22, of a new German offensive), is now favourable to the Russians, says the “Daily Telegraph's” Stockholm correspondent. The enemy’s armoured fist was found lacking in strength when the Russians counter-attacked persistently. Hungarians have suffered heavily here-, and also on the Voronezh front, where the Russians are holding on to the positions they have won from the Hungarians in the past fortnight.