SITUATION IN STALINGRAD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 September 1942, Page 3

SITUATION IN STALINGRAD

Little Recent Progress Made By Germans RUSSIANS DEVELOPING POWERFUL ATTACKS FROM VORONEZH ENEMY THRUST IN CAUCASUS STILL HELD UP LONDON, September 20. . The Germans are launching 1 fresh tank divisions ag’ainso Stalingrad. The defenders are taking a heavy toll of the enemy in the north-west suburbs. At Voronezh the Russians continue their push to the west. The latest messages from Russia state that the Germans are throwing fresh tank divisions against Stalingrad. Special squadrons of German air aces are attacking the defences. The enemy has not so far achieved any big new successes. The Moscow radio says the situation remains extremely tense. Heavy fighting continues on the outskirts of Stalingrad in the north-western suburbs. Every yard the Germans move forward is gained at the cost of substantial numbers of casualties. After the enemy had been thrown out of one street more than 400 German dead were counted lying on the pavements and in the houses. One Russian front line correspondent states that after the houses which the Germans were fortifying had been set on fire, the Germans as they ran out of the flames were mown down by machine-gun fire. In the Voronezh area the Russians are pushing steadily westward and are inflicting exceptionally heavy losses on the enemy. An important height dominating Stalingrad, which was recaptured two days ago, is still in Russian hands, and all attempts by the enemy to restore the position have been beaten back with heavy losses. Large forces of German tanks and infantry are battering at the street barricades which have been put up by the Russians, but there is no sign that they have made any progress in the last 24 hours. In the street fighting the casualties are high, and the’outskirts of Stalingrad are rapidly becoming a vast graveyard amid shattered ruins and burnt-out buildings. The Moscow correspondent of the “News Chronicle’’ stresses the great area covered by Stalingrad’s straggling old and new factory buildings and homes, and says the battle for Stalingrad proper is yet to come. The losses so far suffered by the enemy in the approach to the city will be as nothing compared with those in the fighting now in hand. In the Eastern Caucasus the German drive towards the. Grozny oilfields is still held. All the latest enemy attacks have been thrown back.