AXIS ADMISSIONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 September 1942, Page 3

AXIS ADMISSIONS

STRENGTH OF THE RUSSIAN DEFENCE SOVIET FORCES STRIKING HARDER THAN EVER. •WITH APPROACH OF WINTER. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, September 21. Dispatches from Stalingrad tonight state that the Germans in the north-western suburbs are being thrown back, a strategic height commanding the centre of the city has been recaptured after a six hours' battle, and the Germans in the last 24 hours have not appreciably advanced anywhere.

The Paris radio tonight unprecedently announced that the heavy Russian arttilery barrage is stemming the German advance at Stalingrad. The Moscow radio reported that a Russian armoured train entered a Ger-man-occupied station at Stalingrad last night and killed 200 Germans and destroyed 13 tanks.

The position of the Russians at Stalingrad is generally better than most observers expected in the middle of last week, says the Stockholm correspondent of'“The Times.” The German fingers which penetrated in the northwest of Stalingrad have fared badly; some have been amputated, and the others have at least been checked. The German newspapers are now referring to heavy German casualties, whereas the latest comment from Russia was in confident tones.

“We are fighting in the East the greatest military Power in the world,” said Colonel Dietrich, the German military spokesman from Berlin radio today. He added that no other foe managed to turn the balance ‘of fighting to its own advantage as did the Soviet, and the power of resistance of the individual soldier was incredible and his determination to fight to the end was very strong. The Germans claimed _ today that they had thrust deeper’ into Stalingrad’s southern defences and smashed 17 strong-points. All women and children have been evacuated from Stalingrad. Only army nurses and doctors remain, and every able-bodied man is helping in the defence of the city.

USE OF BOILING OIL.

Stressing the desperate resistance of the Stalingrad garrison, the Berlin correspondent of the Stockholm ‘•Aftonbladet” says the Russians are pouring boiling oil from the upper windows of houses on Germans attempting to seize the premises. The Moscow radio says the battles in the streets of Stalingrad were at their fiercest today, when, after an artillery duel, there was hand-to-hand fighting in which the Russians by nightfall had cleared the enemy from several, more streets. Every room in every house has become a battlefield, and staircases are strewn with German corpses. Northerly “relief” attacks, which are admitted in Berlin, are being made from -the outside of the German arc from the vicinity of Ilovlia and Dubovka, and the Russians are also making strong counter-attacks from the region of Krasnoarmeisk, south of Stalingrad. The scale of the Russian offensive near Voronezh is increasing and developing great violence. The Russians employing a powerful force of artillery and many planes, are gradually smashing through fortifications which the Germans began to construct immediately it was seen that the weight of the July offensive was checked.

The Germans are rushing up reinforcements and making a hasty attempt to stem the Russian advance on a broad front.

Winter's approach finds the Rus-