SOVIET GAINS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 October 1942, Page 4

SOVIET GAINS

IN ATTACK NORTHWEST OF STALINGRAD

SUCCESSES ALSO IN VICINITY OF NOVOROSSISK. AND IN LENINGRAD REGION. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 11.10 a.m.) RUGBY, October 12. Artillery and mortar duels continue in the Stalingrad area, though the Germans clearly are still using infantry. North-west of the city the Russians have gained some ground and improved their positions. In the Mozdok area the Russians have forged ahead after stubborn fighting and regained positions lost on the previous day. South-east of Novorpssisk stubborn street fighting is proceeding in one locality. The Russians, clearing house after house, pushing forward and inflicting enormous losses, encircled a German garrison. Two Rumanian divisions in the Novorossisk sector were badly mauled, according to a Moscow message. The Russians in the Sinyavino area (south of Leningrad) captured an important height, killed 1,200 Germans and repelled counter-attacks. A Moscow communique states that Russian troops fought the enemy in the Stalingrad and Mozdok areas today. There is no material change on other fronts. , In the Stalingrad area enemy attacks were repulsed. Two battalions of German infantry were annihilated. North-west of Stalingrad Soviet troops made a sortie into enemy positions and inflicted heavy losses. In the Mozdok area Russians troops forged ahead.

IN THE CAUCASUS INITIATIVE WRESTED FROM ENEMY. RUSSIANS IMPROVING THEIR DEFENCES. (Bi 7 Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.45 p.m.) LONDON, October 12. The Russians in the Caucasus have, generally speaking, wrested the initiative from the Germans. They are holding up all German thrusts against the approaches to the Grozny oilfields. The Russians are not only sallying out against German columns, but are improving their defence in case the reinforced enemy manages to break through in any sector. The Russians on other fronts continue to decimate the German ranks. Persistent fighting continues at Sinyavino, south-east of Leningrad, where the Russians are consolidating their grip on recently-won positions. The Russians in numerous sectors on the Kalinin front, north-west of Moscow, are fighting locally important engagements. The Germans at one place drove back the Russians, but lost their gains before night, losing 600 killed. The Moscow radio declared that the Russians have captured an important height in the Karelian forest, on the Finnish front, and killed 1500 of the enemy.

A German communique states that the Germans have annihilated a Russian unit which was encircled on the road to Tuapse, and also smashed the bulk of the Russian Guards Division • and part of a rifle division, after hard mountain fighting. z According to the Vichy radio, the Germans are continuing the drive to '"'Tuapse, and have mopped up most of the areas of resistance. Reconnaissance units, it is stated, are'already in action ■ on the road leading to the Black Sea.

PROMISING signs OF GERMAN EXHAUSTION. IN STALINGRAD OFFENSIVE. (Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) LONDON, October 12. Some London commentators say that the Russian military situation is more hopeful now than at any time since Germany began her summer offensive. Morley Richards, the “Daily Express” military writer, declares that there is indisputable evidence that the German Army around Stalingrad is reaching exhaustion. Reduced in numbers, the Germans have been fought to a standstill. General von Noth may try again to capture the city, but the Red Army is supremely confident.

••• The “Daily Telegraph” says: “The lull in German infantry attacks against Stalingrad is the best news we have had. for some time. The Germans are feeling deeply their losses in front line troops.”

. The “News Chronicle” says there is no tendency to underrate the enemy’s remarkable striking power, but at last it really looks as if a large German thrust has been so blunted that it may never be-able to deliver a fatal blow.

Captain Liddell Hart, writing in the “Daily Mail,” says: “Their most recent setback may. cost the Germans the chance, of conquering the Caucasus "and establishing themselves on the Caspian.” He suggests that the smallness of the numbers of tanks which the Germans are using in the Caucasus shows that the enemy is increasingly handicapped by wastage of tanks and trained crews, or that the German Command has fallen back on its old habit of employing tanks in driblets instead of in massed drives.

“he Moscow radio says the People's Commissariat for Tank Industry has announced that more tanks were produced in the first ten days of October than in the corresponding period of past months. The fighting quality of the latest, model of the super-heavy Vcrcshllov tank has been considerably increased as a result of the adoption of a number of suggestions from Red Army tank men.

MELTING AWAY “LIKE SUGAR IN BOILING WATER” GERMAN DIVISIONS THROWN AGAINST STALINGRAD. (Received This Day, 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, October 12. The “Pravda” says Stalingrad may be razed to the ground, but it will not be taken. German divisions flung against the city are still melting away like sugar in boiling water.

Russian marines occupying a dominating hill half a mile from the city’s outskirts are again mentioned today "for the first time since last month. ■■They have been bolding out for more "than a month against daily German tank ■ assaults and punishing aerial *■ bombardments.

The Russians are claiming that their -Caucasus successes are again affecting “the German timetable and Soviet observers are linking the ground lull ,J,t Stalingrad with the necessity for a German diversion of fresh divisions to the Caucasus, instead of to Stalingrad. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says than at least one enemy division intended. for Stalingrad was switched to

Mozdok, where it is already in action. One Rumanian division from Kerch was on its way to Mozdok when Russian activity in the Novorossisk area necessitated its transfer to that sector, where two Rumanian cavalry divisions were badly cut up.