GERMAN ATTACKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1942, Page 3

GERMAN ATTACKS

SOUTH-WEST OF STALINGRAD FIGHTING IN MANY SECTORS. DESPERATE ENEMY ATTACKS FAIL. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, December 19. Heavy battles are raging south-west of Stalingrad, where the Germans are attacking day and night. The Russians in one sector between the Caucasian railway and the Lower Don inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans, forcing them to retreat. The Germans, despite big losses in equipment, continue the transportation of supplies by air from the Rostov area to the Dori-Volga front. The “Pravda” reports that the Russians have captured Byeloi, which forms the apex of a triangle of which Rzhev, in the north-east ,and Viazma, in the south-west, are the other points. Advancing on the Velikiye Luki front, the Russians stormed and captured a strategic height. The Germans desperately attempted to retake the height,, but the Russians held their ground and repulsed the attackers with heavy casualties. The Soviet Information Bureau, denying German claims to have surrounded and wiped out large Russian forces in the Toropets area, points out that the Toropets area was recaptured last winter and is now so far behind the Russian front that the people in it could not hear the guns. The bureau added that all recent fighting in this sector had been in the Byeloi area, south-eastward of Toropets, where the Germans lost 7000 killed and also 1000 tanks, 57 suns, and much other' equipment. The German news agency mentioned a Russian attack on a wide front near Substov, a small Volga town 15 miles south-east of Rzhev. The news agency claimed that the attacks had been ‘repelled. The Russian High Command reports: “On the Stalingrad and central fronts Russian troops continue to wage offensive engagements in the same directions as before.” A correction made to the Russian night communique states that the 99 planes reported shot down on December 17 were actually “destroyed in aerial combats or on aerodromes.” Sectors of the bitterest fighting on the Russian front yesterday appear again to have been south-west of Stalingrad, where the Germans are desperately attempting to free their trapped armies between the Don and the Volga, and on the central front, west and south-west of Rzhev. The strength of the German forces engaged south-west of Stalingrad suggests that the German attempts to_ break out must be regarded as formidable. A supplement to the Russian morning communique emphasises both the severity of the fighting here and the heavy losses suffered by the Germans. Fierce fighting “also continues northwest Of the city, in its southern outskirts and in the factory area mside the city . The supplement adds that on the central front several enemy counter-attacks were beaten off without halting the Russian advance. Seven enemy planes were destroyed in the air.