DEVELOPING ROUT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 December 1942, Page 3

DEVELOPING ROUT

MORE GERMAN FORCES ENCIRCLED ATTEMPT TO IMPROVISE NEW LINE. WELL WEST OF VORONEZH RAILWAY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, December 22. During today, on the latest count, 6700 prisoners were taken on the middle Don front, bringing the total for seven days to 20,200. The Stockholm correspondent of the ■‘Daily Express” report’s that General Golikov's and General Vatoutin’s forces, converging on Millerovo from the north and east, have joined. If this report is correct, then the remaining German forces west ( of Kletskaya and Kalach, in the Don elbow, have now been completely encircled. The Stockholm correspondent of "The Times” says reports from Moscow and Berlin indicate that the Axis discomfiture on the middle Don front has rapidly developed into the nearest thing to a large-scale rout since General von Kleist’s debacle a year ago. The Germans state that the task of stemming the Russians has. been entrusted to fresh reserves, which were en route to the front- when the Russian advance began. The reserves halted when the Russians broke deeply into the defence zone, and these Germans are now stated to be holding new positions which had been previously prepared. This German explanation implies that there is an improvised second line of defence, and that it is hoped to let the retreating and rather disordered troops through the new' defence line to form up behind. There is no indication where" the new front is envisaged. but it must be largely to the west of the Voronezh-Rostov railway.