VITAL BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 December 1942, Page 3

VITAL BATTLE

FOUGHT IN DESOLATE TERRITORY BOLD THRUSTS BY SOVIET TANKS. DEFEATS CONCEALED FROM GERMAN PEOPLE. (By Telegraph— Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, December 30. The Moscow correspondent of "The Times” says that the cam- . paign for Kotelnikovo was fought out on the Kalmuk steppes, where villages are far apart and nomadic cattle-breeders’ segments are round infrequent wells in the flat and desolate countryside. Many Germans preferred prison camp to retreat in such conditions. Russian guards were prominent in the operations, delivering sharp welldirected blows, supported by heavy mortars which have played a notable role in all the present fighting, though it is scarcely a year since the Govern- j ment created a special department to I produce these essential weapons. The “Daily Express” Moscow correspondent says the secret' of the Russian tank successes was illustrated by the ?3-year-old Lieutenant-General Badanov’s guards’ tank corps, which, after a daring raid, captured a supposedly impregnable place on which the German defence pivoted. Badanov leapfrogged his columns on alternate days, one thrusting forward and the other resting and refuelling and then roaring through their comrades who were recuperating. - Supporting the tank thrusts, Russian-dive-bombers and Stormoviks are ceaselessly plastering the retreating columns, preventively bombing lineswhere the Germans were preparing to stand.

Russian successes at Velikiye Luki

(on the central front, west of Moscow) are notable in view of the Germans’ strongly-built fortifications honeycombing deep glens and bare hills as a precaution against envelopment. A group of four villages was taken in a pincer movement after a devastating bombardment, following which infantry with bayonets routed two battalions.

The German public remains ignorant of the Russians’ crushing blows. The German radio for days has not commented on the military situation, referring only to German local defensive successes.