FIGHT FOR RAILWAYS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1943, Page 4

FIGHT FOR RAILWAYS

IN STALINGRAD-DON AREA SOVIET STRATEGIC AIMS. ' ENEMY TROOPS BADLY PLACED IN CAUCASUS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.20 a.m.) RUGBY, January 15. The capture of Cljernyskovsky, on the Stalingrad-Don Basin railway, says a Moscow message, shows that the Red Army is concentrating its main efforts on the pocket, now roughly 65 miles wide and 45 deep, with one corner 110 miles north-east of Rostov, on the Stalin-grad-Don basin railway, and the other corner 130 miles almost due east of Rostov, a few miles south of the Don. Part of the railway within this pocket is held by the Germans and part by the Russians, and it is not of great value as a transport line to either side. The Germans, however, are able to bring up troops and equipment to the pocket from Rostov, Voroshilovgrad and Salsk, while the Russians have no rail communication with the deep rear, owing to the Stalingrad Junction being blocked by the trapped but unvanquished 22 divisions. In the Caucasus the Red Army has jammed the enemy forces against the Caucasus foothills by a series of heavy blows. Intercepting the retreating columns, the Red Army has killed several thousand Germans in one sector alone.

ENEMY SALIENT WIPED OUT IN CAUCASUS. SOVIET PROGRESS WEST OF STALINGRAD. ’ LONDON, January 5. Following on the capture of Nalchik, the Russians today occupied three more important towns in the Caucasus. They were Kotlyarevsk, the junction for the branch line to Nalchik, Prokhladnaya, the junction of the Rostov-Mozdok-Grosny line, and another place six miles to the south. The capture of these towns means that a German salient 50 miles deep and 30 miles wide has been wiped out. By the capture of the railway town of Morozovskaya, the Russians have cleared the Stalingrad-Rostov railway for a stretch of' 150 miles west of Stalingrad. STALIN GRATEFUL TO THE ORTHODOX CHURCH. MONEY FOR TANKS & PLANES. (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) LONDON, January 5. Conveying New Year blessings to Stalingrad, the Acting Patriarch Sergei, Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, announced that he had requested the church to raise funds to build a tank column, which would be named after Saint Dimitri Donskoi. He added: “The Patriarchate of Moscow Cathedral has already contributed half a million roubles for victory against the black forces of Fascism.” M. Stalin, in accepting the gift, asked the Patriarch to convey his greetings and. the Red Army’s gratitude to the Russian Orthodox clergy and communicants. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says individual priests had earlier -given several hundred thousand roubles from their own savings for the same purpose. This action follows on a widespread campaign initiated by collective farms to give

their savings to the Red Army for-- the construction of planes and tanks. Several hundred million roubles have already been raised.