GOOD PROGRESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 January 1943, Page 3

GOOD PROGRESS

RUSSIANS ABOUT 50 MILES FROM ROSTOV FROZEN RIVERS AID SWIFT ADVANCE. ENEMY BEING HUSTLED ALONG. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.40 a.m.) RUGBY, January .il. The Russian advance continues to make 'good progress on many parts of the fluid 400-mile front, from the Donetz to the Caucasus. A further thrust, between the Don and Sal rivers, has apparently brought the ' advancing columns about 50 miles from Rostov, while, north of the Don, a parallel advance is covering the last few miles to the lower Donetz. ' Along the railway south-west from Kotelnikovo more progress has been . made in the direction of Salsk. The speed of the advance across many water barriers in this area is explained by the fact of all the Russian rivers being frozen, thus presenting no worse obstacles than, for instance, a sunken road. The German retreat in the Caucasus appears to be more under control than the rout on the Lower Don, but the enemy is being hustled along and his whole position around Geogievsk and •Pyatigorsk is threatened by a broad '‘Russian advance across the River Kuma, to the north. IN EVIL PLIGHT TRAPPED GERMAN ARMY HOPES OF RELIEF FADING. TROOPS LIVING LIKE WILD BEASTS. (By Telegraph—PT-ess Association—Copyright) LONDON, January 10. As hopes of relief are fading, the Germans entrapped before Stalingrad are encountering heavier Russian attacks than for weeks. General Zhukov is attacking from the east with artillery and storm troops, but the taking of every house is a separate operation; a pile of ruins whence guns can be operated can prove tougher than the best-built concrete emplacements. General Vatoutin’s guns are blazing incessantly from the Donside hills from the north-west where the Russians seized the fringe of the encircled portion, about 300 square miles in area. Other dispatches state that typhus has attacked the entrapped Germans. Soldiers’ letters taken from transport

planes which have been shot down reveal the terrible conditions. The letters include such phrases as “We live like wild beasts.” “We are terribly tortured by lice.” “After six weeks of this terrible situation we have become hunger experts.”