STILL ADVANCING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 January 1943, Page 4

STILL ADVANCING

RUSSIANS IN NORTHERN CAUCASUS AND IN LOWER DON AREA. / ENEMY COUNTER-ATTACKS SMASHED. The midnight Soviet communique reports the continued advance of the Russians in the Northern Caucasus. Four more towns and a railway station have been captured. The railway station is 16 miles beyond Mineralnie Vodi, on the main Caucasus-Rostov railway. In the Lower Don and on the Central front the enemy continues to offer stiff resistance, but all German attempts to counter-attack have been smashed. On one sector in the Lower Don the Russians recaptured six more villages. On the central front se\ iral counter-attacks were, broken southwest of Velikiye Luki. The Russian forces at Stalingrad have driven the enemy out of more strongpoints in the factory belt and destroyed 26 big transport planes, with which the Germans tried to supply the trapped Axis divisions. NEW OFFENSIVES IN VORONEZH & LENINGRAD AREAS. ENEMY REPORTS APPARENTLY GENUINE. (Received This Day, 12.20 p.m.) LONDON, January 14. The Red Army, moving steadily westward in the Caucasus, had by morning reached the vicinity of Kurskavka, while a highly mobile right wing pushed through fog, snow and sleet and reached the highway connecting Elista and Mineralnie Vodi, at a point about 40 miles west of Prikumsk. ' There is no news., from Moscow about the offensives which the Germans state the Russians have launched south of Voronezh and also in the Leningrad area. ’’The Times” Stockholm correspondent says the news of these offensives seems to be genuine. The Russians are always silent for the first few days about new offensives. The Voronezh offensive apparently is in the directions of Staryoshol and Valuiki. The Germans report a tremendous artillery duel all day yesterday and at night south of Shlusselburg. The Germans are determined to maintain their ring around Leningrad, but the Russian onslaught is equally determined and success appears to be in sight. “The Times” Moscow correspondent reports that the Germans hace concentrated much artillery and many tanks for the defence of Rostov and are now doing their utmost to gain, time to regroup the forces thrown into coniusion by heavy losses in the rapid retreat from Kotelnikovo. Every farm ana village is being defended and machinegun nests are abundant, particularly along the railroad. The Russians are finding long-barrelled, anti-tank rifles, firing explosive shells, .useful for the suppression of machine-gun nests. Riflemen blast the nests before an infantry attack.