78 TANKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1943, Page 4

78 TANKS

LOST BY THE GERMANS IN PERSISTENT AND USELESS COUNTER-ATTACKS. ON APPROACHES TO ROSTOV. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, January 25. As the Germans more strongly oppose the Russian drives against Rostov from the Caucasus and from Salsk, they are using more armour, which hitherto has been conserved. Front line despatches report a heavy battle in the Lower Don in which the Germans lost 78 tanks in persistent and useless counter-attacks. Cossack squadrons driving on Kropotkin have advanced another 25 miles, outflanked the retreating enemy and cut his rear communications between Rostov and the Black Sea. The Red Air Force is prominently participating in the fighting and finds many targets in Junkers transport planes which are always active during a retreat. Ten were shot down in one swoop. The Russians in the North are very active, widening their already substantial bridgehead at Leningrad and forcing the Germans back in the Volkhov area. MORE NAZI LAMENTS SHORTENING OF FRONT. ANNOUNCED BY ENEMY HIGH COMMAND. (Received This Day, 12.40 p.m.) , LONDON, January 25. The east bank of the Don, in the area westward and south-westward of Voronezh has been cleared of German troops. A German High Command communique stated: “To shorten our front, we, without enemy pressure, evacuated the' Voronezh bridgehead, according to plan.” The German High Command plans to shorten the whole Russian front and build a new defence line. This admission, which will be cold comfort to Germans already alarmed after declarations that the military situation is critical, was made tonight by the German News Agency’s military commentator. He added that the winter battle was daily increasing in fury. “KTo power in the world,” he said, “could have faced the Russians’ two-month onslaught as the Germans have done. The Russians are far superior in manpower and material compared with the Germans, yet they have had to conquer territory step by step.” While German propagandists are thus preparing the Germans for more retreats, Moscow correspondents say the whole German left wing of the southern armies is bending under the blows of the Red Army. General Golikov’s drive westward and north-west-ward from'new positions south-west of Voronezh is threatening Hitler’s bases of Kursk and Kharkov ..and the Russians are within sight of cutting the vital Voronezh-Kursk railway. Six hundred miles southward, the Russians are within 20 miles of Kavakaskaye, an important railway junction between Armavir and Tikhoretsk. SURVEY BY STALIN ACHIEVEMENTS CF RUSSIAN ARMIES. SINCE OFFENSIVE OPENED. LONDON, January 25. M. Stalin, in an order of the day, reviews the record of the Soviet armies in the past two months In that period, he said, they had broken through on a wide front, destroyed 102 divisions of the enemy and captured 200,000 prisoners, 13,000 guns and a great deal of other war material. They had advanced 250 miles. The offensive was continuing. He enumerated the places taken and said the advance made was a step towards the expulsion of the enemy from the soil of the Soviet Fatherland. 75,000 PRISONERS TAKEN BY THE RUSSIANS. IN THE VORONEZH AREA. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This day, 11.35 a.m.) RUGBY, January 25. A special Soviet communique tonight states: “The town of Voronezh has been completely cleared of the enemy. The number of prisoners taken has been increased by 11,000 and the total of prisoners taken in this area is now 75,000.” Voronezh was never lost to the Russians altogether. It was known that the Germans had succeeded in occupying some of the outlying western suburbs. MUCH MORE SERIOUS POSITION OF GERMANS AT STALINGRAD. GLOOMY TALK IN BERLIN. (Received This Day, 1.25 p.m.) LONDON, January 25. The Berlin radio military spokesman has admitted that the situation in the Stalingrad area has become considerably more serious, because of bitter new assaults against the north and the west. The enemy, it is added, has broken in at a new point on the western front, with strong forces and there is a rolling mass of fire of indescribable violence.” “Our Sixth Army at Stalingrad has won immortal honour in an heroic and sacrificial struggle against great superiority, states a German High Command communique. Formations of Rumanians are fighting shoulder to shoulder with their German comrades, to the last man and are fully sharing the glory.” Further admissions, combined with attempted reassurances, were made by the German broadcaster, General Dietmar, in giving an “interim balance sheet.” He declared that it was his duty to inform Germans of the extent of the defeat suffered in Russia, “but can anyone believe,” he asked, “that the Wehrmacht, after three years of victories, will perish from one defeat? During Frederick the Great’s campaigns the Germans were far more

seriously defeated than now; yet they were finally victorious. The Russian offensive has met with considerable success, initially, in Southern Russia. The situation at Stalingrad and in the Don bend for the time is most serious and still causes anxiety, but is not catastrophic. This is largely due to the Stalingrad troops, who, after their encirclement, resisted for weeks, warding off heavier calamities and enabling German counter-measures, which are now becoming effective.”