RETURN TO LIFE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 February 1943, Page 3

RETURN TO LIFE

IN RUINS OF HEROIC STALINGRAD DAYS OF SAVAGE FIGHTING RECALLED. COLOSSAL GERMAN DEFEAT. LONDON, February 8. “Stalingrad is a city of desolation—masses of wrecked machinery, twisted rails, and wrecked houses and factories, says Reuter’s special correspondent, who was the first British agency journalist to visit the city since the battle began in September. “Stalingrad once housed 400,000 people, but today not a house stands in the six miles between the Square of Heroes of the Revolution in the centre of the city to the famous ‘October Revolution’ factory in the north. Nineteen out of every 20 houses in. the city have been razed. The vicinity of the ‘October Revolution 7 factory, where the Guards maintained a savage fight against the invaders, is an indescribable mass of wreckage. “The battlefield has been largely cleared of the dead, but here and there a frozen body lies face upward and'a leg sticking out from the snow betrays the grave of either a defender or one of the many German dead. “Yet, in the shattered streets there is a strange holiday feeling. The men are clearing the communications and the women have returned. Stalin’s dead city is returning to life. “General Chuikov, who was wounded four times and was once shot down in a plane, relating the story of the German defeat, emphasised that five days ago the enemy was 300 yards away, and now they are 300 miles to the west. “The bloodiest day of the fighting was October 14, when the Germans hurled in seven divisions on a threemile front, using an incredible number of guns and planes. The Luftwaffe made 2500 flights, and the whole city shook like an earthquake. Chuikov said he had 61 staff officers killed and wounded on October 14. • . “The Germans did not make tactical errors, but the big strategical error was made when Hitler assumed the supreme command. Hitler was beaten by Stalin, who personally conducted the offensive.”