FIGHTING FIERCELY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 February 1943, Page 3

FIGHTING FIERCELY

GERMANS IN THE KUBAN AREA FURY VENTED ON CIVIL POPULATION. SOVIET AIR AND NAVAL SUCCESSES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, February 15. The Moscow radio this morning broadcast a dispatch from the front stating that fierce fighting is going on in the Kuban country. “The enemy is offering stubbon resistance and is concentrating his force in small sectors and launching count-er-attacks with tanks and automatic riflemen, but all have been repelled,” it said. “The Red Army, encouraged by its success, is increasing the pressure against the enemy. One Soviet unit, after repelling 13 enemy counterattacks, went over to the offensive and pushed forward. “The enemy has retreated, but, furious at his defeat, is burning down localities and annihilating civilian populations.” A Russian communique says: “During the week February 7 to 13, 243 German planes were destroyed in aerial combat and on» enemy aerodromes. Our losses in the same period were 101 planes. From February 1 to 12 Soviet naval units and planes sank six enemy transports and one patrol vessel in the Barents Sea.” A supplement records the continuance of the successful offensive in the Likhaya area and south-west of Voroshilovgrad and'the area of Karasnoarmeisk. The booty captured in the latter area includes 11 railway trains, one of which contained 20 tanks. Progress is also reported in the Chuguev area and the Fatezh (nor-west of Kursk) area. SUMMER OFFENSIVE M. STALIN’S REPORTED ORDER. CLEARING THE GERMANS OUT OF RUSSIA. LONDON, February 14. Reports from Stockholm say that Stalin has ordered that not a single German soldier must remain on Russian soil after this summer. The Russian General Staff is preparing plans for a gigantic summer offensive which is due to start four to eix months after the winter campaign ends next month. DONETZ CONFUSION. The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” says that the Germans must now realise their mistake in shortening the front by withdrawing from the Caucasus via Rostov, because the remnants of von List’s chivvied and mauled army have weakened instead of strengthening the Donetz forces by increasing the confusion due to the arrival of defeated troops who had been chased from the Don bend. The Russians are now compressing the German bridgehead in the Caucasus into the Taman Peninsula, • and simultaneously making a direct attack cn Novorossisk, says the correspondent. The Germans presumably have managed to remove a substantial part of their men to the Crimea, but the information on this is scanty. The Washington correspondent of the “New York Times” says that strategists are of the opinion that the fall of Rostov, whose importance even exceeds that of Stalingrad, will inevitably force the Nazis to fall back to the Dnieper, and will result in the disintegration of the Donetz line, from where the Germans launched their 1942 offensive. The strategists point out that such a retreat will probably be accompanied by a withdrawal in the northern sector from Leningrad to Latvia. In addition 200,000 Nazis in the Caucasus are cut off, and the valuable Caucasus oil wells have been virtually secured for the Russians, who have also recovered the railway line via Rostov to transport the oil to the north. Furthermore, the Germans have been cut off from the Sea of Azov, and therefore are unable to supply their Donetz forces.