COUNTER BLOWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 February 1943, Page 3

COUNTER BLOWS

ATTEMPT TO STEM RUSSIANS DESPERATE GERMAN EFFORTS. OREL BATTLE REACHING CLIMAX. (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m) LONDON, February 26. The Russian front is apparently now witnessing most determined German coun-ter-strokes, along a 500 miles front, from Orel to Taganrog. The Germans are throwing in an increasing number .of reserves aiming to stem and thiow back the Russian advances which is imperilling their entire southern line. The tensest situation has developed in the heart of the Donetz Basin, where the Germans are making very powerful counter-attacks. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent compares the position to the German counter blow at Kotelnikovo, when they attempted to break through to rescue their entrapped Sixth Army, when the issue hung in the balance for a week. If the Germans had succeeded there the Stalingrad battle might have been lost. Hitler has a similar stake in the Donetz Basin, where he is seeking to extricate his armies and enormous quantities of equipment from the Russian grip between the Dnieper and the Donetz. The Germans are still furiously battling in the Kramatorskaya and Krasnoarmeysk areas’, in an effort to regain strategic communications. Reuter’s correspondent , says the Germans are exhausting themselves, in fruitless counter-attacks against Kramatorskaya and Krasnoarmeysk, which are firmly in Russian hands. The Russians now are also struggling against the effects of the thaw, which has transformed the region into a morass, turning roads into quagmires. Nevertheless the Russians have pushed on in the northwest Donetz Basin, capturing a few fortified points in the past twenty-four hours. The Germans are utilising heavy reinforcements of tanks and motorised infantry. They are attempting to thrust in panzer wedges but these have somewhat lost their former punch and the Red Army’s infantry are efficiently cutting off the wedges before they widen. The hammering of Luftwaffe bases has destroyed 27 planes on one airfield. The German stubbornness has appreciably increased on the Orel, Kursk and Kharkov fronts, although the Russians arc closing in on Orel from the south and north, where the battle appears to be reaching its climax. The German defence belt forty miles deep south of Orel is honeycombed with fortified villages, which must be reduced separately, often by the bayonet and street fighting. German reinforcecments are making their weight felt west of Kharkov but General Golifov is retaining the initiative and is driving on towards Poltava and the Dnieper with a three-pronged offensive. The Moscow radio has reported that particularly fierce fighting is progressing west of Krasnodar, where the enemy is resisting grimly. Nevertheless the Russians in one day captured several populated places, wiped out many Germans and captured large quantities of material. .'Russian bombers throughout the day were blitzing crossings ports of the Kerch Peninsula. Heavy bombers at night time are blasting the ice covering the Kerch Strait, to prevent Gelman supplies and reinforcements from the Crimea reaching the narrowing bridgehead on Taman Peninsula, Many gliders, which

the Germans are using on a mass scale to carry reinforcements have been shot down in flames and the bases from which they operate heavily raided. London military observers believe the Germans may make a general withdrawal on the northern and central fronts. They think the German High Command is preparing the civilian population for this move by reporting Russian troop movements on these points in overwhelming strength, ,