HELD AT RIVER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 March 1943, Page 3

HELD AT RIVER

GERMANS LOSE HEAVILY IN MEN & TANKS SOVIET ATTACKS IN NORTH. CAPTURES WEST OF LAKE ILMEN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, March 10. Reporting on the results of the .. powerful German counter-blows ▼ which have been made in the Donetz Basin on a 120-mile front since last month, the Moscow midnight communique stated that the Germans used 25 divisions against the Red Army advancing toward the Dnieper, south and south-west of Kharkov, and forced the Russians to evacuate eight towns and retreat across the upper Donetz. The Germans in the 10 days of the attacks lost 25,000 men killed, and 650 tanks were destroyed. All indications are that the Russians have now checked the drive. The Germans are doing all they can to cross the upper Donetz, from which they . could outflank Kharkov from the south, but they have been held at the river. Today’s Moscow communique says that fierce battles are still going on. Moscow reports the capture by the Russians of the town of Kumanoye, 20 miles north-east of -Viazma, on the main railway. The Germans today admit the loss of Byeloi, north-west of Viazma and 50 miles west of Sychevska. Part of Marshal Timoshenko’s army in the north-west appears to have bypassed the big German base of Staraya Russa, south of Lake Ilmen. Moscow reports the occupation of several places to the west of the lake in the last 24 hours. The Red Army is attacking toward the base from the south-east, and Berlin today says that other forces have crossed the still-frozen lake and launched an attack from the north. The following towns in the south were reported in the midnight Russian communique to have been evacuated in the course of a series of battles: Krasnograd, Lozovaya, Pavlograd, Krasnoarmeisk, Kramatorskaya, Barvenkova, Slavyansk, and Lisichansk. Emphasising the increasing fighting in the northern sectors of the Donetz Basin front, the Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” says that the Russians have completely withstood the strong German tank attacks. The Germans are losing heavily. The correspondent adds that reports from Berlin suggest that the Germans’ activity has been designed as a preventive delaying measure, somewhat resembling Rommel’s, rather than a co-ordinated offensive. ♦ RUSSIANS AMUSED AT NAZI FABRICATIONS. HEAVY DEFEATS CALLED WITHDRAWALS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, March 9. Reuters Moscow correspondent says: “Russian military circles are amused at the German excuses for their reverses when the Wehrmacht has been outgeneralled and out-fought. The Russians do not announce the capture of a town till they have completed its occupation, and the Germans, taking advantage of the few hours’ lapse, broadcast assertions that they have withdrawn according to plan, whereas in every case they have been hurled out after heavy fighting.” Moscow radio, giving details of the I capture of Sychevka, contradicts the German claim that it was evacuated according to plan. The radio says that the Germans rushed up large reinforcements in a desperate effort to hang on to the town, which was heavily fortified. The enemy suffered heavy casualties. The fall of Sychevka, where the Germans had established many hospitals and military stores, also making it the headquarters of a tank division, is attributed by reports reaching Stockholm to shrewdly directed blows which completely bewildered the enemy command.