FURIOUS BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 March 1943, Page 4

FURIOUS BATTLE

BEING FOUGHT WEST OF KHARKOV RUSSIAN OPPOSITION STIFFENING. VAIN EFFORTS BY GERMANS TO CROSS DONETZ. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, Noon.) LONDON, March 10. ... Fighting on the muddy plains before Kharkov is growing hourly in intensity, as the Germans ceaselessly thrust against a narrow front. The German counter-of-fensive, aiming to retake the city, began on February 21. Employing a total of about 200,C()0 men, half of whom were reported to be fresh troops from the west, backed up by considerable armoured forces, the Germans gained important successes in the early stages, but the Russian opposition is now stiffening. General Golikov is bringing in every possible anti-tank gun and anti-tank rifle. The Germans are fruitlessly doing their utmost to cross the North Donetz, which, at its nearest point, is eighteen miles from Kharkov. The main German concentration is south of Kharkov. A heavy thrust is also being made against the Kharkov-Sumy Railway. The German counter-offensive caught the Russian armoured spearheads “on the wrong foot,” because a sudden thaw prevented the main force from rapiddly moving up to consolidate the spearhead’s gains The spearheads, however, put up a stubborn resistance, enabling the main force to take up positions before Kharkov. The transport problem probably is still difficult, because the Red Army, before the thaw, largely relies on road transport for "its 350 mile push from the Volga. The Germans appear to hold the initiative over a front extending 100 miles southward of Kharkov, but the Red Army forces retain the initiative on other sectors of the Russian front. Today’s German High Command communique states that the German attack westward and north-westward of Kharkov continues to gain ground. “Our attacking divisions,” it says, “reached the objectives set for the day.” The communique refers to embittered Russian counter-attacks. Mi’ Morley Richards, writing in the “Daily Express,” says the dispatch of German troops from the central front to the Donetz area may explain the Nazi success in the south and the Russian success in the centre. Examining the German advance in the Donetz area, Mr Richards says there is no reason to believe that Kharkov is in danger. .With the Germany Army counter-at-tacking on the Donetz, the Soviet Press has reopened the campaign for a second front. The “Pravda” ’says that because there is no second front, Hitler is bringing reserves from France, Holland and other occupied countries to the Russian front.

The military correspondent of the New York newspaper “P.M.” says the strengthened German resistance is due to the transference of a large number of Nazi troops from Western Europe. He adds that this is significant as most of these troops were reserves, held in readiness to meet a second front.

’The Germans have established defence positions between Riga and Odessa which are parallel to the westernmost bank of the Dnieper through White Russia to the Black Sea. Almost all military observers believe that this is the line which Hitler will make his most heroic effort. These fortifications are the last ditch. If the Nazis are forced back that far, they will have re-' linquished Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Donetz Basin and the Ukraine — practically every inch of ground they now hold the Soviet frontiers. They will not do this without a struggle of epic proportions.

SOVIET LINE

. .STABILISED ALONG MIDDLE DONETZ. “POSITION IN OTHER AREAS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.35 a.m.) RUGBY, March 10. The Russian line has been stabilised along the middle Donetz from Lisichansk up to Kharkov, but none of the recent Russian gains in the Northern Ukraine, north-west of Kharkov, have been affected by the enemy counteroffensive, nor have the Russians’ offensives south of Briansk and against Viazma and Staraya Russa been stopped. Th? Russians are half-way from Gzhatsk to Viazma and have crossed the Lovat River, 15 miles south-east of Staraya Russa. They have also advanced to about 50 miles from the Mos-cow-Smolensk railway, north of Yartsevo. IMPORTANT GAIN MADE BY SOVIET TROOPS. VIAZMA OUTFLANKED ON NORTH. (Received This Day, 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, March 10. A Russian special communique states: “Todajr our troops continuing to develop their offensive occupied the town of Byeoli, in the Smolensk region. The booty captured is being counted.” The capture of Byeoli. 75 miles north-east of Smolensk, the great German base in Central Russia, means that the Russians have now outflanked Viazma from the north.