IN DESPERATE ATTEMPTS TO CROSS DONETZ

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 March 1943, Page 3

IN DESPERATE ATTEMPTS TO CROSS DONETZ

Terrific Air Battles Being Fought STEADY SOVIET PROGRESS IN DRIVES TOWARDS SMOLENSK TEN MORE VILLAGES CAPTURED SOUTH OF LAKE ILMEN LONDON, March 18. The highlight of today’s news from Russia is the violent fighting in the Kharkov area, where the Germans are trying desperately to force a crossing of the Donetz River, east of the city. So far, every German attack has been repulsed with heavy losses. Mr Paul Winterton, the London “News-Chronicle’s” Moscow representative, says it is still too early to say that the enemy attack has reached its peak, but it is a fact that he has not succeeded in getting any further. He has lost many men and tanks and is now throwing in reserves. The hardest fighting has been at a place 25 miles south-east of Kharkov. The Russians have not only hurled back the Germans here, but have recaptured a strategic village. Terrific air battles are being fought out all day long in some sectors. Soviet fighters and bombers are hitting the enemy hard. The Moscow “Red Star” says that the Germans are throwing in fresh tanks in an all-out effort to break through. Divebombers, protected by “a sky-full of fighters,” lead the tanks into battle. The Russians smashed a German counter-attack west of Sievsk, in the Kursk sector. Reuter’s correspondent points out that the German counteroffensive now stretches from a point 80 miles north-west of Kursk to Izyum, about 75 miles south-east of Kharkov. The Germans have failed badly in the Kursk area, where they have made jio progress in tvzo days. They have concentrated their main effort in the south, near Izyum. In the central sector the Russian drives towards Smolensk are making steady progress. In the north the Russians have recaptured ten more villages, south of Lake Ilmen. The German radio admits today that Soviet forces have pierced the German lines at Staraya Russa.