NO GROUND GAINED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 305, 7 October 1942, Page 4

NO GROUND GAINED

THE ASSAULT ON STALINGRAD. BATTLE RAGES SIXTY HOURS. I NEW RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE. ' (N.Z. Press Association— Copyright). (Rec. 10.5 a.m>. LONDON Oct. 6. The great German assault against 'the workers settlement in north-wes-tern Stalingrad has now raged for more than CO hours but so far has failed to gain ground. The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” says that the present crescendo of the last German onslaught is apparently the first direct result of Hitler’s emphatic promise last week that Stalingrad Avould be captured and the intervening days ■were used to gather energies for a supreme effort. The opened a very heavy artillery barrage early on Sunday, after which a concentration of 30,000 men with a spearhead of 100 tanks was set in movement.

The newspaper “Izvestia” says that no such battle has been seen on the Stalingrad front for a long time. Waves of German planes bombed the Russian positions. Thousands of shells and mines were pumped into the city but the defenders rose from ruins and overwhelmed wave after wave of German infantry. The fight continued throughout the night, -under flares. The battle was unabated yesterday During the night, Russians struck savage counterblows. The battle continued this morning with the same violence.

“Pravda’s” correspondent at Stalingrad declared: “The strength of our resistance plus the Germans’ bloody losses is creating conditions for allother major defeat of Hitler’s armies.”

Marshal Timoshenko's relief drives from north-west and south-west are meanwhile making progress cautiously in the face of fierce German coun-ter-attacks. The Germans are parachuting many snipers on the open steppe in an attempt to hold up the drive from the north-west but the Russians, pressing forward, occupied a hill from which German artillery Was operating.

The Vichy radio, declared that the Russians launched a new offensive (south of Stalingrad and that the Russians in Stalingrad received still more ’reinforcements

Reports from all sources concentrate on the see-sawing battle at Stalingrad to the exclusion of other fronts, but fierce flghting'is occurring in other areas. 'The Russians, taking the offensive, at Voronezh, cleared the German blockhouses and increased tire depth of the wedge driven into the German defences.

The Germans are using paratroops in a considerable scale in the Caucasus, dropping them on widely separated points,' but the Russians held (all attacks. The Luftwaffe, considerably reinforced south-west of Novorossiisk, is heavily bombing the Russians in the Mozdok area drove the back from the outskirts of a village,, killed 100 and destroyed Seven tanks. The Berlin radio stated that Marshal Budenny is commanding the Russians in the Western Caucasus.

The German News Agency reports a four-day battle south of Lake Ladoga and claims that the Germans annihilated seven Russian divisions. The Germans also claim that they have advanced south-west of Rzhev, where they caused heavy casualties to the Russians.