HITTING BACK

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 187, 9 August 1941, Page 7

HITTING BACK

| BIG TANK BATTLES Huge Russian Forces Bar Way To Moscow • l nil.ml l'rcss Association.—Copyright. LONDON, Aug. S. winiVi claim that they have Lm German 'airborne troops ■ro , r- tanks m the Smolensk nnrt tl l ,? r t r v. eSP^ ndCntS in MOSCOW rein rr J, h< 1 Russians are still ho king Smolensk, ana are hitting backin this sector. French diplomats \\ ho have arrived at Stockholm from Moscow state that 40 divisions of iresn Russian troops, with a surprising quantity of modern equipment are stationed between Smolensk and Moscow. A Moscow message says 200 German tanks were destroyed when according to dispatches from the front last night, the Russians from } l< \° directions attacked a column of the German Eighth Tank Division which stretched several miles alone a road. & The Moscow radio states that the Germans have lost 1.500,000 men killed, wounded and taken prisoner, as against Russia's 000,000: also 6000 tanks, against Russia's 5000; and 0000 aircraft, against Russia's '1000. Analysing the strength of the German reserves, the Soviet newspaper lzvcstia ' estimates that Germany's total available manpower for military purposes is 7,000.000, including all men to the age of 50. Men available between the ages of IS and 40 number approximately 4,000,000. Izyestia adds: "These figures explain why Hitler is trying to achieve victory with a lightning war. For this purpose, in the first few weeks of the campaign, he sent his best soldiers and specialists to their deaths, as a result of which the quality oi his men is gradually deteriorating. Insufficient manpower r.ther than economic difficulty due to the blockade constitutes Hitler's gravest danger. Inded, it spells his doom." "Fairy Tales of German Command" A Moscow supplementary communique headed "Fairy Tales of the German High Command" says that the German Army's heavy losses and the Red Army's ever-growing resistance against the invaders have disastrously affected not only the spirit and morale of the German Army but also the spirit and morale of the .whole German people. It adds that while concealing from the German people the German Army's real losses, the High Command feeds them on absurd lies like its fantastic figures recently published. The German High Command also endeavours to explain the heavy German losses and the protractedness of the campaign by creating a legend about the existence of a powerful, fortified Stalin Jdne whereas no special Stalin Line exists. "Every Inch a Fortified Zone" The Soviet, of course, says the communique, has created fortified points wherever necessary, but these have not constituted a special Stalin Line. The Red Army and population are transforming every inch of their native land into a fortified zone. Nazi propaganda has surpassed itself with fantastic figures of Soviet losses. The technique of these mendacious estimates is that the Nazis, after seizing any Soviet area, mobilise by force the peasants, other workers, and women for hard labour, or drive them to the rear, then declare them to be prisoners of war. Thus the Germans fabricate the legend about the number of Red Army men taken prisoner. The German High Command is forced to issue these obviously false reports as a result of the failure of its blitzkrieg and the failure of its bandit designs to secure grain, cattle, factories and reserves of raw material, also bv its own heavy losses of men and material. U.S. Aviation Petrol Mr. Harold Ickes, defence oil coordinator, announced to-day in Washington that four American, tankers had been transferred to export aviation petrol to Russia. At the same time, he said, there would be a shorfage of high octane petrol unless the output was increased immediately. Petrol rationing on the east coast of the United States is not far ahead, in spite of widespread efforts to influence motorists to voluntarily curtail their consumption, which has actually increased in the last fortnight.