FURIOUS BATTLE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 8, 11 January 1943, Page 3

FURIOUS BATTLE

ON CENTRAL FRONT

Nazi Troops Seen Firing On Italian Garrison N.Z.P.A. and British Wireless Rec. 1 p.m. LONDON, Jan. 10. The central front has boiled up again. A Russian dispatch to-night discloses that a two-day battle on an unnamed sector raged furiously after the Germans had flung in massed tanks and infantry in an effort to recover lost ground. The dispatch reports that the Germans, have already lost 900 prisoners, 17 tanks, 20 guns and 16 strong points. One panzer column, after suffering severe losses, turned tail. * The Germans, as in Libya, are sacrificing vassal troops. An instance of this occurred on the Don front, where the Russians carrying out their usual tactics of envelopment, reached the rear of an Italian garrison and saw Germans firing on Italians who were trying to escape. The terrorism endured by the inhabitants of Mosdok, in the Central Caucasus, during four months of German occupation, are described by survivors. Of 300 soldiers imprisoned in one house, only 70 emerged, and they resembled living skeletons. One who died after release had 14 untended wounds. The Germans ruthlessly plundered the city, which was once famous for cleanliness and is now littered with debris. Stalingrad Army Menaced Russian forces advancing on both sides of the Lower Don are steadily clearing the remaining southern part of the Don bend, east of the Lower Donetz, and are consolidating their hold on the southern railway halfway between Stalingrad and Rostov.

The significance of these operations, which have been proceeding during the past week or two, is that there is now a solid belt of some 120 miles between the great German army which is still desperately holding on at Stalingrad and any prospect of relief. An artillery barrage is being maintained inside the Stalingrad factory belt and the Germans are steadily being ejected froifl buildings. "Our attention continues to be focused on the striking success of the Red Army and the major German withdrawal from the Caucasus apparently has begun," said the United States Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, to journalists in Washington. He expressed the opinion that the position of the Germans in Russia was precarious.