TENTH CITY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 38, 15 February 1943, Page 3

TENTH CITY

GATE TO CAUCASUS

Nazis Driven Out Of Rostov For Second Time

In December last The Times, surveying the Russian offensive, said that the attacks had been so bold and remarkable that commentators had been led to talk of the recapture of Rostov and Smolensk. ' The Russians themselves had deprecated any such suggestions, and The Times said that these cities stood far beyond the limit to which the most successful offensive would reasonably be expected to penetrate against certain resistance in mid-winter. However, the Russian offensive gained in momentum instead of slackening, and early this year Russian forces were storming the Axis defences at the junction of the Don and Donetz Rivers. By January 25 the Red Army offensive against Rostov was taking definite shape and Soviet forces were coming in against the city from the north, east and south-east. Since then one important enemy stronghold after another has fallen. Rostov was one of the chief Russian ports for .the great industrial and agricultural areas of the Don and Donetz basins. It had grown rapidly in the few years prior to the war, and was considered Russia's tenth city. Standing at the gateway to the Caucasus, Rostov is an important city strategically as. well as commercially. This is the second time that the Germans have been driven out of Rostov. Their first offensive in 1941 terminated at Rostov which they held for only a short period before being expelled in the first Russian winter offensive. In July, 1942, the Germans were again smashing at the defences of Rostov. They claimed the fall of the city several days before it was admitted from Moscow. "After stubborn fighting our troops have evacuated Novocherkask and Rostov," was the .wording of the official Russian announcement in the early hours of July 28, when news from the front made it clear that the Germans had already by-passed Rostov on the west and had crossed the Don delta. The Russians put up a terrific fight for the city, only yielding ground from house by house, and leaving behind them blazing ruins. Soviet troops made their last stand in the south-west part of the town around the railway bridge across the Don. It was there that they were by-passed and later attacked by a following wave of German troops.