STRONG ATTACKS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13014, 4 December 1942, Page 5

STRONG ATTACKS

SOVIET ADVANCE

Enemy Resistance Stiffens The Stalingrad Front London, Dec. 3. The Soviet forces continue to attack strongly at all points on the Stalingrad front and also on the central front between Rzhev and Veliki Luki. They have now adopted what a correspondent describes as a slow grinding of the enemy fortifications. Enemy resistance is now stated to be stiffening in the triangle between Stalingrad, the Volga and the Don. German transport planes are hard at it carrying in food and troops to reinforce the trapped Germans. They are forced to fly just above the ground and the Russians are taking a heavy toll of them. South-west of Stalingrad the Soviet forces continue to make good progress and they are now only a few miles from Kotelnikovo. The retreat of the enemy goes on everywhere and nowhere are the Germans holding their ground. A Moscow message says that above the city from Rzhev to Veliki Luki the line is one wall of fire.

In the Veliki Luki area good progress has been made and the Russians have taken more villages. The Germans are making desperate efforts to recapture the RzhevViazma railway line but all attempts have failed and they have suffered great losses. The strength of the Russian drive between Rzhev and Veliki Luki is being maintained all along the front.