DAY OF VICTORY FOR SOVIET

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13063, 4 February 1943, Page 5

DAY OF VICTORY FOR SOVIET

STALINGRAD'S FALL CELEBRATED Russian Guns In Range Of Rostov Escape Lane For Southern Axis Army Narrows London, Feb. 3. A day of victory was celebrated by the Soviet armies on Tuesday. The battle of Stalingrad has been won and it is officially announced from Moscow that all fighting in and around Stalingrad is over.

On September 30 Hitler said, "The Russians will never recapture Stalingrad." To-day the Russians are in complete possession of the city and a German army of 330,000 men has melted away.

The Red Star quotes captured German generals' declaration that the flower of the Wehrmacht perished at Stalingrad. Many units consisted solely of officers, and the' bulk of those annihilated were mainly Prussians. Thousands of corpses littered the streets, holding up military traffic, and thousands of ghost-like, frost-bitten prisoners were still emerging from cellars and dug-outs seeking to surrender. At least 24 German generals including Field Marshal von Paulus are reported .to have been captured at Stalingrad. With the cessation of fighting at Stalingrad the large Soviet ' forces which have been engaged there are being rapidly transferred to other vital areas on the Russian front. The main portion is being rushed up to the attack on Kupiansk- which is on the main railway line about 70 miles east of Kharkov. In the north-west Caucasus the gap between the advancing Russians and the shores of the Sea of Azov is now less than 50 miles wide. The whole German army in the Caucasus must go through this gap. The Russians are now battering away at the outer perimeter defences of Rostov and Soviet heavy guns are in range of the city. The Germans have ringed Rostov with new and powerful defences. It is estimated that the Germans have about 25 0,000 men in Rostov and if the Russians decide to storm it and the Germans defend it the battle will be a very tough one.