LOWER DON THREAT

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23701, 28 July 1942, Page 5

LOWER DON THREAT

Germans Continue Progress JITTER FIGHTING > IN ROSTOV (Received July 27, 11 p.m.) (N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, July 27. To-day’s Russian communique describes desperate hand-to-hand fighting in the suburbs of Rostov and admits that the Germans have forced another breach in the defences of the city. There is no confirmation of the German claim to have crossed the marshy Don estuary and to have advanced 10 miles south of Rostov. Agency messages say the most bitter fighting is going on in the north-east suburbs of Rostov, where the Germans are using masses of dive-bombers. East of Rostov, in the loop of the Don, German advances continue along the lower reaches of the river and east towards the Volga and Stalingrad. Half a dozen battles have been fought during the last 48 hours in the steppe country of the Don., Here the Germans, according to reports from the front, have numerical superiority, especially in tanks. Halfway between Rostov and Stalingrad, in the Tsimlyangkaya area, the Russians are striving desperately to stem the German break-through. The Germans were earlier reported to have forced two bridgeheads ovfer the river and are now probing the river defences for new crossings. The strength of the Germans here is not indicated, but the Russians are seeking to liquidate as many as possible of them before reserves can be brought up.

Mr Paul Winterton, the “News Chronicle” correspondent, in a message to the British Broadcasting Corporation from Moscow, states that the defenders of Rostov, realising that a German advance in the south threatens the life of all Russia, are putting up a sacrificial resistance. Knowing that they have virtually no chance of survival, they are selling their lives as dearly as possible, fighting at fortified posts to the last round of ammunition and to the last man, . yj The enemy has now reached the out- / ikirts of Rostov and each building has Mo be stormed, separately, always at a heavy cost. The present Soviet policy is to put up the most stubborn deferice for every yard of ground and drain the Nazi strength, making the enemy pay exorbitantly for each success, - ' Crossing Bon into -Caucasus That policy is being pursued around Tsimlyanskaya. Here the Germans have succeeded in getting tanks across the Don at a point only 25 miles from the vital railway between the Caucasus and Stalingrad. The Germans have hurled men and machines mto the task of consolidating the bridgeheads and have established themselves on the south bank in fair strength. But the Russians are counter-attacking strongly, and it is too early to say that the river has definitely been forced. For every successful crossing, .there are dozens of unsuccessful attempts, and the riverbed is littered with tanks and lorries, and scattered all along it are rubber boats, smashed rafts, and pontoons, and the bodies of Nazi soldiers. If the German army does get across the river, it will be a different army from that which approached the north bank. „ . , Other reports state that at Tsimlyanskaya, the Germans, after repeated failures, succeeded in getting considerable forces across at two places and consolidated their positions. ‘‘Pravda’ states that the Russians had no sooner hurled the Germans back into the river than the Germans tried again at another place.

A terrific struggle for the crossings continues day and night. The Germans are using tanks, artillery, and violent dive-bombing attacks in an attempt to paralyse the Russian defence on the southern bank. The Russian air force is retaliating boldly and is engaging the enemy in dogfights over the Don, but the Germans have concentrated enormous masses of aeroplanes. Russian guns are also In action with desperate fury against overwhelming German mechanised forces. They smashed a score of German pontoons at one crossing and shot up rafts and flimsy boats made of wood and rubber with which the Germans are trying to force the Don. They drowned more than 1000 and scattered many, but the German hordes kept coming, and the EOsition has grown worse in the last 48 ours. A German communique states that south and east of 'Rostov, crossings were forced over the Don. Russian attempts to build up an orderly, cohesive, defensive front on the southern bank of the Don have failed. The direction of the German fighting is believed in London to suggest that the enemy plan is to strike south-eastward at the northern Caucasus. The Vichy radio reports that severe fighting is going on at the eastern extremity of the Don elbow, where the Germans are advancing towards Ostrokyanskaya and Platishananskaya, on the west bank of the Don, opposite Stalingrad. The German offensive is no longer a push on a wide front but an advance of separate shock columns. An “Izvestia” war correspondent says: "The Germans have only a few good tank crews left from last year. This year the men are not of the same quality, and when they cannot operate in a mass they are not heroes. Corn and grass are now high on the steppes, and the Germans are like herds in a mist. Russian pilots have a new slang term. When they set out against them 1 they say, ‘We are going out to graze.’ ”