LARGE FORCES IN FLIGHT

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23806, 27 November 1942, Page 5

LARGE FORCES IN FLIGHT

Relentless Russian Pressure CONFUSION OF RETREAT (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) (Bee. 1,30 a.m.) LONDON, Nov. 26. With at least 250,000 Axis troops killed, captured, wounded, or dispersed the Russian offensive, which has been in progress for a week, is increasing In tempo. Their advance has already carried the Russians 100 miles at some points, and to-day they continue to press the Axis forces back southwards, threatening to throw into chaos the whole communications of the Kuban and Caucasian armies. The whole north-eastern portion of the Don elbow is now under the domination of Marshal Timoshenko’s mas«ive forces. As the Russian forces thrust southward, the cream of the Wehrmacht—the German army Group B— faces the threat tf annihilation. In the Stalingrad-Don pocket a confused stream of lorries, crammed with shock troops, columns of weary, trudging infantry, armoured cars, and supply vehicles, is pouring out through the gap. These forces are prodded in the rear by the defenders of Stalingrad, who, with supplies coming in by land from the north, are now dealing out from every section of the city the same steam-hammer blows that they themselves withstood for three months. The Russians have also moved up powerful artillery with incredible speed on the flanks of the fleeing Axis armies. Guns of all calibres are pouring in a hail of steel, dotting the roads of the retreat with burning lorries and scattered and shell-torn corpses. The German rearguards are putting up a desperate resistance to save the main body of their troops in the Stalinfirad offensive, but there is no stemming of the Russian advance, which m some places has passed the retreating forces. Unconfirmed reports from Stockholm say the German commander-in-chief has ordered a general withdrawal from Stalingrad. Other reports say the Germans in some areas are beginning to stop fighting. Dispatches from Moscow and Stockholm report that the Russians are relentlessly pursuing their steadily tightening hold on the Axis divisions, which * re almost encircled, as a result of the Russian drives north and south of Stalingrad. The Russians, fighting with sustained fury, have been ordered to turn to relief of Stalingrad into the “sstruction of the German armies. The Moscow correspondent of “The Times” says the Red Army, south and south-west of Stalingrad, is making the steppe lands the scene of violent Pursuit battles. The Germans, particularly those most distant from the railroads, are either retreating in disorder er fighting hopelessly. The Germans in the south-western sectors are fighting stubbornly, trying to establish an orderly withdrawal, out the Red Army is throwing in more snd more tanks. The Red Army has never previously reaped such a harvest of intact war material and so many prisoners.