LIQUIDATED AT STALINGRAD

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23858, 29 January 1943, Page 5

LIQUIDATED AT STALINGRAD

German Sixth Army RUSSIAN GAINS AT VORONEZH (N.Z. Press Association-Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, January 28. A special Moscow announcement states: “The liquidation of the German 6th Army before Stalingrad has been completed.” In the Voronezh area, where yesterday 5000 Axis troops were forced to surrender, the Russians have made further progress. To-day’s Soviet midday communique says the Germans on this front tried to stem the Russian advance near two Inhabited localities, but were forced to give ground, suffering heavy losses of men and material. The Russians on this front captured the large railway station of Gorschechnoye, about 60 miles south-west of Voronezh on the Elets-Valuiki railway. Further south the Germans are trying to stem the Soviet advance on Rostov. The Russian column which took Salsk is now only 65 miles away. Other Russian columns threaten the key railway junction of Tikhoryetsk. The Russians have captured Egorlyk and Novo Alexandrovsk, 50 and 40 miles respectively east of Kavkassk. They have also captured Srednyegorlik, 50 miles north-west of Salsk and 70 miles south-east of Rostov. Other forces captured Neftegorsk, 30 miles north-east of Tuapse, on the railway to Maikop and Armavir. “Good news is expected to be announced shortly from the Leningrad sector,” says the military correspondent of the “Daily Express.” “Last night there were new reports of fierce fighting south of Lake Ladoga. The Vichy radio reports major fighting In the Leningrad, Schluesselburg, and Velikye Luki areas, where the Russians are attacking with enormous forces.”

Fierce fighting is going on in the central sector of the Stalingrad trap, but the fate of the German group is sealed. The battered enemy remnants are being chased from houses into the open, where the Red Army forces are closing in from all sides and" wiping them out. A large number surrendered in one sector, but to the north of the city German units are still holding out and refusing to surrender. The latest messages report a noticeable slackening of resistance by the two remaining groups in the Stalingrad suburbs. Another report states that the trapped German garrison northwards of Stalingrad surrendered. The Germans elsewhere within the trap abandoned a hospital containing 700 wounded and men suffering from frostbite, all of whom had had practically nothing to eat for several days.' Extent of German Disaster The special Soviet communique announcing that the encircled enemy army in front of Stalingrad had been practically wiped out stated: ‘‘The history of warfare has never known another example of the encirclement and annihilation of such a large number of fully equipped regular troops.” A similar opinion is expressed in London, where it is considered that the German 6th Army was sacrificed, partly for prestige and partly as a result of miscalculation. The loss of nearly 250,000 men and enormous quantities of material at Stalingrad represents the sharpest single reverse Hitler has suffered since the war began. “A Russian front line report, dwells on the catastrophic German losses in men, equipment, and prestige by the utter collapse before Stalingrad," states the Moscow correspondent of ‘‘The Times." "The enemy’s material losses are estimated as being heavier than the British in the evacuation from Dunkirk, Greece, and Norway combined. Maps published indicate how extensive was the German hold on the city, and

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German-held port on the Black Sea coast of Western Caucasia. This would suggest that Marshal List’s forces have abandoned their attempts to reach Rostov. Military observers have predicted that the speedy Russian advances , through the northern Caucasus would ; cut off the German line of retreat, leaving the sea as the only means of escape. If the Germans attempt to escape from Novorosiisk, they will , run the gauntlet of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. i The Vichy radio to-day said that ! the Germans on the southern sector 1 of the 'Eastern Front have begun a 1 methodical and orderly withdrawal. The Stockholm correspondent of • “The Times” says: “The German ■ forces are becoming congested on the ‘ railways of the western Caucasus, with the Russians in the immediate approaches to the Kavkaskaya and Tikhoryetsk junctions. The barrier which the Germans hope to defend apparently includes an arc drawn from Tikhoryetsk, with Rostov near its centre. However, it is unlikely that the Germans really expect to stem the Russian offensive so far eastward, but hard fighting is certain before the Russians overcome this delaying barrier, and surge into the heart of the Donets basin. "The most important other operations on the southern front are west and south-west of Voronezh, where the Russians are again demonstrating superior winter mobility, and the Germans and Hungarians are doomed to suffer further, encirclements before their lines are shortened by re- ! According to Berlin reports the Rus- : sian offensive is spreading. Berlin i speaks of new offensives which are : not named, but a message from Stockholm states that violent attacks have broken out in the Velikye Luki area ' west of Moscow, at Rzhev, and at Schluesselburg, on the Leningrad 1 front. ' , Russians Consolidating There are signs at the moment that ■ on the main fronts the Russians are busy consolidating rather than making any deep new thrusts, but in the Caucasus and on the Voronezh front the Russians are still driving on to make more local gains. The Russians on Wednesday reported new gains in the Don area and in the Caucasus. Near Voronezh, a large railway station was captured, and in the Caucasus the Russians took a railway junction 25 miles north of Krapotkin. This is one of the few remaining German rail centres in this area. South-west of Voronezh large numbers of the enemy have surrendered. Several groups tried to fight their way through to the west yesterday, but after a sharp battle were repelled. AMERICAN AIR CRASHES TWO GENERALS KILLED (Rec, 1 a.m.) NEW YORK, Jan. 27. Twenty persons, including two American generals and 14 other highranking officers, were killed when two United States Army aeroplanes crashed. Brigadier-General Wash, Commanding the 2nd Air Support Command at Colorado Springs, and nine other officers of high rank, lost their lives in a crash near Flomaton, Alabama. The other aeroplane, carrying a general, two lieutenantcolonels, and three majors, crashed near Mobile, Alaska. All the bodies were badly burned and none of them has yet been identified.

how narrow the position which the Russians held so long. Yet, in spite of the. precarious situation, the Soviet Army's headquarters never moved to the east bank of the Volga, remaining In dugouts among the garrison.” The victory at Stalingrad not only releases an important group of Russian armies, but also (unties the chief rail knot between the Urals and the Black Sea. Trains may be expected to run within a few days, direct from the Russian capital, and from sources of supply to within a few Wiles of the active fronts. Thousands of battle-hardened troops are to-day preparing to move from Stalingrad to other fronts, reports Reuter's correspondent in Moscow. Crack infantry divisions, tanks, and air squadrons will be flung into action on various fronts from Voronezh to the south of Rostov, where the Red Army is steadily advancing. In the Caucasus The German armies in the Caucasus, whose retreat the Russians threaten to cut off, may attempt to escape by Way of the Black Sea. Turkish reports state that all Axis •hips in Turkish and Bulgarian ports have been ordered to Novorossiisk, the new demands ON GERMANS WARNING OF GRIM DAYS AHEAD mobilisation of whole population (Rec, 1.30 a.m.) LONDON. Jan. 28. „ Dr. Goebbels, in "Das Reich,” said: •the national morale demands that *very German man from the ages of *? to 65, and every woman from 17 to .H be compulsorily mobilised for war service or war work.” He added tnat the war had entered its grimmest measures about to be taken •Vife 6 l Vt deeply into German fam- , _ The Berlin radio says a German S°“«cal spokesman, Joachim Schieder“5 c *ter, quoted a German war decree ? the year 1679, which stated: “Who j’terts the colours shall hang without w ho in the midst of battle be(Eins to retreat shall be put to death, th. *®td; "These ordinances must rule hew mobilisation, which will no 3* e . r . apply only to soldiers. While towns, and villages have Wa immersed in misery, our home- „ nil?, has been spared, but we are witn. .St'S the explosion of accumulated shaking European foundations. .. We not only watch the _ Soviet Ikim* We realise that energies are ®ihg concentrated in Britain and , SrJSpca. More women than men enter ~?!|i*h war factories at the beginning ' each shift.