ENEMY PRESSURE INCREASES

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23997, 12 July 1943, Page 5

ENEMY PRESSURE INCREASES

Soviet Line South Of Kursk POSITION SAID TO BE DIFFICULT (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, July 11. “The latest front-line reports show that there is a considerable increase in German pressure through the two wedges driven into the Russian lines south and south-east of Kursk,” says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. “Very heavy fighting is going on round a township which already has changed hands three or four times.”

The Moscow correspondent of the “Sunday Times” says the Russians are in a difficult position in the Byelgorod area south of the Kursk salient. The penetrations of the two tank wedges are some miles deep and the Russian defence lines have been broken up. It is freely admitted in Moscow that the situation at Byelgorod is less favourable than at any time since the opening of the German offensive on July 5.

The Red Army newspaper “Red Star” says there were cases where individual Russian units were forced to retire to new positions, but subsequently the Russians brought in reserves and by determined counter-attacks forced the enemy back to their initial positions.

The Soviet communique says that the Russians yesterday on the Orel, Kursk, and Byelgorod fronts repulsed many attacks from large enemy forces. The Red Army in the Orel-Kursk sector held an enemy attack. The Germans in one sector attacked at several points simultaneously. Our units repelled 10 attacks, held on to their positions, and killed about 1500 men and destroyed 40 tanks.

The Russians in the Byelgorod sector engaged in stubborn battles. The Germans brought up fresh reserves and attempted to develop an offensive in the sector where their tanks had previously driven a wedge. The Russians held and immobilised the enemy, inflicting enormous losses.

The Germans lost another 272 tanks and 83 aeroplanes on the Kursk front yesterday, according to the Soviet communique which says that according to figures now completed the enemy on Friday lost 223 tanks destroyed or damaged, and 144 aeroplanes brought down. The Germans therefore in their six days’ offensive have lost 2338 tanks and 1037 aeroplanes. _ . Soviet long-range aircraft on Friday night for the fifth successive night heavily attacked targets in the enemy’s rear, Soviet aircraft sank an enemy submarine in the Black Sea The Moscow radio reports that in the directions of Orel and Kursk the German troops, having sustained heavy losses of material, are bringing up new reserves. Heavy German tank attacks made a slight penetration of the Russian positions, but heavy losses inflicted on the enemy compelled him to retreat. Successive reports from Moscow-re-ceived during the evening emphasised the severity ol the fighting in the Byelgorod sector—the southern claw of the pincers with which the Germans are hoping to pinch out the entire Kursk salient. On one sector of this front the enemy threw into battle more than 1000 tanks and a large number of aircraft and artillery and infantry. The Soviet Air Force is successfully opposing the enemy land and air forces. In one attack on an enemy aerodrome 34 German aircraft were shot down. Critical Point “Russian tanks are fighting hard, as the great battle on the eastern front reaches a critical point, to throw back the German wedge driven into the defences south of Kursk," stated. Reuter’s corresponded in Moscow in an earlier dispatch, “The south flank at Kursk is not yet ill serious danger, but much depends on who wins the next round. The danger area is somewhere between Byelgorod and Kursk. Marshal von Kluge .has not gained any big operational success yet, but Soviet military circles emphasise that the German pressure is expected to increase. Much heavy fighting is still ahead. Marshal von Kluge is now in the position of being ‘in for a penny, in for a pound.’ He has about 150,000 ground troops in the line and reinforcements are coming up hourly.” The Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press reports- dozens of miles of the Kursk steppes were smoking as Marshal von Kluge’s armies swept into the fifth day of their offensive against the Red Army. Marshal von Kluge persisted in hurling in mechanical battering rams, led by Tiger tanks, against narrow sectors on the 125 miles wide Russian salient, but he has succeeded nowhere except in two places in the Byelgorod area. At the bottom of the 60-mlle bulge in the enemy lines the panzer columns managed, at awful cost, to wedge in there and advance slightly. The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press reports that the Russians are using “fireoags”—closely co-operating groups of tanks and guns —against the German tanks. In one case the Russians allowed the head of an advancing German column, comprising 40 tanks, to advance, and then a “firebag,” comprising a tank unit and artillery, closed in and wiped out the enemy. The German losses are still soaring. One German infantry regiment with-

drew after a day’s fighting with 2000 men killed and 80 tanks destroyed. Soviet airmen are attacking the Junkers 52’s and giant gliders, which the Germans are using to fly in reinforcements. They also are attacking German lorry convoys bringing up reserve troops, . . During the first day of the offensive Luftwaffe fighters attempted to establish a “flying fence" between the Russian aeroplanes and German bombers. Groups of between 60 and 80 Messerschntitts and Focke Wulfs hung oyer Russian soil six to 10 miles behind the front line, but the manoeuvre failed when the main group of Russian fighters outflanked the Luftwaffe “fence.” More than 100 German aeroplanes were destroyed in the resulting action, and many more were damaged. On the second day the Luftwaffe attempted to build up the “fence" to still greater strength, but the “fence" dissolved before a concentrated attack from Russian fighters, and the Germans lost another 80 aeroplanes. Soviet pilots have won the initiative in the air and the Germans now do not hang around.

The Moscow correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph Agency states that the chief reason for Hitler’s fail* ure to achieve not only strategic but even important tactical gains, is the fact that the Russian Air Force is stubbornly holding the Initiative over the entire Kursk salient, although the Luftwaffe is making a reckless bid . for air mastery by bringng up reserves from Western Europe, the Kuban, and the Southern Ukraine. Use of Reserves

The Berne correspondent of the “Evening Standard' 1 states that neutral correspondents in Berlin report that the Germans no longer hide the fact that the battle of the Orel-Byelgorod sector “has now reached such a point of intensity that both sides must fight on either to victory or overwhelming defeat.” The Germans admit that they were forced to pour in all their avail* able reserves early on Tuesday in order to stem the Russian counteroffensive and that the mechanised battle at present under way in the Byelgorod semi-circle far outweighs in the quantity of material engaged any other battles fought on the Russian front.

The Berlin military commentator on the radio said: “The greatest tank battle. the great air activity, and the intense artillery bombardment combine to make this the most violent battle of machines in this war. It can safely be assumed that the Russian Commander, General Rokossovski, still has strong tank reserves."