IRON RESISTANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 104, 29 October 1941, Page 7

IRON RESISTANCE

MOSCOW'S DEFENCE

INCREASING RUSSIAN INITIATIVE

(Rec. 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, October 28,

Moscow broadcast messages state:

"Operations on October 26-27 were conspicuous for Russian counter-at-tacks, and Soviet units are increasingly taking the initiative. In several counter-attacks they forced the enemy to retreat in a number of sectors.

"The Germans in front of Moscow are meeting with iron resistance. In the course of an attempt to break through to a town in the north the Germans concentrated strong forces. Fighting started on the night of October 26 and lasted all the following day, and it was only at the cost of heavy casualties that the enemy succeeded in occupying several lines of minor importance.

"Next morning the battle again flared up. Three German regiments were thrown against the Russians in an attempt to take a road leading into the town, but all these attacks were repelled, and further German forces were wiped out. In the Mojaisk sector the Russians forced the, enemy back."

SKILFUL ANTI-TANK METHODS. A Russian communique states:

"Our trqops yesterday and last night engaged the enemy in the directions of Moiaisk, Malo Yaroslavets, Kharkov, and Taganrog. It is established that 39 German planes were destroyed on October 25, not 27 as previously stated. Eight enemy planes were brought down near Moscow yesterday: One of our units operating in one of the sectors of' the central front successfully repulsed two attacks by German tank columns consisting of over 80 tanks. Our men applied skilful methods of fighting against the tanks and destroyed 42 of them. Attempts by German planes to support the columns were unsuccessful. Eight enemy planes were shot down by our anti-aircraft fire. "In one of the sectors of the southwestern front our units inflicted heavy losses on German troops who attempted to break through our lines of defence. In two days' fighting 700.German officers and men were killed in front of our positions. Some groups of Nazi soldiers who broke through our defence lines were surrounded and completely annihilated. Our troops captured five enemy tanks, nine guns, 22 motor mortars, 60 automatic rifles, and a large quantity of ammunition. —8.0. W.

Stalingrad, and thence along the Volga to Saratov, where the first units of the new armies of Marshals Budenny and Voroshilov are already taking up positions. Marshal Timoshenko's main strength is naturally massed behind Rostov, and it is estimated that 1,000,000 men are the' advance guard for the Caucasus. The marshal, if desperately pressed, may destroy the sluices of a number of hydro-electric power stations which are within 50 miles of Rostov, thus confronting the Germans with a raging torrent of water which the recent rains would make all the more impossible to cross if the three main bridges across the Don. at Rostov are blown up.

DANGEE TO KHARKOV,

Moscow radio announced: "Under pressure of fresh German reinforcements near Kharkov, the Soviet troops carried out a slight withdrawal. The town is now endangered. The German losses have been exceptionally heavy."

The Germans, declares Vichy radio, are about 20 miles from Moscow.

The Russians are maintaining successful counter-hammering at the Germans outside Moscow, says Moscow radio, which adds: "Hour after hour hand-to-hand fighting is going on. The Germans are not only being held, but are being pushed back at one or two points. The railway station and electric power station in one town changed hands several times till finally the Russians ousted the enemy in a succession of bayonet charges."

The radio says that the great struggle for Kalinin has been, raging for ten days and nights without respite in. rain and appalling weather. House-to-house and-street-to-street fighting is still proceeding. ,