VITAL BATTLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 116, 19 May 1942, Page 5

VITAL BATTLE

RUSSIAN THREAT TO UKRAINE

NAZIS USE RESERVES

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec. noon.) LONDON, May 18.

The great battle in the Kharkov area continues with unabated fury, says the Stockholm correspondent of "The Times." :

Berlin says that the Russians have managed to .score several local successes, but claims that the Germans and Rumanians have the situation under control.

The conviction has already taken root" that the battle is the most vital since General Zhukov halted the German offensive against Moscow in December. The most recent German references show that the High Command realises that the fate of the whole of the German plans is staked.on its result. Even if Marshal Timoshenko does not take Kharkov, he may break the offensive power of the German armies which are arrayed in the south for the drive eastwards.

The Moscow correspondent of "The Times" expresses the opinion that the whole of the Donets Basin in the eastern Ukraine is threatened by Marshal Timoshenko's advances. The Germans have, switched their reserves to the Kharkov front, but the Russian mastery of the air is still decisive.

•A Moscow correspondent, referring to the tank battles* says that Russian experts spent a considerable time studying how to deal with tanks, and have complete confidence in their weapons, especially the light mobile anti-tank rifle. Brave fighters handle this long-barrelled and curious-looking weapon, letting the tanks come near, and then riddling them.

A prisoner taken by the Russians revealed that only very small numbers of Germans remain in France, nearly all having been sent to the Eastern Front.

Moscow radio says that a message from the Kharkov front states that the Russians crossed a large river and captured a strategic inhabited localityThree units of German parachutists were annihilated with sabres when they landed in the rear of the Russian lines. The Russians repulsed an attack by 120 German tanks and destroyed 59 of them.

Another Moscow message states that the Germans are moving in an evergrowing number of tanks on the Kharkov front. Infantry are operating from armoured tank trailers, and parachutists, supported by the Luftwaffe, are repeatedly counter-attacking in a vain effort to stem the Russian, advance.

A supplementary communique dealing with Russian captures of war booty on various fronts concludes with a reference to the activities of guerrillas in the Smolensk district, where in three months they killed 2000 Germans, set fire to three ammunition dumps, an oil store, and an equipment store, derailed four trains, and destroyed or captured large quantities of other war material.

The latest German reports from the Kharkov front concede that the Russians have encircled a German base which is believed to be one of the fortifications of the inner defence zone, says Reuters Stockholm correspondent. The Germans say that the fighting is growing more violent. They are counter-attacking with powerful masses-of armoured forces in an endeavour to recapture lost ground directly east of Kharkov city.

The Russians in the Kerch Peninsula are reported to have broken out of the German encirclement and to be still holding the coastal region at Yenikale. The Russians bitterly defended the town of Kerch. The whole terrain was literally covered with hidden mines, which were exploded by distant contact at most unexpected places.