Red Army Takes 75,000 Prisoners

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 21, 26 January 1943, Page 5

Red Army Takes 75,000 Prisoners

LONDON, January 25. The main news of the fighting on the eastern front today is the complete occupation by the Russians of Voronezh, a key point on the southern front.

The occupation was announced first in a special, communique and then in the usual Moscow communique. In ..both, cases it was made clear that the entire town had been occupied.

[ The special communique said that [the number of prisoners taken in Voronezh up to yesterday was 75,000 officers and men. The Russians have also taken a number of other places in the southwest, wes"t, and south, and in the northern Caucasus. Last summer the Germans occupied some of the outlying western suburbs of Voronezh. The main fighting on the Voronezh front is about 50 or 60 miles south of where strong Russian pincers are thrusting westwards and southwards in an effort to isolate the entire German army in.the Don basin. In the Caucasus the Russian advance has made progress, and Soviet columns are pushing nearer and nearer to' Kropotkin and Tikhoretsk, key railway junctions. It is revealed today that the air arm of the Black Sea fleet is taking a hand in the rout of the Axis army. Today's German communique again seemed to be preparing the people at home for bad news about the army trapped at Stalingrad. It said that the Germans there, with their Rumanian allies, were fighting to the end against overwhelming Russian forces. Axis radio stations speak of Russian breaches into the German lines, and emphasise that the situation of the Stalingrad army is rapidly getting [ worse. Moscow has told how the Russians are dealing with the dwindling German garrison. At one place Soviet sappers tunnelled their way under a big building the Germans had fortified, and blew it up with the defenders. At another point there was a long battle with hundreds of German troops in a courtyard. Eventually the Germans were wiped out with hand grenades. In a hospital captured by the Russians the Germans had abandoned the wounded, who had frozen to death.