CRITICAL STAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 67, 20 March 1943, Page 5

CRITICAL STAGE

DONETS RIVER BATTLE

MASSIVE NAZI TANK ATTACKS

(By Ttiagraplj—Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec. 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, Mar. 19. > •The momentous battle Jor the Donets River is now in a critical stage. Huge infantry and tank forces are doing battle as the fierce tide of fighting sways to and fro across the half-frozen river. Nevertheless, the1 Russians, with undiminished vigour, are.crashing on with important offensives further north. They are drawing the net closer around Smolensk, whiie Marshal Timoshenko is forcing back the enemy south of Lake Ilmen. Massive German tank attacks newly menace the Russian winter gains in* the Kharkov area.

Reujer's Moscow correspondent says that' the- German claim to .-"have..; captured Byelgorod suggests that the southern arm of the Russian salient which half encircles Orel has been rolled back. The Russians admit that the -Germans have penetrated their positions in the Chuguyey area, where the-Germans are throwing in fresh farces in order to widen the gap. The retention of the Chuguyev sector is vital for the protection of the Russian left flank in the vicinity of Volchahsk.

The Red Army still holds the bridge--head on the western- bank of the pbrTets near Chuguyev, after smashing the German wedge, but it is very difficult to prevent the Germans, under cover of darkness, placing pontoon bridges across the river at some points along 150 miles of the upper reaches of the river. The Germans are eager to secure a bridgehead to thrust tanks across the thawing ice.

THAW MAY BE RUSSIANS' FRIEND. | The untimely thaw which origin- j ally caused the halt in the Russian offensive may prove -to be the Red j Army's friend in the crisis on the Donets front. If the ice cracks up, the river will for days be a whirling mass of broken ice which will sweep away pontoon bridges. Meanwhile, light Russian units are takiftg advantage of the ice to make swift raids on. the western bank and to mine the most important crossing places. Another Moscow .message says that a tremendous battle has developed around the Russian bridgehead at Chuguyev, where blows from German massed tank fists succeed one another in rapid succession. These non-stop shock tactics have succeeded in one sector in wresting some territory from the-Russians, but the latest dispatches from the front line indicate that the German mechanised forces have been halted, at least temporarily. On the central front the Red air force' now has the task of softening up the belts of the German strongpoints. Stormoyiks are plastering the enamy batteries and road communications leading to the front. Marshal Timoshenko's troops, advancing across thawing marshes, sometimes kneedeep in sticky mud, are continuing the advance which in the last four days has not been halted. The' Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain reports that a Russian and his wife bought a tank,, received training, and went to the front in it to fight, and that their lead has started a new movement: the Russian Press reports that many others are doing likewise.