GREAT TANK ACTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 8, 9 July 1943, Page 5

GREAT TANK ACTION

No Success Yet For The Germans

LOiNDON, July 8.

One of the biggest tank battles of the war has been raging today on the Russian front on the flat plains of the Kursk salient. After three days in which their guns "and aircraft took a heavy toll of German armour, the Russians have now thrown their own tanks into action—and the flat plain of the Kursk salient is ideal for tank* warfare.

Frdnt-liae reports say that ■ the German' tanks have ; never, before shown . such . speed in manoeuvre, thrashing about from one sector to another, but the mobile Russian artillery, moves just as swiftly to meet every new attack. It is a grim, relentless struggle.

Successful Red. Army counter-at-tacks have regained some of the ground lost to the Germans. The midnight Moscow communique says that; once again today the Russians held all German attacks in. the northern part of the salient between Kursk and Orel. The, Germans have not made any advance there since the first day of the offensive, and today . the Russians drove the Germans out of a. number of points-captured Iri the initial drive. Fighting was'again .fierce; in'the south, . wlier,^- itheCG&niiui ::ajttac_ks. had •.met .with; "some"success;, i. "':::'■. ■'/." /.:. :'.*.*...;■. \':" ; ;~a -:gcpu.p--.-^sf e'niemy-. tafias' "mie'ee^ed-;f£)tiay;m "driv--■ing'a -wedge • into".: the"Russian defences on this part 6f^he-Jrttnt:::--: .■'-;. •• VV The Russians claim to'have-destroy-ed or put out of action today 304 German tanks,, Snaking a.total of more than 1800. Today was again marked by heavy air fighting on all. parts of the front, and the Russians claim to have destroyed 161 enemy aircraft.

The latest report says that heavy fighting is now going on behind the Soviet lines in the Byelgbrod area, where the Russians are making a strenuous effort to dislodge the panzers which drove a wedge in there. . Soviet bombers have struck hard-at the enemy's rear with attacks on troop trains and supply lines. All the Russian planes got back. , STRUGGLE TO AND FRO. Some villages, important only, because of their value as defence points, have changed hands many times in the course of a single day, and even after they have been reduced to a little more 'than a pile of. rubble. the battle for their possession goes on just as fiercely. The battlefield lies in the rich black belt of vital land, with small villages and patches of forest dotted here and there. This once peaceful countryside is shrouded in the smoke of battle, and a fog of heavy brown dust-clouds hangs over it. Beneath this dust-cloud groups of German tanks range north and south of Kursk looking for a gap in the Russian defences. At the Orel end of the front, north of Kursk, one blazing village was still being' stubbornly defended today though all the buildings in it have been destroyed. While the opposing forces sway backwards and forwards on the ground, the skies above are filled with masses of planes locked in almost endless air battle, swooping down to bomb and shoot up the ground forces. Sometimes as many as 200 planes take part in a single attack. It is difficult to imagine the scale of this vast battle, which one Berlin spokesman called today "the biggest ever fought on the Russian front."

Despite their great concentration of power the Germans' hopes of smashing a way through in one big blow have so far been frustrated.

troops," the announcement concludes. "It would be wrong to underestimate the strength of the German troops engaged in this major offensive, because it is very great. It would also be premature to draw final conclusions as to the outcome of the fighting. But one thing is clear beyond doubt: the decisive offensive which the Germans launched on Monday did not meet with success in the first three days" ,