GROWING RESISTANCE

Evening Star, Issue 24016, 15 October 1941, Page 7

GROWING RESISTANCE

NAZI ADVANCE SLACKENING GERMANS CLAIM MOSCOW IN GUN RANGE (Reo. 11 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 14. According to Russian despatches from the front the German forces in the Vyazma sector are meeting growing resistance, which is slackening the rate of advance. Soviet forces from Bryansk, under the command of General Yeremenko, which retired orderly and intact, are now beating back enemy attacks against their new positions. ‘ Izvestia ’ reports endless columns of Russian reinforcements moving up to the Orel sector after the German forces fell into the Russian trap. After a seven days’ tank battle on the. Orel front the Soviet forces have taken up a new line of defence. The ‘ Red Star ’ also says fighting is proceeding continuously around l Melitopol on the southern front. The Germans lost three battalions in capturing a height during a three days’ battle.

The Nazi spokesman claimed that the outer defence belt of Moscow was now within range of the German Artillery. He added that the German forces were now driving down from the Valdai hills in the direction of the Mos-cow-Leningrad railway. A special German communique states; The enemy forces enclosed in the Vyazma sector are definitely wiped out. The destruction of the enemy in the Bryansk pocket is continuing. The prisoners in this gigantic double battle are now over 500,000 and the number is increasing hourly. The total number of prisoners since the beginning of the eastern campaign is far in excess of 3,000,000.

BATTLE FOR VYAZMA ENEMY'S HUGE LOSSES LONDON, October 14. The immensity of the Russian struggle can be judged from the latest Russian communique, which, after announciim the evacuation of Vyazma, states that the enemy suffered huge losses of men and material in taking Vyazma on October 11. No fewer than 122 German planes were destroyed, of which 16 were shot down. We lost 27. On October 13 seven German planes Wore shot down in the vicinity of Moscow.” A supplementary Moscow communique says: “The enemy is bringing up largo numbers of mobile troops and aircraft with which he is attempting to develop an offensive in a number of sectors on the central front, but everywhere he is encountering stubborn resistance. Our air force throughout the day has been bombing enemy reserves and ammunition columns heading for the front, and for every inch of ground the enemy is paying with mountains of dead, losing over 6,000 killed and wounded in one sector on October 13. The enemy also continues to bring new forces to action on the southern front, but our counter-action is checking his advance. In one sector on this front the Soviet air forces, commanded by Marshal Melikov, in three days wiped out 2,500 officers and men, six tanks, seven armoured cars, nine guns, 122 machine guns, and 144 lorries, mostly laden with troops.