TERRIFIC TANK BATTLE

Evening Star, Issue 24424, 9 February 1943, Page 3

TERRIFIC TANK BATTLE

FIGHTING SOUTH OF ROSTOV LONDON, February 8. The Red! Air Force to-night sighted long German columns moving to the west from Rostov. The Stockholm correspondent of the ' Daily Express ' interprets this report as supporting the German hints that they are evacuating Rostov because " it is no longer vital." The report also coincides -with despatches from Moscow stating that the Germans flung in panzer forces in a desperate bid to hurl back -the Red Army.

A terrific tank battle developed a few miles south of Rostov. This may have been a German attempt to save the city, or an effort to delay the Russian advance sufficiently long to enable the evacuation of the German columns. Medium enemy tanks attacked the Russian flanks, and the conflict spread over an area of five miles. The Russian Klimvoroshilovs then brushed the enemy aside, over-running the defences. Russian planes, striking behind the battle-front, swooped on the German reinforcements, causing havoc in their ranks with bombs and machine guns. Rostov is facing direct thrusts from the south and south-west. The Russians now control the whole of the south banks of the Don estuary south of Rostov, and are also pushing further down the coast of the Sea of Azov. The remnants of the German Caucasian army are penned in a small area of the Kuban country, their only means of escape being the Kerch Straits, across which they are slowly filtering. Dealing with the position on the Voronezh front, the Moscow correspondent of ' The Times ' says that unless the Germans are able to halt or delay the Russian attack their chance of an orderly withdrawal from the Donetz appears to have gone, and they risk a calamity surpassing even that suffered by the Sixth Army at Sfca'iugrad. The well-known journalist, Mr J. L. Garvin, says that the Russians threaten to engulf the enemy in the t)onetz area, and to regain the industrial Ukraine. Mr Garvin adds that the )oss of Kursk and Kharkov would force T.he Germans to fall back to the Dneiper River.