BEHIND THE DON

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20837, 16 July 1942, Page 3

BEHIND THE DON

NEW DEFENCE LINE LIKELY SOVIET PLANS ROSTOV EVACUATION < 11 a.m.) LONDON, July 15. The Daily Telegraph’s Stockholm correspondent says that from the tone of preliminary reports from the Russian front it is obvious that a Russian retreat can be expected oehind the southern reaches of the Don River, entailing the evacuation of Rostov, while Marshal Timoshenko meantime has massed reinforcements in the hope of checking the enemy when the first impetus of the advance is spent. Two points stand out from the confusing welter of news: Firstly, the reed Army had not a hope of withstanding the first shock of the assault from Hitler’s enormous concentration of forces; and, secondly, Marshal Timoshenko, realising this in the first week’s fighting, has since fought a series of desperate rearguard actions with relatively small but powerfully armed formations while he tried to extricate the mass of his armies to reform somewhere westward of the Volga. It cannot be . foreseen at present how far Marshal Timoshenko will succeed in his plan. It is sufficient at the moment to admit that the situation is fraught with desperate danger for the Russians on their south flank. The Moscow radio says that a second European land front must be created. It will entail great British and American sacrifices, but these would be much greater if the eastern lront did not exist. “The battles on the eastern front are battles for New York and London,” it adds.