TO PREPARED LINE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20837, 16 July 1942, Page 5

TO PREPARED LINE

RUSSIAN JRETREAT rapid NaZi sweep hard fighting likely (By Telegraph — Press Assn. —Copyright.) (3 p.m.)' LONDON, July 14. Although the full stream of General von Book’s advance may be interrupted at Voronezh by the valiant Russian counter-attack, the gravity oi the German sweep south and southeastwards' is readily realisable from the capture of or threat to such places as Millerovo, Stalingrad, Migulmskaya and Voroshilovgrad, which are named to-day. The Times Stockholm correspondent says that apart from Voronezh and the 100-mile stretch of the Don to southwards of Boguchar, the mai battlefront must now be considered as stretching between the )unction of the Boguchar River with the Don down to the Sea of Azov, with the fronts north wing wheeling eastwards atone the Don to the Dons elbow 40 1 miles from Stalingrad, which is on the Volga’s corresponding elbow. The Russians are retiring to their main prepared line, roughly 200 miles Sng along the lower Don which is the ’ strongest natural defence line before the approaches to the Caucasus. After the Dnieper was abandoned last vear the Russians were not expected to make a really determined stand before this line was reached where presumably fresh armies are already stationed to meet and stem the German advance, when the tired, though intact, Russian forces now fighting will pass through to rest and reorganise as reserves in the rear. Hardest Fighting Ahead

The. Russians expect the hardest fiihtina in the Donetz basin south and south-east of Lisichansk where the German pressure already threat ens the local Russian flank and may compel the abandonment of several towns in a cluster southwards of the Donetz, particularly around Arte movsk At the southern end, on which the Sea of Azov-Don frontnowpivots the German positions, stabilised since December, are about 50 miles from S mouth of the Don below Rostov. It is certain, therefore, that no large scale withdrawal here can figure in the Russian programme, and the Don can be crossed here only after a major Russian defeat.

The Times correspondent at Moscow says that 500 enemy tanks and two divisions of infantry are concentrated outside Voronezh. Bitter scrambling and tank fights are raging between Voronezh and .the Don region, which is a district and market gardens and semi-urban development and. Woods. The .tanks mostly meet each other in groups of 40 or 50. The Russians in one sector of their counter-attack in the Voronezh area were compelled .to withdraw. The latest enemy claims include a Berlin report received in Stockholm that German. Panzer group pierced, the defences of Pikrovsk and are now six- miles from Rostov. The Paris radio claims that th % e Germans are fighting in the suburbs of Voroshilovgrad. M. Lozovsky, giving a luncheon to the British and! American press representatives in. Moscow, likened the Russo-German war to a boxing match. “In the first round, the Germans advanced. In the second round, the Russians advanced. In the third round, the Germans are again advancing. In the fourth round Germany will get a knock-out blow.” ,