OFFICIAL REVIEW

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20864, 17 August 1942, Page 3

OFFICIAL REVIEW

ATTACKS HELD HEAVY ENEMY LOSSES PARTISANS' SUCCESSES ( By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) (Noon.) RUGBY, Aug. 16. The latest official news of the fighting on the Caucasian front is contained in a supplement to the midday Russian communique, which says that in the region south-east of Kletskaya, in the Don bend, Soviet troops repelled numerous enemy attacks and the Soviet artillery was inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. In one sector of this front, five enemy tanks penetrated Russian positions. One Soviet gun crew destroyed three of them. On another sector, Soviet artillery destroyed 26 lorries containing enemy infantry. In the region of Krasnodar, some 50 miles north-east of the Black Sea port of Novorossisk, German infantry, supported by the air force, was attempting to erect a bridgehead over the River Kuban. The Soviet air force constantly attacked and destroyed the river crossing, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. One hundred and fifty German automatic riflemen who succeeded in crossing the river were annihilated. In the region ■of Maikop, the fii'st, but smallest, of the three main Caucasian oil centres to be reached by the Germans, Russian troops repelled one enemy attack, annihilated 400 enemy officers and men, and destroyed 11 tanks and 24 lorries. In the region of Mineralnya Vodi, the enemy, with numerically superior forces, pushed back one Soviet unit. During this engagement six enemy tanks were destroyed and 250 enemy officers and men killed. In the region of VorOnej, Russian troops pushed forward, killing 1200 enemy officers and men. On the western bank of the Don, after an hour’s artillery shelling, two battalions of Hungarians attacked the Soviet positions. They were met by mortar and machine-gun fire and were routed and compelled to retreat, leaving on the battlefield several hundred killed or wounded. On the Bryansk front, one enemy infantry regiment, supported by one motorised infantry battalion, attacked the Russian positions. Soviet troops launched a counter-attack and dislodged the enemy from one locality. The Germans sent against Leningrad district partisans about 2000 infantry .supported by 10 tanks, two armoured cars, and a large number of planes. The partisans defeated the enemy.