GAINING INITIATIVE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 255, 26 September 1942, Page 5

GAINING INITIATIVE

RUSSIANS AT STALINGRAD

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec. 11.35) LONDON. Sept. 25. There are indications that Stalingrad’s most critical days may have passed. Major Zhuravlev, writing to the Moscow News, says that the Russians are gradually gaining the initiative in the city, and German air sorties over Stalingrad are now less than half as numerous as they wore a fortnight ago.

Reports reaching the British United Press correspondent at Stockholm suggest that, switching their attention to the Caucasus, the Germans intend to leave the attackers at Stalingrad to hold their own and to gradually reduce the city to an unimportant bridgehead. The fighting for Stalingrad, however, is still furious. The Tn.ss News Agency says that 25,000 Germans have been killed on the Stalingrad front in the past week. The Bussian attacks north-west of Stalingrad, which some Bussian reports describe as counter-offensive, continue to gain ground. The. latest front line despatches from this area say that the Bussiafts have recaptured a, strategic village and two heights dominating a large area. The Columbia Radio’s correspondent stated that the Russian recapture of the village forred tho Germnns to divert tanks, planes, and troops from the attack against Stalingrad, hut the Russians, with the support Voroshilov tanks, continue to advance.