RUSSIANS HIT HARD

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 264, 7 October 1942, Page 5

RUSSIANS HIT HARD

STALINGRAD’S DEFENCE. (N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, OH. 6. Stalingrad is still surprising • the Germans with its hard-hitting resistance as the panzer general von Hoth again learned yesterday. He assaulted the factory forts in the city’s northern area and encountered a powerful barrage from massed Russian guns which heavily punished the spearhead of 100 tanks, caused severe casualties, and dispersed the German infantry. , The Germans are receiving local setbacks in different parts of the city. Hand-to-hand fighting has broken out with renewed ferocity in many streets in scattered areas. The Germans are resuming massed bombing raids against blocks selected for saturation. The Luftwaffe's present, aim is apparently to blast a path through the defences to the Volga docks, by which tanks and infantry following up would be enabled to cut up the resisting sections and then clean up these piece by piece. The Russians’ steadiness is unaffected, and they continue defending each block of buildings and every house and courtyard.

During the . week-end distinguished Soviet speakers, including the Communist Propaganda Chief CM. Alexandrov), the historian Professor Tarle, and M. Yaroslavsky, who is a leading publicist, expressed confidence that Stalingrad would stand. Theso men, says the Moscow correspondent of the Times, choose their words carefully, and . „ significance is also attached to, the arrival of the Political Commissar with quantities of comforts for the troops at Stalingrad.

However, Uiero aro no grounds, says the correspondent, for complacency. The Press docs not mince matters in daily reminders of the gravity of the Soviet’s position, and the workers are being spurred to even greater efforts. NAZIS HALTED AT MOZDOK. The German drive in the Mozdok area is momentarily halted. Tlio Germans are energetically trying other (routes to the Grozny oil, particularly the southern railway loop from Prokhladnaya, whence they claim to have progressed 50 miles since reaching Prokhladnaya in August. The Germans aro stili more than 70 miles from the oihvclls, with difficult foothills still ahead. A Berlin broadcast to-night makes it clear that the situation in the Caucasus is regarded with misgiving by the army. A general said that the mountains were still in the hands of the Russians : who had established a strong, tenacious, and numerically superior army there. Emphasising the difficulties of the German troops in this area, the general said that they often lacked water for men, animals, and tanks. This fighting could only be compared with battles in jungles or in glacier regions. How the Germans on the central front dropped eight cases of_ammunition over an unnamed height, not knowing it had been captured by the Russians during fierce fighting that day, is described by the Moscow radio. The Russian troops used the ammuj% nition against the enemy and followed up their successes during the night by advancing a further seven miles (presumably this advance refers to .ijffiS’ the Rzhcv area, where a Russian offensive is in progress). . g# The Leningrad radio said that in It® seven days of stubborn fighting on #1 the Leningrad front the Germans lost 4000 officers and men, 17 tanks, nine guns, and other material. Fifty enemy blockhouses, strong points, and (logouts were also destroyed. A Russian airman, Major Zemlya,'>■s& nov, declared that a unit of 20 Hurriisga canes commanded by Major Panov in ‘SfP? two months destroyed 83 planes for ■mt, the loss of four Russian pilots and •'MUIIO Hurricanes. The Hurricanes’ fuel ''i'ft’economy, high firepower, speed, and ■/. Vi', manoeuvrability make tl’.em splendid j escorts for front-line bombers, and typithev have proved their worth in dozens of combats over the Russian front.