IMMENSITY OF ROUT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIII, Issue 21, 23 December 1942, Page 2

IMMENSITY OF ROUT

GREAT NAZI GRAVEYARD

(Rcc. 2 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 22 Describing his visit to the Stalingrad front the British United Rrogs correspondent says: “The monient I crossed the north bank of the Don and entered the territory wrested from the Germans the immensity of the rout

of the Axis forces was evident. “I entered an area which is a mammoth graveyard of Nazi men, machines, and horses, extending over hundreds of square miles, and surpassing anything seen last winter ill the wake of the Red Army’s previous offensive. “The Russian offensive was so unexpected and so crushing that it shattered all the German and Rumanian Command’s plans. A Rumanian General captured on the Stalingrad front said: ‘We did not think the Red Army could mount a counteroffensive on anything like such a scale.’ Bewildered hordes of Rumanian prisoners, practically unescorted, trudged north-eastwards on their way to prison camps.

“I met supreme confidence when I listened to discussions between highly-placed field officers, who all confirmed the general opinion that the Germans probably will not be able to extricate themselves from the Don-Volga trap and face inevitable surrender or extermination.

“Major-General Christiankov told me that the conclusion of what may prove the most decisive battle of the war was merely a question of time.”