COMPLETE DISORDER

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIII, Issue 22, 24 December 1942, Page 2

COMPLETE DISORDER

3.45 P.M.-EDITION

NAZIS ON MIDDLE DON. RUSSIANS ON. (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) (1.20 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 23. At many points in the Middle Don front the Germans are retreating in complete disorder before the Russian offensive. Many of the Germans have become panic stricken and are throwing away their arms. Reuter's Moscow correspondent says that the Russians, alter breaking through, are clashing forward at tremendous speed, emulating Hitler's panzer drive across France. The Germans, having lost the line on the Don, now appear to be lost altogether. Russian tank columns, which crashed through the German defence zone, have now reached open spaces favourable for large scale manoeuvres. Several large columns of heavy and medium tanks to-day are irresistibly thrusting southwards and south-westwards, hammering now wedges into the German positions. Masses of Russian infantry are quickly filling the ffjps in the torn German lines and aro mopping up and consolidating their newly-won positions. German garrisons are making stands at strong-points originally far behind their front-lino, bat reports coming in state that more and more of these garrisons are either surrendering or being put out of action. /

Hitler at one stage made an attempt to stop the rot, but bombed his own retreating troops. The* German command is so far unable to offer a systematic or tactically comprehensible counter-blow.

I The Red Army has created one solid front and is sweeping onward and the Russian threat to Millerovo has grown greater in the past 24 hours. The battles are waxing fiecei south-west of Stalingrad. The Germans have raced up numerous tanks, and are attempting by massive blows to pierce the Russian lilies and relieve von Hoth's trapped forces. BRITISH TANKS IN ACTION. Powerful Red Army tank and infantry columns, led by Klim Voroshilovs and including British Valentines and Matildas manned by Russians are driving down the VoronezhRostov railway towards the key railway junction of Millerovo. Eastward a column is still advancing rapidly and is reported to have reached Morozovka, 40 miles south-east of Millerovo, which is threatened from the rear. Icy gales are whipping up the snow and constantly deepening the snowdrifts, through which the Klim Voroshilovs are cutting paths and driving wedges into the German positions on a broad front. They are then fanning out in areas west of the Chir River.

Moscow correspondents say that the Germans in many places on the Middle Don are abandoning villages and leaving the roads littered with heavy guns, lorries, and tanks. A German garrison at a village guarding important cross roads was ordered to hold on at all costs. It was outflanked, after which the Russians cutting the wire entanglements assaulted with bayonets and fought their way into the - streets, which were choked with corpses. They wiped out the remaining enemy.