FURIOUS PANZER DRIVES

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24346, 7 August 1942, Page 3

FURIOUS PANZER DRIVES

ENEMY PRESSURE IN CAUCASUS

HEAVY TOLL OF ADVANCING HORDES By Telegraph—Press- Association—Copyright (Received August 6, 11.10 p.m.) LONDON, August 6 The position of the Soviet Army has further deteriorated in all sectors of the southern front except in the Don elbow. However, in this region German pressure is increasing in a further terrific effort to capture all the territory on the right bank of the Don River. Following the withdrawal in the Tsimlyansk area a Moscow communique for the first time mentions fierce fighting around Kotelnikovo, about 50 miles east of Tsimlyansk, and 95 miles south-west of Stalingrad. Kotelnikovo is on the Stalingrad-Black Sea railway, which the Germans have already cut in the area below Rostov. The communique the Germans have concentrated large forces in the Kotelnikovo area and, ceaselessly attacking, have made a slight advance at heavy cost. The Soviet newspaper Red Star reports that a big tank battle is being fought near the railway. The enemy thrust from Tsimlyansk to Kotelnikovo threatens Stalingrad from the south-west. Stalingrad is also threatened from the north-west where, in the Don elbow, another - strong ejiemy force is attacking heavily at Klietsk. As a result of Soviet air reinforcements in this area the use of transport aircraft by the enemy has practically ceased. At the western end of the front Marshal Timoshenko again has been forced to give way before the furious onslaughts of Bock's panzer armies thrusting toward the Caucasian oilfields. The Germans appear to be driving south in a vast semi-circle, *with the right arm resting on the Sea of Azov and the left arm curving through Voroshilovsk. Bock is possibly aiming at a gigantic encirclement of the Russian forces in the Kuban area, with the Maikop oilfields as the prize. The main battlefield at present is in the Belaya Glina area, on the railway, 50 miles south-west of Salsk. Every modern • weapon has been brought into play in fighting which is increasing in ferocity every hour. The country round here is ideal for tanks, in which the Germans possess vast numerical superiority. The .conditions also are suitable for large-scale paratroop landings. The Germans again claim to have pushed on far beyond the points mentioned by the Russians. They say they have taken the town of Kropotkin and are now approaching Armavir, 40 miles further south. The Berlin radio says that a German advanced column is within 13 miles of Armavir, and that another, speeding from Kavkaskaya, is within 50 miles of Krasnodar. The British Ambassador to Russia, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, is reported to have arrived in Moscow from Kuibyshev. After a 10 days* flight from Washington, Major-General Follett Bradley has arrived in Moscow from the United States with a message from President Roosevelt to M. Stalin. " I am here," he told correspondents, "to do all I can to make aid to Russia more effective."