ENEMY HELD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25068, 9 November 1942, Page 3

ENEMY HELD

DRIVES ON STALINGRAD GERMANS’ HEAVY LOSSES (Rec. 5 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 7. ' The German drives against Stalingrad and in the Central Caucasus have been halted. Reuters correspondent at Moscow says that the Germans’ mass assault against Stalingrad, which began last Tuesday, has definitely been checked. The Germans since Tuesday have suffered 5000 casualties, the correspondent adds, and the Germans, driving against Vladikavkaz, have been held. They have lost 1500 men, 68 tanks, and 39 planes since Tuesday. Ten thousand men of the Axis forces have perished on the NovorossiskTuapse front since the Russians on October 26 seized the initiative, the correspondent adds. The Red Army is advancing north-east of Tuapse for the eleventh successive day. Fifteen thousand Axis soldiers perished on the southern fronts in the first five days of November, and another 5000 were killed or wounded between Voronezh and Murmansk. Other Moscow messages report that the Russians, regrouped in the Caucasus valleys, are holding the German advance from Nalchik, and have also hailed the enemy onslaught in the Mosdok area. The German attackers at Stalingrad seem stale, and the quality of the German troops is certainly inferior to those operating at the beginning of October, but the defenders’ spirit is high.

Moscow correspondents point out that after the defeat of each assault the Germans need more time to regroup, and the subsequent assault is shorter and weaker.

The right wing of the Russians’ north-west relief army continues to cross the Don region at Kletskaya, despite strenuous Italian efforts against the bridgehead. The Russians, driving from the south of Stalingrad, repelled two counter-attacks.

The areas north-east of Tuapse and south-east of Nalchik are again mentioned with Stalingrad in the Russian communiques of last night and this morning, but the latest supplement records no German progress in either sector. Russian ships in the Baltic sank a German transport of 15,000 tons.

On Saturday the Moscow radio reported that fierce battles were taking place north-east of Tuapse, with Soviet troops holding the situation woll. In addition, they captured several important points and continued to forge ahead. All enemy attempts to regain the lost heights failed.

ENEMY’S STRENGTH FADING

STALIN’S APPEAL TO TROOPS (Rec. 10 p.m.) MOSCOW, Nov. 7. M. Stalin, in a special order of the day on the occasion of the Soviet Union’s twenty-fifth birthday, announced that since the outbreak of the Russian-German war, 8,000,000 enemy troops had been put out of action.

“The fate of the Soviet State and the freedom and independence of our Fatherland depend on the outcome of the present fighting, which is becoming more tense,” said M. Stalin. “The enemy is straining his last strength. He has been checked before Stalingrad, where already he has lost tens of thousands of officers and men. He is now throwing fresh reserves into the battle in a last desperate effort. “ Comrades, we can and must clear the Hitlerite vermin from Soviet soil,” M. Stalin declared. -“The enemy has already tasted the Red Army’s blows, and the day is not far distant when he will receive a fresh and shattering blow.”