FALLING BACK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25111, 30 December 1942, Page 3

FALLING BACK

NAZIS BEWILDERED RUSSIAN DRIVE ON ROSTOV LONDON, Dec. 28. The Russians are smashing through village after village along the railway from Voronezh, and, according to the latest reports from Moscow, are now only slightly over 70 miles from Rostov. The Moscow correspondent of Reuters says the Germans are falling back, disorganised and bewildered. There are no signs yet of a big stand against the Russians, who are advancing in the face of fierce but not large-scale opposition. The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press says the new Russian advances, after smashing the German counter-offensive, threaten Kotelnikovo, where already there are signs of encirclement from the Russian arc, which at the nearest point is about 12 miles from the city. Another circle enclosing Germans is rapidly forming west of Potemkinskaya and north of Tsimlyanskaya. Equally as important as the ground retaken by the Russians is the fact that huge casualties have been inflicted on the enemy. Over 100,000 Germans have been killed or captured, and the equivalent of many divisions wounded, while huge quantities of war equipment, much of it intact, have been captured. Further important gains between Kotelnikovo and the Stalingrad pocket were made by the Russians yesterday, when they took positions in and near the south-east angle of the Don Bend. Here they are- respectively 12 and 20 miles north-east of Kotelnikovo. The Germans presumably still hold the area inside the bend south of the River Chir, and therefore may still be only 40 miles from their besieged army; but, if so, their rear is now gravely threatened by the Russian advance towards the Lower Don, which has reached a point 33 miles north of Tsimlyanskaya. The Russians approaching the Donetz appear to be along a line about 20 miles from that river, stretching from north to east of Kamenskaya. It is thought that they are now mopping up pockets of resistance between the Middle Don and the Lower Don and Donetz.