MOUNTING FURY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25277, 14 July 1943, Page 3

MOUNTING FURY

KURSK_BATTLE RUSSIAN LINES HOLD HEAVY GERMAN LOSSES (Rec. 7 p.m.) RUGBY, July 12. On the sweltering plains of southern, Russia both sides are hurling more men and tanks into the intensified battle of the Kursk salient. Moscow says the Germans are throwing in about 400 tanks at a time at the northern end. Although Berlin claims a break-through, the Russians say that they., threw the enemy back to where they came from. 5 . There is no fresh news of the fighting in the Byelgorod region, where the Russians have been fiercely coritesting many German attempts to widen the wedge driven into their defences a few days ago. In yesterday’s fighting the Russians knocked out 162 enemy tanks and 32 aircraft. A Moscow communique says the fighting was particularly fierce in the Byelgorod sector, but the Red Army repelled all the German attacks, destroyed 122 more tanks, and shot down 18 aircraft.

A supplementary Russian communique reports the repulse of enemy attacks in the Orel and Kursk directions, which were made by forces not so large as on the previous days. During a day of intense fighting th# Germans suffered heavy losses, but failed to break the Soviet defences. In one Soviet counter-attack the enemy lost 1000 dead, 17 tanks, and 35 machine-guns. In the Byelgorod direction fierce fighting continued. Enemy tanks and infantry supported by artillery and aircraft attacked the Soviet positions incessantly throughout the day. Soviet forces in numerous counter-attacks inflicted heavy losses in tanks and men on the enemy. In the eight days' offensive on the Orel-Kursk-Byelgorod front the Germans have lost 2622 tanks and 1126 planes. It is offlciallly announced from Moscow that Russian guerrillas in the Mohizev region have liberated a large group of Russian children who were forcibly taken from their parents by the Germans, who intended to send them to a military hospital, where their blood would be taken for the transfusion of wounded German officers.

The Germans killed more than 6090 persons in Krasnodar by poison gas, states the report of the Soviet State Commission which is investigating German atrocities.