NALCHIK IN RUSSIAN HANDS

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLXII, Issue 15242, 7 January 1943, Page 3

NALCHIK IN RUSSIAN HANDS

DECISIVE ATTACKS IN CAUCASUS •% OTHER TOWNS FALL TO SOVIET. MUCH MATERIAL CAPTURED. United Pi ess Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. | LONDON, Jan. 0 i Hie effect of tlie Russian victories on three important fronts as disclosed by last night’s special communique is to greatly worsen the whole of the German positions in th© North Caucasus and give vye Russians fresh impetus on tiie Middle Don. Th© communique states: “Nalchik town and railway stabio:i was captured after a decisive attack yesterday. W© captured the town and railway statyon of PmkJiladnaya, th© town of Kaiskoa (not Maisky) ten miles south of J?rokhladnaya, and th© ra,ij centre of Kotlerevsky, 50 miles north-east on Nalchik, today. After fierce fighting th© Russians occupied the town and railway station of Morozoskayu and the district centre of Tsymlya.nskaya with trophies aud prisoners.

“Ln tli© North Caucasus between, December 24 and January 4 -ve captured 150 tanks, 100 guns, 168 mortal’s, 5000 r.ifles, 59,000 antitank and anti-personnef mines, over half a million cartridges, 255 lorries and fifteen ammunition aud supply dumps. In tlie sam© period our troops in tlie North Caucasus destroyed 18 planes, 12 guns. 170 tanks, 522 machine-guns and 500 lorries containing war ma,teriai. ” The capture of Nalchik, Prokhladnaya and other Caucasian towns follows tlie Russian occupation, last week of Etkhotovo actuated on th© railway between Prokhiadnaya, and V ladikavkaz.

Th© occupation of Ts\ mlyanskaya on the southern aim of th© Lon Bend gives the Russians a bridgehead forty miles west of Ko belli ikovo, strengthen iii<g their hold on. the Don Steppes and assisting the drive down the StaUngi ad-Tik-lioretsk railway which menaces both tli© troops in the Caucasus and tlie German retreat at Rostov.

These swift Russian strokes and tli© capture uf the towns which it was expected the Germans would desperately defend ’ suggests that the German hold on the Caucasus is loosening and tlie withdrawal to a shorter line in tli© neighbourhood of Rostov and the Sea of Azov which some London commentators have been envisioning as a possible event nation.

Th e capture of Morozovskaya was probably the result of tli© fall of Cherniys he vsk aya yesterday wllj ch w r as one of th© few remaining German hedgehogs in t-h© Do© Bond. Its capture left the enemy Moroz jvskaya as the only ©onsiderabe position on the trans-Don railway. The Germans hi stubbornly trying to hold Morozovskaya repeatedly coun-ter-attacked in the last 24 hours, employing fresh troops from the Ukraine and many tanks, but after initial gains they were flung back, losing 49 tanks and leaving a thousand dead.