HEAVY FIGHTING NEAR MOSCOW

Southland Times, Issue 24603, 27 November 1941, Page 5

HEAVY FIGHTING NEAR MOSCOW

The Soviet newspaper Pravda, summing up the general situation, says that the Germans in the direction of Klin, 40 miles north-east of Moscow, have succeeded in pressing back the Russian troops slightly in exceedingly violent engagements. Russian troops in the direction of Volokolamsk, 80 miles from Moscow, have beaten off enemy attacks and have launched counter-attacks.

In other sectors the Russian forces have retired to new lines better for defence. A number of enemy attacks in the Mojaisk direction have been beaten off and the German attempt to turn the Russian flank has been stopped. Heavy losses have been inflicted on the enemy by Soviet artillery. The long lull in the directions of Malo Yaroslavets and Naryfominsk, about 150 miles south-west of the capital, was broken on Monday by violent gunfire, when the Germans began heavy shelling of the Russian advanced lines and main defences. FIGHTING AT LENINGRAD The Soviet newspaper Izvestia says that the Russians on the Leningrad front are firmly entrenched on the southern bank of the River N in lines recaptured from the ei*'my who fruitlessly counter-attacked. The fighting continues day and night. The Soviet Army journal Red Star reports that violent street fighting is going on at Tikhvin, an important railway junction 100 miles south-east of Leningrad. Soviet guns are shelling the enemy trenches and destroying German guns and mine-throwers installed in the stone houses of the town. The Germans are rushing up reinforcements and are doing their utmost to beat off the Russians in view of the great importance of the junction. The Germans on Monday threw in a battalion of infantry supported by tanks, but they were met with a devastating fire and were forced to retreat, leaving the ground littered with dead. The Russians followed up and broke into the south-western section of Tikhvin where the battle continues.

Izvestia says that the Russian counterattacks to the east of Novgorod are directed against the enemy's front. In the German rear the Russian’s following up a successful advance which began on November 10, have captured important villages. Izvestia claims that during the battles to the west of Rostov the Germans have retreated ovei‘ 37 miles in the main direction while in some sectors the Russians have pressed them back 62 miles.

The Germans have suffered enormous losses. Part of General von Kleist’s panzer group has been smashed. The Germans, realizing the strength of the Red Army’s onslaught, are hurriedly transferring fresh troops from several

other directions to the scene of the fighting. The Russian advance is continuing, M. Solomon Lozovsky, the Soviet Spokesman, stated that Cossacks had participated in the Russian advance to the west of Rostov. “The Germans have received a severe blow there,” M. Lozovsky said. He added that he was fully confident that the German offensive against Moscow would fail. The British United Press Kuibyshev correspondent reports that British tanks have been in action for the first time on the Moscow front, where they are winning high praise. A Soviet tank commander said that small units of British tanks had wiped out two enemy battalions and mortar nests and had also repulsed German attacks against two villages. He added that the British tank guns pierced even the heavy German tanks. GERMAN TREATMENT OF PRISONERS LONDON, November 25. M. Viacheslav Molotov, Soviet Foreign Commissar, has sent a Note to all nonAxis Powers protesting against Germany’s “atrocious” treatment of Russian prisoners. “The Soviet Government has the facts concerning systematic German brutalities and atrocities inflicted on Red Army prisoners of war,” the Note declared. “The Germans have ignored international rights and the laws of human morality. Numerous Red Army prisoners, of whom the majority were wounded, have been subjected to brutal torture, punishment and murder. The Germans have stripped warm clothes from the wounded Russians and have often forced, the Russians to drive munition transports and also to march ahead of German columns advancing into battle. Numerous cases are known of Germans assaulting women doctors and nurses. Wounded Russians in German prison camps get no medical attention. They are kept outdoors day and night, are roused early in the morning with clubs, and are driven to work, whatever the state of their health. “Ninety-five prisoners were shot in one day at the Chernukhinsk prison camp in the Ukraine. Russian prisoners at the Pitesk camp have received scarcely any food for nearly four months. When a group sent a letter to the German commandant asking for 1 food to keep them alive the commandant asked who had written the letter and five members of the Red Army were shot on the spot. “The Germans have instituted a brutal regime in the prison . comps, hoping to exterminate Soviet war prisoners by giving them less food than the war prisoners of other countries. The Soviet Government indignantly protests before the whole world against this barbaric violation of the elementary rules of international law.