GERMANS IN DANGER

Southland Times, Issue 24630, 30 December 1941, Page 5

GERMANS IN DANGER

besiegers of LENINGRAD ADVANCE BY RUSSIANS (Rec. 9.20 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 28. The Stockholm correspondent of The Times says that the besiegers of Leningrad still hold essential points, but forward positions are being lost daily and the right half of the arc terminating at Shlusselburg and the half embracing Leningrad now appear likely to give way any day as the Russians press near the shore of Lake Ladoga, also along the Mos-cow-Leningrad railway, while the Leningrad garrison hammers on from within.

The Germans arc being severely harassed on the Moscow front, but they are fighting stubborn rearguard actions covering their withdrawal in an effort to escape pinching by the Russian prongs relentlessly closing in from the Kaluga and Rjev regions. The pincer points are still 100 miles apart and as the going is hard it is unlikely that the Russians will be able to pocket the main part of General Fedor von Bock’s army, but a large -jroportion is already doomed. Enormous quantities of equipment are inextricably frozen in and thousands of German bodies are burjed under the snow. A Moscow communique says the Russian advance continued in various sectors. A number of inhabited places was occupied. Ground forces in one section of the south-west front drove the Germans from 24 inhabited points and wiped out 2000 officers and men. The Russians elsewhere on the same front liberated nine inhabited points. A Moscow message says that a German officer taken prisoner on the southern front admitted that the 4oth German Division had lost 5000 killed in addition to 2500 sent to hospital. Many were suffering from frost-bite. “Moscow and Tula have been freed from immediate danger. The enemy has been thrown back on an average ol from 40 to 60 miles,” says the Moscow radio, reviewing the progress on all fronts to Friday. TOWNS RECAPTURED The radio adds: “Our advances in the northern sector of the front in the Volokolamsk direction and also the southern sectoi- southwestwards of Tula form wedges ipto enemy-occupied territory. In addition to the important towns recaptured during the past week on the Moscow front hundreds of large and small villages have also been cleared of the enemy. “German resistance is very stubborn in the Mojaisk and Malo Yaroslavets sectors, but our advances northwards and southwards of this sector of the front have placed the enemy there in a dangerous position. Evidence has been obtained that the Germans are becoming alive to this danger and are beginning to withdraw from this sector. “The Russians are continuing to push the Germans back on the Kalinin front. The Germans have thrown in fresh units hurriedly formed from the personnel of the auxiliary services. A German division consisting of youths aged between 17 and 18 years appeared in one sector, but under the first blows from the Russians they fled in panic, abandoning their equipment.

“The roads westwards and southwestwards, along which the Germans are retreating, are littered with the arms and machines of the Germans. In one village a whole column of lorries in good condition with petrol was left. They also abandoned a battery of heavy guns with shells.” The Moscow radio, declaring that the German High Command was fully aware of the critical situation, quoted an order of the day issued by the general commanding the 23rd Division: “The general war situation makes it imperative that the present retreat be arrested.”

RUSSIANS - MAINTAIN PRODUCTION

(8.0.W.) RUGBY, December 28. One of Moscow’s great industrial plants which supplies the front with arms and munitions while another part of it recently removed proceeds with production in the rear of the armies is described by a news agency correspondent. in Moscow. The shops have been producing automatic rifles and trench mortars and shells since the outbreak of the war without interruption, in spite of air-raids and the battle at the approaches to the capital. The Russian automatic rifle is claimed by the chief engineer to be better than its German counter part. It weighs 6Alb and holds 71 bullets. The Germans tried to reduce the plant to ashes by dropping thousands of incendiary bombs each night during the worst raids, but the precautions were perfect and the workers, who are splendidly trained and unafraid, collected a whole arsenal of duds and bombs which they made harmless. A large number of women is working in this factory. A system of 25 hours’ work followed by 48 hours’ rest was introduced because of frequent alerts, but it will be replaced at the New Year by a regular eight-hour day.