STERN TASKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 November 1942, Page 3

STERN TASKS

STILL TO BE FACED ■■ ' / GERMANS SAID TO BE MASSING RESERVES. BUT AXIS POSITION SERIOUS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, November 25. The latest Soviet communique reports that the Russian troops continued the successful offensive operations in the same directions as before. Several enemy fortified places in the southern outskirts of Stalingrad were recaptured. The enemy lost thousands more men as well as quantities of armoured vehicles and guns. . The Soviet newspapers point out that the Allies are sharing in the Russians’ successes, because their operations in North Africa have increased the strategic difficulties of the Axis armies. The newspapers warn against any tendency to minimise the stern tasks which still lie ahead on the Don-Volga front. The Russians are very familiar with the Germans’ resilience and defensive fighting power, and they are aware that the Germans are massing reserves and also that the element of surprise is no longer helpful. / German forces within the area which the Russians are hoping to encircle were reported to be caught today in a series of dangerous positions. Sometimes in panic and sometimes surrounded, nearly everywhere the retreating Germans are losing the weaker elements like'the Rumanians ,who are surrendering in thousands. The Russian artillery, including massed self-propelling guns, has played a very important part south of Stalingrad, which is carrying the Russians down the main railway towards Kotelnikov© and toward the Don along the highway by which the Russians yesterday reached Aksai. The Stockholm, correspondent of “The Times” says that the German position is very serious, and it may become disastrous, but all the troops which are threatened with envelopment between the Don and Volga are not yet attempting to withdraw. The decision of their fate is likely to require long, hard fighting, because they have accumulated large dumps of ammunition and possibly food near the front lines. WAR COMRADESHIP RUSSIA & BRITAIN. MESSAGE FROM M. MOLOTOV. LONDON, November 24. “The defeat of Rommel and the Allied occupation of French North Africa have completely upset Hitler’s plans and created a situation entirely unexpected by Germany,” says Moscow radio. The Soviet Foreign Minister, M. Molotov, replying to friendly greetings

from the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Eden, on the 25th anniversary of the U.S.S.R., expressed the hope that the comradely co-operation of the two peoples will be devoted after victory to the task of re-establishing the peaceful life of nations M. Molotov added, “The recent victory of British arms in the struggle against the common enemy strengthens still further the feeling of warlike comradeship uniting our peoples and brings nearer the day of a smashing blow against the Hitlerite tyranny.”