PURSUIT & CAPTURES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1942, Page 3

PURSUIT & CAPTURES

Moscow officially announces that a f further 15,000 Axis prisoners were taken yesterday and another 6,000 enemy troops killed. The Russians 'in the north-western offensive captured three more railway stations, two of which are identified as twin towns at _ the junction o fthe Don and Chir Rivers about 20 miles south of Kalach. The Russians also captured five • inhabited localities and surrounded and partly annihilated the 22nd German Tank Division. It is reported without confirmation from Stockholm that the German commander-in-chief has ordered a general withdrawal from Stalingrad. Other reports say the Germans in some areas are beginning to stop fighting. Dispatches from Moscow, and Stockholm report that the Russians are relentlessly tightening their hold on the Axis divisions which are almost encircled. The Russians, are fighting with sustained fury in order to turn the relief of Stalingrad into destruction of the German armies. The Moscow correspondent of “The Times” says the Red Army south and south-west of Stalingrad is making the steppelands the scene of violent pursuit battles. The Germans, particularly those most distant from the railways, are either retreating in disorder or fighting hopelessly. The Germans m the south-western sectors are fighting stubbornly, trying to establish an orderly withdrawal, but the Red Army is throwing in more and more tanks The Red Army has never previously reaped such a harvest of intact war material and so many prisoners.