SAGA OF BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1942, Page 3

SAGA OF BATTLE

DEEDS OF SIBERIAN TROOPS IN DEFENCE OF STALINGRAD. MEN WHO STEMMED GERMAN ATTACKS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.20,a.m.) LONDON, November 26. Tough troops from the bleak Siberian plains were mainly responsible for breaking the German offensive against Stalingrad, says the Moscow “Red Star.” They beat back 23 German infantry attacks in one day and 117 in one month, and were at grips with the enemy for from ten to twenty hours daily for 27 successive days—all on a sector less than one mile wide.

When the Siberian Division reached the Stalingrad factory district, it immediately took up the defence of the “Ravine of Death,” a valley traversing the factory settlement to the Volga. The Siberians entrenched themselves, established dugouts in rubble heaps, and cut gun embrasures in factory walls. The men were no sooner entrenched and a command post located at the bottom of a long shaft in the bank of the Volga than German planes swarmed over and bombed them for eight hours. The Germans, followed this up with an artillery bombardment through the night. The Siberians stuck to their positions—then one regiment attacked the Germans in anticipation of the enemy’s infantry assault. The Siberians managed to advance about a mile before encountering superior German' forces, who beat them back with heavy losses.

German dive-bombers on the third day of the battle attacked the Siberians for ten hours, while German guns continuously shelled them. The Germans then had one hundred regiments of artillery inside and outside Stalingrad. Russian artillery east of the Volga helped the Siberians as much as possible, taking a heavy toll of German tanks.

The Siberians, always silent, grew more morose, thinner-faced and gloomier. They were without sleep for three or four nights in succession and were often so busy that they were unable to touch their two hot meals sent im daily in thermos flasks. , The Germans, after twenty days continuous assault in which they were unable to overcome- the Siberians, launched a supreme attack which lasted for twenty hours. They threw in everything. It was a most frightful assault. No sooner had the dive-bomb-ers withdrawn and guns and mortars became silent than tanks, with inebriated tommy-gunners followed by infantry, attacked, backed up by flamethrowing tanks, dum-dum bullets and also mine-throwers. The Siberians somehow stood their ground. Then came the Red Army commander’s prepared counterblow. The Siberians remained in the van of the main Russian attack Now they are moving westwards. exacting payment for their sacrifices. -