SURGING WEST

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 114, 18 May 1942, Page 5

SURGING WEST

RUSSIANS AT KHARKOV NAZI MOVE FORESTALLED COLOSSAL GERMAN LOSSES (Reed. 11.55 p.m.) .London, May 17. “Our soldiers are surging westward. Heavy German counterattaciis, supported oy large nuniDcrs oi laiiKs, are yielding under our niigmy pressure,' says the Soviet information Bureau’s war correspondent on the Kharkov front. “The Germans are being nurled bacK witn neavy losses, neavy ano ligm tanks, uisaoled oy guns ana Domes, are blazing wrecks along me lines of the German retreat, me oi- ; tensive spirit oi our men is irresistioie. Guerrillas spring to the aid of our advancing uetacuments. Townspeople aid in street fighting. Ola men, 1 w omen ana children assist in tne mop|ping up Oi recaptured localities oy i helping round up Germans hiding in j cellars and lofts. I “Marshal rimoshenko is using big new Russian-made tanks of tne Khm- ; \ oroshiiov type on the Kharkov iront. They are called land battleships and are proving superior to the Germans. , T he big American three-turret tanks are also giving a good account of I themselves." I The independent French news 5 agency at Ankara says that for ten iv. eeks before Marshal Timoshenko struck at. Kharkov the Germans were concentrating a colossal amount of ! material there, including 20,000 tanks, iwith the intention of using Kharkov ;as the base for the main thrust against the Caucasus. The Russian I Black Sea Fleet is hammering the j Germans as they advance along the | ■■ Kerc h Peninsula. Hundreds of shells i arc being poured into German coastal i positions, while Fleet air-arm planes ; are carrying out continual bombing. ‘lt is admitted in Moscow that the Germans are advancing with vastly superior forces. .Moscow rauio says. “At the approaches to Sabastopol the Germans have already lost 75,000 men without gaining a single step.”