Some still remain. And Cossack loyalties were divided.
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So why didn’t Stalin completely eliminate them as was the original goal? (If I am right)
The Pittsburgh Press (December 5, 1942)
Russia shifts drive toward Rostov-on-Don
Reds cross river at three points far south of Stalingrad
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Reds continue gains.
Moscow, USSR –
Russian shock troops, lashing out suddenly in a new direction southwest of Stalingrad, have crossed the lower half of the Don River bend to the west bank at three important points and have driven their bridgeheads 10 miles beyond the river, front dispatches reported today.
Meanwhile, front reports said the Russian advance in the Rzhev-Velikiye Luki sector of the Moscow Front was carrying advance lines into the Smolensk area and that offensive action was broadening to include the Kalinin Front northwest of Moscow.
In their new Stalingrad attack shifting their spearheads westward, the Russians were driving along the railroad toward Rostov at the mouth of the Don, key to the Caucasus, 240 miles southwest of Stalingrad.
Their sudden move had put their battle for the annihilation of the great Axis armies trapped between the Volga and the Don into a completely new phase.
The first crossing to the west side of the lower Don was effected five miles south of the Stalingrad-Kharkov railroad. Eighteen miles to the south, the Russians crossed at a second front and advanced 10 miles.
The third crossing was 20 miles farther south, where the Russians advanced westward and took a town 30 miles northeast of Tsimiyanskaya, 135 miles southwest of Stalingrad and about the same distance northeast of Rostov-on-Don.
Advance inside Stalingrad
The latest communiqué said that southwest of Stalingrad, the Russians had overrun several German fortified positions.
Dispatches said the Germans were fighting savagely to hold every hill and ravine, wherever they could emplace a field gun, a mortar or a machine gun.
To take one important fortified point, the Russians sent tanks driving through to its rear.
A dispatch said:
The enemy garrison were destroyed.
More and more dispatches reported the annihilation of defending German garrisons.
In their overnight operations, the Russians killed about 1,500 Germans. Yesterday, they killed about 1,150 Germans.
Reds hold on Moscow Front
In the factory area of Stalingrad, Russians destroyed 25 enemy pillboxes and dugouts during the night. This success followed advances of 220-230 yards yesterday.
Repeated German counterattacks west of Rzhev, 135 miles west of Moscow, on the Central Front, cost the enemy 1,100 men killed and 120 trucks destroyed.
The Germans were making furious attempts to hold positions on the Central Front and were pouring in reinforcements to full gaps hacked in their lines by the Russians.
Delayed reports from the Central Front reported that during the early part of the Russian Central Front offensive tanks under Maj. Gen. Tarasov captured the headquarters of the German 33rd Tank Division. Peasants who greeted the Russians led them to another village where the Red Army men captured another headquarters.
Dispatches revealed that the new move of the Russian Command in attacking westward was part of a movement to sweep the Germans westward between the northern and southern ends of the Don bend and to intensify the isolation of the Germans, estimated at 18-20 divisions (270,000-300,000 men) trapped between the Volga and the Don northwest of Stalingrad.
Ten villages, one a railroad point, were taken by the Russians in the area of greater Stalingrad.
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The Pittsburgh Press (December 6, 1942)
Russians roll across Don in new offensive
Reds mark anniversary of winter drive with gains on two fronts
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
The Red Army drove forward on two fronts today, the anniversary of the start of its crippling offensive against the Axis last year, crushing German opposition to its new attack southwest of Stalingrad as well as within the city and on the Central Front.
Front dispatches reported Soviet spearheads 10 miles beyond the west bank of the Don River in a new offensive that carried through the lower half of the river’s big bend, southwest of Stalingrad.
Three bridgeheads had been thrown across the Don, dispatches said, and the Germans were thrown into a panicky retreat despite Nazi High Command orders to hold the Don’s west banks at all costs. The Germans had rallied somewhat, it was indicated, but were unsuccessful in attempting to regain their lost territory.
New advance in north
Just one year after they had stopped Adolf Hitler’s legions only 18 miles from Moscow and started on a winter of annihilation that saw thousands of enemy troops succumb to Soviet guns and bayonets and the great Russian ally – winter – the Red Army was on the march again.
Northwest of Moscow, a new advance was reported on the Rzhev-Velikiye Luki salient. Front dispatches said the fighting had carried to the region of Smolensk, the key city of the entire German defense system in the north.
A Red Guards unit seized three German defense points near Velikiye Luki, which is only 75 miles from the Latvian frontier, the communiqué said. Booty was running high. The Soviets captured five tanks, 49 guns, 18 trench mortars, 89 trucks, five mobile radio transmitters and quantities of rifles in this new thrust.
6,000 Axis troops killed
Upwards of 6,000 Axis troops fought their last yesterday, the communiqué reported. A total of 950 men died for Germany in the Velikiye Luki thrust and near Rzhev, at the other point of the Northwestern Front triangle, a garrison of 400 was wiped out.
Driving west of Rzhev, the Red Army occupied several inhabited localities, and destroyed what the communiqué termed “a large center of resistance.”
Within Stalingrad itself, Soviet troops annihilated an encircled enemy group in the northern factory area. The communiqué said that more than 600 Germans had been killed in southern Stalingrad Friday.
Action near Leningrad
Driving northeast of their abandoned naval port of Tuapse, on the Black Sea, the Russians took 19 fortified firing positions from the Germans. The Axis lost heavily in counterattacks to reoccupy those points, the communiqué said. Upwards of 400 enemy were killed there.
Activity flared on the Leningrad Front, where Soviet detachments were reported to have killed 600 enemy officers and men in two days. Soviet artillery destroyed 10 gun replacements and 23 firing points, the announcement said.
The advance on the Don River bend was regarded here as the most important gain of the week and was described as:
…bringing the battle for the annihilation of the Axis armies before Stalingrad into a new phase.
The move increased the isolation of the estimated 18-20 German divisions – a force which at normal strength would number 250,000 to 300,000 men – still standing between the Don and the Volga Rivers in the Stalingrad sector.
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Völkischer Beobachter (December 7, 1942)
Weitere 77 Sowjetpanzer vernichtet –
Ein Wiener Grenadierbataillon ausgezeichnet
dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 6. Dezember –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Im Ostkaukasus und im Terekgebiet wurden Angriffe der Sowjets im Nahkampf und teilweise im Gegenstoß abgewiesen. Mehrere Panzer wurden vernichtet und über 1600 Gefangene eingebracht. Im Tiefflug angreifende Jagdflieger fügten der feindlichen Infanterie hohe Verluste zu und schossen zwölf feindliche Flugzeuge ab.
Zwischen Wolga und Don wurde in wechselvollen Kämpfen ein sowjetisches Bataillon vernichtet, 26 Panzer abgeschossen, zahlreiche Geschütze und Infanteriewaffen des Feindes erbeutet. Transportverbände der Luftwaffe versorgten trotz schwierigster Wetterverhältnisse die kämpfende Truppe. In den erfolgreichen Abwehrkämpfen zwischen Wolga und Don zeichnete sich das 2. Bataillon eines Wiener Grenadierregiments durch vorbildliche Haltung besonders aus.
Im großen Donbogen wurden in den letzten Tagen wiederholt mit Panzerunterstützung geführte Angriffe der Sowjets gegen einen wichtigen Flußabschnitt abgewiesen.
Im Raum zwischen Kalinin und Ilmensee scheiterten zahlreiche, vielfach mit starker Panzerunterstützung vorgetragene Angriffe des Feindes zum Teil in erbittertem Nahkampf. Der Gegner verlor 51 Panzer und erlitt erneut hohe blutige Verluste.
Bei Stoßtruppunternehmen im Nordabschnitt zeichnete sich ein Verband der Waffen-SS besonders aus.
In Tunesien wurde die Säuberung des Kampfgeländes bei Toboura fortgesetzt. Die Gefangenenzahl hat sich auf 1100 erhöht, die Zahl der vernichteten Panzerkampfwagen beträgt über 70, die der erbeuteten Geschütze mehr als 40. Die Luftwaffe bekämpfte feindliche Kolonnen und Ausladungen im Hafen von Bone. Jagdflieger schossen am gestrigen Tage über diesem Kampfraum ohne eigene Verluste 14 feindliche Flugzeuge, darunter viermotorige Bomben ab.
An der Südostküste Englands führten Jagd- und Kampfflugzeuge Tagesangriffe gegen Eisenbahn- und Industrieziele durch.
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The Pittsburgh Press (December 7, 1942)
At Stalingrad –
Nazis battling to escape trap
Russians continue gains around Volga city
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
Germany threw hundreds of tanks and tens of thousands of men into ferocious counterattacks northwest and southwest of Stalingrad today in an attempt to break open the closing claws of a Russian pincer drive and maintain their slipping grip on the Volga River industrial city.
The Nazis lost 40 tanks in one attack southwest of Stalingrad and 37 tanks in another attack northwest of the city, in addition to thousands of men killed, front dispatches said.
It was asserted that all enemy counterattacks were broken and the Russians continued to make local gains.
Use large gains
Dispatches reported that the Germans evidently realized the fate of Stalingrad depended on their ability to make good their counterattacks at the extreme ends of that front, and were sparing neither men nor materials.
On the Central Front west of Moscow, in both the Rzhev and Velikiye Luki sectors, the Germans were also counterattacking without success, dispatches said.
The German High Command said that the Russians attacked in force the German-Romanian positions north of the Terek River, between the Volga and the Don, and in the great Don River bend, “however without success.”
The Russians were also reported to have attacked on the central and northern sectors, managing to effect “local eruptions” at several points. The Nazi High Command said that the Germans counterattacked and destroyed 37 tanks and armored cars.
Blast ammunition dump
The latest communiqué reported that in the northern outskirts of Stalingrad, Russian artillery had blown up an ammunition dump and dispersed infantry concentrations.
Northwest of the city, the Russians repelled counterattacks and consolidated positions, it was said. One Russian unit was credited with killing 1,600 Germans and knocking out 37 tanks in the last 24 hours.
Southwest of Stalingrad, the communiqué reported, the Germans tried to cut off a Russian detachment, but tankbusters disabled four tanks at close range and sent the rest fleeing.
The communiqué said that on the Central Front in three days of offensive operations, troops had killed about 2,000 Germans and destroyed much enemy equipment.
West of Rzhev, the Red Army men captured four enemy base points and threw back 20 counterattacks.
In the Velikiye Luki sector, the Russians claimed several new inhabited places.
Premier Joseph Stalin named one colonel general, 12 lieutenant generals and 130 major generals today. It was the third promotion list in a month. Today’s promotions included those of Aleksandr Shcherbakov and Lev Mekhlis (vice defense commissars) to lieutenant general.
The Pittsburgh Press (December 8, 1942)
On Volga front –
Snow and Nazis slow Russians
Germans counterattack near Stalingrad
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
A blizzard swept the Stalingrad Front today while hard-riding Russian Cossacks dashed over the snow cutting down stragglers from German units bogged down in the deep drifts.
Despite the driving storm, fighting was heavy and artillery battles continued day and night. The big shells threw up great geysers of snow amid struggling masses of men and machines.
Russian sapper crews, advancing into the German minefields, were having difficulty clearing away enemy obstructions, front dispatches said. Mines and tank traps were buried deep under the snow, and operations were slowed somewhat by bad weather conditions and impassable snow banks.
Nazi resistance stiffens
German resistance was stiffening along the entire front, and the Nazi commanders whipped their thin-clad men into fierce and repeated counterattacks without regard for losses.
The Germans held fast to their second line in the Stalingrad area east of the Don River. This line stretches behind two towns about 35 miles northwest of Stalingrad, and continues between the Volga and Don Rivers.
Until the sappers dug through the snow to remove obstructions, it would be impossible for the Russian tanks to press forward for a full-scale attack.
Reds gain at Rzhev
Only in the Rzhev sector, 130 miles northwest of Moscow, were new Russian successes reported. West of Rzhev, the Russians knifed deeper into the enemy lines despite measurably stiffened German resistance.
Local successes were reported for the Russians west of Rzhev and east of Velikiye Luki, which is only 75 miles from the Latvian frontier.
The German High Command asserted that German troops, counterattacking with the support of tank formations in the Kalinin-Lake Ilmen sector, had penetrated Soviet positions to a depth of about 10 miles.
The latest Soviet communiqué reported determined but unsuccessful German counterattacks along the entire front. The stiffened German resistance stalled the Red Army momentarily, but cost the Axis command upwards of 3,000 men killed in a day’s fighting.
Trucks sink into snow
Fighting continued at a furious pace in the southern sector of the front, where trucks were reported sinking into deep snow drifts.
The communiqué said Russian troops consolidated positions in the factory area of northern Stalingrad.
Radio Paris reported from Berlin that Soviet attacks at Stalingrad had increased in scale since Sunday, but claimed the Russians had been unable to improve positions.
German counterattacks were repelled northwest of Stalingrad. Southwest of Stalingrad, the Russians consolidated positions.
Front dispatches said German counterattacks on the left flank of the Don, northwest of Stalingrad, appeared to have stabilized the battle lines in the past three days.
Kill 600 in Caucasus
In the Nalchik sector of the Central Caucasus, the Soviet communiqué said the Red Army killed upwards of 600 enemy troops in three days’ fighting.
On the awakening Leningrad Front, Russian snipers killed 350 Germans and a Soviet unit wiped out up to 200 Germans, the communiqué reported.
Dispatches from Stockholm reported increasing German anxiety concerning what Nazi sources said was a new Russian drive near Voronezh, midway between Stalingrad and Moscow and the hinging point of the Central and Southern Fronts. These reports said an offensive had been started from a triangular area southeast of Voronezh, bounded by Buturlinovka, Kalach and Pavlovsk.
The Germans had reported both the Stalingrad and Rzhev offensives before Moscow announced them. Additionally, German reports said Axis planes had been bombing Soviet troop concentrations in the Voronezh area for about 10 days.
Stockholm reports from Helsinki said renewed Russian activities in the Far North indicated the Russians were preparing a full-scale winter offensive on the Finnish Front, where severe fighting had already started.
Front dispatches indicated that the period of spectacular Russian gains in the Stalingrad area had ended temporarily. They said the Russians were now faced with consolidating gains on the Southern Front, which comprised roughly 10,000 square miles, and annihilating widely-scattered enemy pockets which ranged from a few men to as many as a whole army corps.
Reds nearly catch Hitler, Swiss hear
Bern, Switzerland –
The Russian advance in the Stalingrad sector nearly resulted in their capturing no less a person than Führer Adolf Hitler himself, according to a most reliable report originating in Axis circles here.
Hitler, the report says, was visiting an advanced position in the Stalingrad sector in the early days of the Russian offensive when the Russians suddenly launched an attack. The Nazi boss left hurriedly and less than two hours afterward, the Russians took possession of the house which sheltered their enemy No. 1 and his staff.
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The Pittsburgh Press (December 9, 1942)
On Rzhev Front –
Germans told to hold or die
Reds say Nazi fight with guns at backs
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Battles rage near Rzhev.
Moscow, USSR –
Russian forces smashed German positions today southwest of Stalingrad and on the Rzhev Front northwest of Moscow, where the Axis forces were reported to contain special detachments assigned to shoot any soldier who abandoned his post.
Front dispatches reported that the Germans were rushing reinforcements by train, truck, and plane to all fronts, especially the Rzhev-Vyazma-Velikiye Luki triangle where their casualties were very heavy.
The newspaper Pravda said prisoners reported that special discipline detachments had been sent to the Rzhev Front, 130 miles northwest of Moscow, to shoot Axis soldiers who attempted to retreat before the fierce Soviet onslaught.
4,000 more Nazis die
It said the German High Command had issued a new order toi its Central Front troops to die on the spot rather than retreat an inch.
There was little doubt that the Germans were dying on the spot – before the deadly fire of the driving Russian troops. Soviet communiqués reported that upwards of 4,000 Germans had been slain in the past two days.
The latest Soviet communiqué reported that several new German counterattacks had been repulsed west of Rzhev, with the enemy losing 400 men killed.
Battle at Stalingrad
Heavy fighting was reported at Stalingrad, where a Russian unit drove Axis forces from fortified positions southwest of the city.
German motorized infantry launched a night attack southwest of Stalingrad but were repulsed. German counterattacks were also thrown back northwest of Stalingrad.
Within the city itself, sharp fire was exchanged by Soviet and German troops and Russian artillery destroyed pillboxes and silenced gun positions in the northern factory district.
The communiqué indicated that the Russian Black Sea Fleet had returned to action.
Soviet fleet in action
It said:
In the area of Novorossiysk, Soviet naval artillery silenced two batteries and dispersed and partly destroyed up to a company of infantry.
The Fleet Air Arm attacked the German-occupied port, sank a motor boat and damaged two barges.
Front reports said the Russians were continuing their Caucasus offensive northeast of the Soviet port of Tuapse. More than 5,000 Germans had already been killed in this campaign, in which well-equipped Axis Alpine forces were retreating slowly in bitter fighting.
Reds gain near Rzhev
Fighting was bitter on all active sectors of the winter-locked front with the Russians making their most spectacular gains for the moment in the Rzhev sector.
The communiqué said a Soviet detachment had shot down 15 enemy planes on the Rzhev Front in the past three days and front dispatches said the Red Army’s advance continued west of Rzhev and east of Velikiye Luki.
The situation had become so serious for the Germans on the Rzhev Front that Berlin radio saw fit last night to deny reports it alleged had emerged from Russia that the Soviets had recaptured Rzhev. No such claim has been made by Russia. The Nazi broadcast said:
Both Rzhev and the railway leading to Vyazma are firmly in German hands.
There were indications that the Axis was increasing its frantic efforts to avert complete catastrophe at Stalingrad by flying in heavy reinforcements.
The communiqué reported that Monday, presumably before the blizzard started, 48 enemy transports were shot down in the Stalingrad area. A German transport plane carries as many as 80 fully-equipped soldiers, and the communiqué indicated that Monday’s air activities might have cost the enemy a full regiment of troops.
The army newspaper, Red Star, reported that the Germans had been forced to bring up mail planes, training ships and passenger aircraft to compensate for the losses of Junkers transports on the Stalingrad Front.
Red Star said that Hamburg 142s, generally in service as commercial mail planes, had appeared on the Stalingrad Front, as transport ship losses mounted to as high as 60 in two days.
The newspaper placed the total number of planes lost by the Germans in the past two weeks on all front at 426.
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Germans told to hold or die
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The Pittsburgh Press (December 10, 1942)
Snow hampers Soviet advance
Reinforcements move up during Stalingrad lull
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
Freezing winds piling fresh-fallen snow into deep drifts limited Russian operations on the Stalingrad Front to small advances today, but the Red Army smashed forward west of Rzhev, where 1,200 Germans had been killed in two days’ fighting.
The Russians broke enemy counterattacks and advanced at some points in the Stalingrad area, where low-hanging clouds caused extremely poor visibility interfering with Soviet artillery activity against the strong German ground defenses northwest of Stalingrad.
Frontline dispatches said hardly a moving object could be seen on the snow-covered Stalingrad steppes and the combination of clouds and snow complicated the Russians’ problem of locating the Nazi artillery batteries for long-range guns to silence.
Reinforcements brought up
The Russians were using the lull to reinforce their troops at Stalingrad. At the same time, they were smashing German attempts to bring in their reinforcements by air.
Fleets of trucks, almost invisible against the snow, poured supplies into Stalingrad in anticipation of a new drive when the weather breaks. The truck columns passed files of German prisoners on the road, dispatches said, heading for prison camps.
In two days, the Russians had destroyed 72 big German transport planes bringing supplies to the area.
Reports from the Rzhev-Vyazma-Velikiye Luki sector northwest of Moscow said almost 7,5000 enemy troops had been killed there in recent fighting. The Soviet noon communiqué reported that 1,200 of them had been killed in the last two days.
Tanks are repulsed
Dispatches from that area said the Germans had thrown scores of tanks into an attack near Velikiye Luki but were repulsed.
Radio Vichy, quoting advices from Berlin, said the fighting was increasingly fierce on the Russian front, particularly between Velikiye Luki and Rzhev. It said the battle was violent between the Don and Volga Rivers and in the Big Don Bend. At Stalingrad, the Nazi broadcast said, the Russians had brought up reinforcements and were attacking heavily in the central section of the city.
The Russian noon communiqué disclosed that the Germans were losing heavily in casualties and prisoners on the Rzhev Front.
Soviet positions improved
It said:
A Soviet unit in two days’ fighting wiped out up to 600 of the enemy and captured rich booty and prisoners. On another sector, advancing Soviet units destroyed 19 dugouts and pillboxes and wiped out up to three companies (600 men). Two German tanks were destroyed during an enemy counterattack.
Deep in the Caucasus, Soviet tankbusters turned back an enemy attack, knocking 19 tanks out of the battle. Six were totally destroyed and 13 were disabled.
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The Pittsburgh Press (December 11, 1942)
REDS CLOSE TRAP ON ENEMY AT STALINGRAD
200,000 Nazis surrounded, London hears
Soviet thrusts on front west of Moscow seen as holding action
By Victor Gordon Lennox
London, England –
Gen. Hermann Hoth’s army before Stalingrad is now completely encircled. After several weeks, we have watched anxiously Russia’s evident efforts to close the southwesterly gap astride the Don River by which Hoth was still able to maintain a slender communication line to the rear.
There has been a taciturnity about recent Soviet communiqués and from here it had not been possible, up to now, to gauge the exact state of affairs. Now, information has reached high Soviet circles in London that the Don River gap is closed and a force estimated at between 200,000 and 250,000 completely surrounded.
Reds resist double attacks
The enemy is trying to rupture the Russian ring by violent attacks from the west which seems to indicate that the Russians are obliged to resist double attacks from the east by those trying to break out and from the west by those trying to relieve the beleaguered army.
The Russians claim that they have repulsed attacks by fresh troops from the west up to now. They still hope and express reasonable confidence that they will be able to liquidate the encircled forces.
The Russian offensive farther north – west of Rzhev and elsewhere – is primarily designed at present to pin down substantial German forces rather than to achieve great territorial advances though should they meet with unexpected successes it would be exploited to the fullest.
Try to anticipate Nazi moves
On the course of the winter campaign will depend the extent of the remaining Russian strength for the spring and summer campaigns of 1943.
The Russians are realistically trying to anticipate Hitler’s 1943 intentions. They do not believe he will be content to “defend the European fortress” in accordance with propaganda statements.
They think he will still try offensive actions somewhere. They discount an attempted invasion of Britain and doubt his ability to renew the Caucasus drive unless he invades Turkey, which the Russians consider a most difficult operation.
Soviet dive bombers hurled at Germans
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
Russian plane squadrons led by Shturmovik dive bombers opened a ferocious attack on German supply columns and troop concentrations today in an attempt to reduce the weight of intensifying enemy counterattacks northwest of Stalingrad.
Regrouping their forces, the Germans were throwing regular troops, special units and auxiliaries into their attacks, trying desperately to stabilize the front and stop the persistent offensive of the Russians which threatened encirclement and destruction of their forces piece by piece.
Smash German trucks
Special front dispatches described how the Russian plane forces, sweeping suddenly over the battle area dived on the Germans and smashed their trucks and sent their troops scurrying for cover, leaving many dead.
Dispatches reported that the Germans, using tanks and infantry, were broadening their counterattacks on both the Stalingrad and Moscow fronts in a vain attempt to recover the positions they had lost.
The Russians broke successive attacks on both fronts, dispatches said, and continued advances in several sectors for local gains in which they occupied entrenchments and strongpoints.
Last night’s communiqué said the Russians destroyed 42 of a force of 70 German tanks in stopping an enemy counterattack which penetrated the Russian line for an insignificant distance west of Rzhev.
Report fierce resistance
The communiqué reported that during yesterday’s fighting, the Germans on the Central and Southern Front lost upwards of 3,000 men killed.
So fierce was enemy resistance southwest of Stalingrad, dispatches from the front said, that only local gains had been made by the Russians for several days.
The latest communiqué reported the repulse southwest of Stalingrad of an enemy attack in which the Germans lost 160 men killed.
Repulsed Nazi attacks
On the Central Front west of Moscow, the communiqué said, the main Russian forces consolidated captured positions while the offensive continued in some sectors.
West of Rzhev, the Russians were reported to have smashed a German defense point.
Farther west, in the Velikiye Luki area, the Russians repulsed three German counterattacks with heavy losses to the enemy.
It was not believed that the Germans had obtained reinforcements outside, but that they were moving all possible reserves northward and eastward on the northwest Stalingrad Front.
Red artillery active
Today’s communiqué reported that the Russians threw back enemy counterattacks in two sectors northwest of Stalingrad, killing about 1,000 Germans.
Russian artillery continued a systematic bombardment of the northern factory district in Stalingrad and special dispatches reported a local advance in the southern outskirts.
Dispatches said German units counterattacked again and again over snow-covered hills and through drift-packed ravines northwest of Stalingrad only to be repulsed with heavy losses.
The Germans also threw strong reinforcements into their positions southwest of Stalingrad, using transport planes as much as possible, despite heavy losses, to strengthen isolated units.
The Pittsburgh Press (December 12, 1942)
Reds shatter German line in Rzhev area
Fresh Russian offensive gaining momentum on Central Front
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
A powerful new Russian attack has smashed through German defense lines west of Rzhev with gathering momentum, front dispatches reported today.
New gains in the Stalingrad area tightened the Soviet ring around the Nazi siege army.
The German High Command admitted that a large-scale Soviet offensive had been launched with “fresh troops” on the front south of Rzhev. The Nazis claimed they had beaten off the attack which was said to have had unusually strong infantry and tank support.
Front dispatches said the Red Army stormed across a water barrier and broke through the first German lines of defense in heavy fighting.
Weather conditions which have hampered operations on the Central Front were said to be clearing up, enabling low-flying dive bomber planes to carry out large-scale attacks on Nazi positions and troop concentrations.
German counterattacks in the Velikiye Luki sector, said the dispatches, were beaten off and encircled Nazi garrisons were destroyed.
On the Stalingrad Front, Russian forces on the west bank of the Don northwest of the city and southwest of the city were drawing the noose around the Germans even tighter.
60 planes destroyed
Russian spearheads were entering German positions on the Kalach sector along the Stalingrad-Kharkov railroad and were believed to be so strongly entrenched that German forces to the east will find it impossible to break out.
Destruction of 60 German transport planes in a single day was regarded as an indication of the large-scale efforts of the Germans to supply their troops by air due to the closing of land supply routes.
Outcome uncertain
Observers were unwilling to predict the outcome of the German attempts tp break the trap but it was believed that their chances were steadily diminishing.
Within Stalingrad itself, heavy fighting was reported on the southern outskirts and in the northern factory district.
Guerrilla fighters in the Smolensk area were reported to have killed 7,400 Germans, wrecked 48 military trains, derailed an armored train and blown up five bridges in the last six weeks.
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Fighting indicated inside Kotelnikovo
London, England (UP) –
Dispatches from Stockholm and Moscow indicated today that the Russians advancing southwest of Stalingrad along the Caucasus railroad might now be fighting in the streets of Kotelnikovo, 100 miles from Stalingrad, military quarters reported.
Russian reports that the Red Army was attacking an important German stronghold in this area was believed by experts to mean that Kotelnikovo was the objective.
Dispatches said the fighting was proceeding through heavy German minefields.
Germany had admitted a Russian breakthrough in the Kotelnikovo region but said the Russians were repulsed later.
The German radio reported that on the Central Front, the Russians had made big-scale attacks west of Rzhev throughout yesterday but that the Germans had held out against all assaults.
According to Berlin, the Russians sought to relieve Russian troops who had been entrapped.
The German-controlled Paris radio reported the repulse by the Germans of Russian attacks between Kalinin, 100 miles northwest of Moscow, and Lake Ilmen south of Leningrad.
The Pittsburgh Press (December 13, 1942)
98 transports downed –
Trapped Nazis strike at Reds
Foe loses 241,400 troops in 3 weeks, Russia says
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
The Russians smash slowly forward on two major fronts in their winter offensive, as the Germans fight desperately to hold their ground.
1. Nazi counterattacks fail to stem tide at Velikiye Luki.
2. Powerful Russian drive smashes through Nazi lines west of Rzhev.
3. Red ring around 200,000 Germans trapped west of Stalingrad strengthened.
Moscow, USSR –
The Germans have begun desperate counterassaults in an effort to break the steel ring forged about their divisions trapped before Stalingrad, the latest Soviet communiqué revealed today as a special announcement disclosed that the Nazis have lost 241,400 troops killed or captured on two fronts since Nov. 19.
The communiqué also revealed that the Germans were counterattacking on the Central Front, particularly in the Velikiye Luki area, where the Germans tried to check a Soviet onslaught with counterattacks, all of which were repulsed with heavy losses. In that battle alone, 1,200 Germans were killed, the communiqué said.
98 transports shot down
The German counterassaults in the Stalingrad area were undertaken as their desperate position was revealed by the extent of air transports being shot down.
The communiqué said 38 transports were shot down Friday. A record 60 were reported shot down the day before, testifying that the trapped Nazis were devoid of communications save by air.
The Germans counterattacked northwest and southwest of Stalingrad and were repulsed with heavy losses in each instance. Northwest of the city, the Red Army had fortified its positions and withstood a ferocious assault by tanks, planes and infantry, in which 23 tanks and some 700 men were wiped out. Anti-aircraft fire accounted for six Nazi planes.
A total of 88 enemy planes were shot down in the Stalingrad area. Soviet Air Force units ranged over the front Friday, destroying or damaging 20 German tanks, 20 lorries filled with troops and supplies, silencing 10 anti-aircraft batteries and blowing up three ammunition dumps. About a battalion (500 men) of German infantry was wiped out.
Russian snipers were operating northwest of Tuapse, the Black Sea port, and in two days’ fighting killed more than 100 of the enemy. In one sector of that front, enemy infantry attempted to break Russian defense lines but were driven back by rifle and machine-gun fire, leaving “dozens of dead” on the field.
The special announcement gave a long list of war booty taken in the new offensives.
It said:
At Stalingrad, between Nov. 19 and Dec. 11, Soviet troops captured 105 planes, 1,510 tanks, 1,234 guns, 1,714 trench mortars, 28 anti-aircraft installations, 4,175 machine guns, 311 anti-tank guns and rifles, more than 2,000 automatic rifles, 7,306 motor vehicles, and over 1,385 motorcycles.
During the hard-fought battles in that four-week period, the communiqué said, Soviet troops had destroyed 632 planes – of which 353 were transports – and wrecked 548 tanks.
Front dispatches reported that the Red Army, taking advantage of clearing weather, had opened a new offensive west of Rzhev and has pressed forward across a water barrier and pierced a German fortified point, further unhinging the German defense system on the Central Front.
The German High Command reported that the Russians yesterday launched a new “large-scale offensive” against German lines south of Rzhev in which “unusually strong infantry and tank forces” were employed. The Germans said the attack “collapsed” after 170 Russian tanks were destroyed. A Nazi Transocean report claimed 206 Russian tanks were knocked out and said the attack was launched by six Russian divisions (possibly 90,000 men) against a narrow front.
Weather improves
Improvement of weather on the Central Front, which has been swept for several days by blizzards and high winds, was followed immediately by a sharp Russian attack across a German river position and through the first line of fortifications the Nazis had erected close to the banks.
The Russians destroyed 15 enemy blockhouses and 18 gun emplacements and killed 800 Nazis in the advance.
In the adjacent Velikiye Luki sector, the Russians reported they had destroyed several more German garrisons which had been surrounded some time before.
Pincers squeeze Nazis
Strong tank forces were utilized in both the Rzhev and the Velikiye Luki operations. The Rzhev positions were said to have been held by two German divisions.
Reports from Stalingrad said the huge Russian pincers was slowly, inexorably squeezing the large German forces trapped between the Don and the Volga.
Despite constant Nazi counterattacks, the Russians were said to be widening the gap between the encircled troops and Nazi forces outside the gap which are trying to break through to their relief.
Positions strengthened
In 10 days’ fighting, it was said, the Germans had been unable either to break the Russian ring or gain the initiative.
The Russian command was said to be proceeding with the greatest care in an effort to achieve destruction of all the 18-22 German divisions inside the ring.
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The Pittsburgh Press (December 14, 1942)
Stalingrad attack pierces second Nazi defense line
Russian troops also smash attempt by Germans to break from trap near Volga city
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
Russian troops have smashed a German attempt to crack the southern arm of the Soviet pincers encircling Axis forces in the Stalingrad area, and have penetrated the second enemy line of defense in the city’s southern outskirts, front dispatches said today.
Reports from the front said 2,000 more Axis troops had been killed in Stalingrad while on the Central Front west of Rzhev, upwards of 1,500 more enemy troops had been killed in the last 24 hours.
German casualties, already estimated by the army newspaper Red Star at more than eight million killed, wounded or captured since the start of the Russian war, were mounting rapidly on all active fronts, it was said.
Wedge smashed
Soviet communiqués reported that the Russians had surged through the first line of German trenches and were now fighting in the second line in the southern outskirts of Stalingrad.
The Germans continued futile stabs at the Russian ring encircling their forces between the Volga and Don Rivers. Driven off at one point, front dispatches said, they reformed their infantry and tank groups and drove a wedge into another section of the Russian lines where Russian artillery hemmed them in. When the battle cleared, 800 enemy troops were dead and 22 German tanks were damaged or burned out, then additional tanks were lost in fruitless subsequent attacks.
Lose 1,200 in attacks
Northwest of the city, the Russians further improved their positions despite determined German counterattacks. The enemy gained nothing and lost an additional 1,200 men, front reports said.
West of Rzhev, 130 miles northwest of Moscow, the Germans continued to lose heavily in tanks and manpower, driving their troops onto determined counterattacks which failed to halt the slow but steady Soviet advance. In the last 24 hours, the enemy had lost 1,500 men and 16 tanks.
Soviet bombers and Shturmovik dive bombers stepped up the pace of their activity in the Rzhev-Vyazma-Velikiye Luki triangle, where large groups of German tanks were reported attempting to localize a Russian breach east of Velikiye Luki. An enemy battalion that tried to penetrate the Soviet lines was trapped and encircled east of Velikiye Luki.
Battle in streets
The fighting was bitter in the streets of ruined Stalingrad.
Attacking strongly in the northern factory districts, the Russians were said to have dislodged the Germans from 11 pillboxes and several fortified buildings.
Continuing this attack, the communiqué said, the Russians smashed a series of dugouts and blockhouses.
On the northwest Stalingrad and southwest Stalingrad fronts, the Germans were counterattacking strongly but vainly, the communiqué reported, after the Russians stormed and captured a series of important heights northwest of Stalingrad and destroyed 50 dugouts.
Artillery helps
Soviet artillery opened a heavy bombardment against the Germans northwest of Stalingrad, aiding the infantry to throw back two counterattacks.
In another sector northwest of Stalingrad, artillery destroyed two trench mortars and 16 gun emplacements.
Southwest of Stalingrad, the Russians, in throwing back an enemy counterattack, destroyed 10 tanks and dispersed a big force of infantrymen.
Northeast of Tuapse, on the Black Sea part of the Caucasus Front, the communiqué said, Russian artillery and trench mortars destroyed 68 enemy dugouts, 15 machine guns, four field guns and eight anti-aircraft guns.
Shell Nazis near Tuapse
The Russians continued on the offensive in some sectors of the Central Front while on others they repelled strong enemy counterattacks.
The communiqué said that last week the Russians had destroyed 407 German planes, 225 transport planes, for a loss of 156 Russian planes.
A special weekend communiqué reported that between Nov. 19 and Dec. 11 on the Stalingrad Front, the Germans and Romanians lost more than 194,000 killed and 72,400 prisoners.
105 planes captured
It listed 105 German planes captured and 632 destroyed, 1,500 tanks captured and 548 destroyed, 2,134 guns captured and 934 destroyed, 1,714 trench mortars captured, 28 anti-aircraft machine guns captured, 4,175 machine guns captured and 1,946 destroyed, 311 anti-tank rifles captured and more than 2,000 automatic rifles captured, in addition to enormous quantities of ammunition and equipment.
On the basis of unofficial tabulations, it was estimated that the Axis forces must have lost more than 300,000 men killed on the Stalingrad Front since Sept. 1, and that perhaps two or three times that number had been wounded.
The special communiqué gave a total of 75,000 Germans killed on the Central Front between Nov. 25 and Dec. 11.
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The Pittsburgh Press (December 15, 1942)
Russians gain at Stalingrad despite big Nazi attacks
Axis makes small advance at one point while losing 3,000 men on two fronts
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
The Red Army, killing more than 3,000 frantically-counterattacking Germans in the past 24 hours, captured another village southwest of Stalingrad today.
More than 500 Germans were killed as the Russians stormed into the village, the latest Soviet communiqué said. The Russians captured 50 Germans.
Front reports said the Germans were making non-stop counterattacks southwest of Stalingrad, and in the Rzhev area, on the Central Front. But in the past 24 hours, they gained for the Germans only one small advance southwest of Stalingrad.
Besides losing more than 3,000 men in counterattacks on the Stalingrad and Central Fronts, the Germans lost 44 tanks and 47 guns, captured or destroyed.
They paid 1,000 lives for their advance southwest of Stalingrad. Dispatches said the gain was in the direction of a number of settlements.
Battle west of Rzhev
Trying to exploit their success, the Germans counterattacked in the same area again and again. Russian artillery broke up tanks and infantry before they reached Red lines, however costing the Germans on one sector 300 more killed.
The Stalingrad garrison attacked in a factory area during the night, occupied a number of buildings and killed 80 Germans.
Northwest of Stalingrad, Soviet artillery dispersed and partly wiped out a battalion (1,000 men). Four successive German counterattacks were repulsed southwest of Stalingrad.
Despite counterattacks, the Soviet offensive on the Central Front rolled on. West of Rzhev, 125 miles northwest of Moscow, the Germans threw fresh infantry and tank forces into their effort to stop the Russians. Six counterattacks were repulsed and 400 Germans were wiped out.
Trap Velikiye Luki garrison
Having encircled the enemy garrison at Velikiye Luki, 250 miles west and slightly north of Moscow, the Russians were systematically destroying it.
The communiqué reported Russian successes near the German-held Novorossiysk Naval Base on the Black Sea, Soviet artillery and trench mortars destroyed nine dugouts while snipers have killed 185 Germans in three days.
Last midnight’s communiqué reported Russian gains southeast of Tuapse Naval Base, which the Russians hold, just below Novorossiysk.
More air transports downed
The midnight communiqué also reported additional Soviet gains in a factory area of Stalingrad and revealed that 42 enemy planes, including 33 big transports with which the Germans have been trying to supply their harried forces, were shot down in the Stalingrad area Sunday.
Counterattacks on the Central Front that cost the Germans 26 tanks were described by the midnight communiqué.
The heaviest counterattacks were delivered west of Rzhev, and dispatches said enemy units never before seen on the Central Front were participating in operations.
Red use Nazi trains
Freight trains from Germany, France, Italy and Poland, abandoned by the retreating Germans in the Stalingrad area, were now hauling shells, supplies and troops for the Soviet Army. Large sections of roadbeds were destroyed in the fighting, but Russian engineers quickly put some lines back into operating condition.
A transport plane shot down on the Stalingrad Front was carrying 300 letters to Germany. They vividly described the suffering of the would-be conquerors of Stalingrad, now encircled on the freezing steppes.
Non-commissioned German officer Ofger had written his wife:
We live on the steppes, with the Russians all around us. The blizzard winds cut like knives. The falling snow hurts like pinpricks. Our hand and feet are frozen.
The Pittsburgh Press (December 16, 1942)
RUSSIANS STOP MASS TANK ATTACKS
Germans fail in three-day battle at Don
Nazis penetrate lines at few points, strike on two fronts
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
German forces pounded against solid Russian lines at Stalingrad and Rzhev today, using powerful tank forces hurriedly rushed from other fronts in a vain effort to seize the initiative from the Red Army.
Soviet artillery turned a withering fire on the charging German tanks, taking a heavy toll and the enemy was unable to turn the tide of battle, front dispatches said.
The Nazis used big tank units west of Rzhev, on the snowy Central Front 130 miles northwest of Moscow, but were unable to prevent the Russians from deepening and widening a breech in the Axis lines.
Mine-throwers repulsed
Southwest of Stalingrad, Axis tanks supported by mine-throwers and artillery were turned back in an effort to relieve their encircled troops between the Don and Volga Rivers in a three-day battle.
The Germans opened the battle southwest of Stalingrad by wedging 80 tanks and two infantry regiments (6,000 troops) into advanced Soviet positions.
The new tank reinforcements, apparently rushed northward from the Caucasus, smashed at a Russian unit which had just advanced southward and had not had time to entrench.
Penetrate Soviet lines
Heavy German artillery and mine-thrower batteries laid down a strong barrage and dive bombers attempted to join the battle, but Soviet planes drove them off.
Penetrating the Russian lines, the enemy struck anew at several points, seeking a weak spot and the Russians retreated, fearing the threat to their left flank.
During the night, Red Army units destroyed groups of Tommy gunners within their lines and the battle was resumed the following daybreak on greater scale.
Nazi drive limited
The Germans failed on one sector, but attacked successively on others. Finally, they massed their forces on one narrow sector and with numerical superiority, drove into the Soviet lines, forcing the Russians to retreat.
On the third day, the Germans attempted to develop their success, but Russian shock troops, backed by Soviet artillery, battered them from the flanks and trapped them from two sides and liquidated them. Front dispatches said results of the determined Nazi drive were limited.
Northwest of Stalingrad, meanwhile, the Russians improved positions on the west bank of the Don, occupying an Axis defense line and repulsing subsequent counterattacks. The Germans lost 600 prisoners and 400 troops killed.
Stop Nazi tanks near Rzhev
German losses were even greater in the Rzhev-Vyazma-Velikiye Luki triangle of the Central Front.
Front dispatches said three exceptionally big tank groups attacked west of Rzhev and were stopped in bitter fighting.
The Russians advanced on several sectors, driving the Germans from a number of fortified points and killing more than 1,000.
Since noon yesterday, the High Command has reported the knocking out of at least 52 German tanks and the killing of at least 2,850 Axis soldiers.
The Russians were still engaged in operations to annihilate the encircled garrison at Velikiye Luki, some 200 miles northwest of Moscow.
Soviet troops attacked the Germans during the night with bayonets and hand grenades on the northwestern outskirts of Stalingrad, killed 200 and blew up an ammunition dump.
Trench mortars dispersed enemy concentrations of considerable size in a factory area of Stalingrad, where the Russians had been making steady gains.
The Germans said heavy rains and storms were considerably hampering operations. A Nazi Transocean Agency dispatch said:
The Soviets still continue to launch massed attacks, but these invariably are frustrated by extremely effective “elastic defense” methods.
The dispatch admitted the Russians had “succeeded in locally penetrating the German front at some points,” but said the Germans had destroyed 3,000 Russian tanks and the offensive:
…must be regarded as disastrous for the Soviets.
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By this time, Mid December '42, it was probably already too late for the Germans to break out from Stalingrad. When they started eating their horses they were also ‘consuming’ their means to escape. The Wehrmacht, outside of its panzers, wasn’t very mechanized and its logistics relied heavily on horses to move men, supplies, and equipment. Of course their situation steadily deteriorated further before their surrender, but I think the turning point came long before that surrender.
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