Evening star., 1942-08-10
Solomon Islands Battle Roars On:
Reds Blowing Up Maikop Oil Field;
Is Mills in India Hit by Strikes
Russian Defenses
Appear to Crack
In Caucasus Hills
BY EDDY GILMORE,
Associated Press War Correspondent.

MOSCOW, Aug. 1O.-Driven
back by relentless, hard thrusts
OF German motorized troops and
Alpinists, Red Army defenses be-
fore the oil fields of Maikop and
in spurs of the Caucasian foot
hills appeared to be cracking to-
day.
Front line dispatches telling of
tremendous explosions roaring over
a broad area seemed to indicate the
Russians were carrying out with
ruthless abandon the scorched earth
policy in the first oil regions the
Germans have been able to pene-
trate in their Caucasian thrust.
In large-scale tank battles in the
Kotelnikovski area on the Don ell
bow, southwest of Stalingrad the
Soviet machines appeared to be as
strong as the Germans, and the Red
Army was communicating with
some success.
Reds Advance Near Voronezh.
Five hundred miles north of the
Caucasus, in the Voronezh flank, the
Russians were making further head
way, expanding their bridgeheads on
the west bank of the Don, taking
several populated places In violent
lighting. and repulsing German
counterattacks between the Don and
Voronezh.
The Germans were bringing up
reserves and still maintaining COM
munications with their groups be-
fore the city, however.
In the oil-bearing Maikop- -Kras-
nodar area OF the Northwest Cau-
casus, said today's communique, the
Germans were striving hard to ad-
vance," and dispatches from the
front said great shrouds of dust
and smoke were draped over a
broad landscape already baked by q
broiling summer sun.
PraVda said roaring blasts scared
a wide area, and it was reasonable.
observers here said, to believe that
the Russians would destroy the
oil installations before the Germans
reach, them. The Maikop fields pro-
duced about 7 per cent of Russia S
petroleum.
Wheat Fields Burning.
AS the battle spread southwark
dispa tches told of burning wheat
fields; too, indicating that In some
sectors the Russians had not been
able to harvest the grain before the
approach of the enemy, as they were
able to do farther north.
There was no report here indicat-
ing whether the Russians who had
been battling along the Black Sea
and Sea of Azov coasts had been cut
OH by the German advance south
Of Kushchevka. But it was possible
most OF them were giving battle
along the Kuban.
AS fresh German Alpinists drove
from Armavir, dispatches said saber-
swinging horsemen of the Cossack
villages defeated them in the first
encounters in the Caucasian foot
hills.
Ambushes along the roads which
the Germans were pressing were the
favorite Cossack tricks.
GA Berlin broadcast said Ger
mans were advancing fan-ike
from Krasnodar toward the Red
Fleet navy base at Novorossisk on
the Black Sea, from Maikop to-
ward secondary naval base at
Tuapse, and from Voroshilovsk
and NevinnomysSkaya toward the
upper course of the Kuma River.
tThe Kuma River flows east
ward into the Caspian. It thus
appeared that the Germans after
having penetrated the oil regions
north of the Caucasus, were
swiftly trying to drive a wedge
from the Black Sea to the Cas-
plan, where they could cut the
Allied supply line from the
Persian Gulf.)
Forced Back at Kropotkin.
The Russians, in their midnight
commurique, said they were fighting
heavy engagements in the region
of Armavir, but admitted being
forced back at Kropotkin, still far
ther north. There was no mention
Of fighting at Krasnodar, a vital rail
junction.
(The Germans claimed last
week they had captured Kropot-
kin and ArmavirD)
The newspaper Pravda reported
that Kuban Cossacks were in action
in the Armavir area and said that
''in series of vigorous cavalry at
tacks in cooperation with attack
planes they cut up over thousand
Rumanian cavalrymen and put
others to flight"
AS the Germans forced back the
Russians toward the Caucasus
Mountains and the Black Sea coast
the defenders of the important
Volga industrial city of Stalingrad
(See RUSSIA, Page A-12)