Evening star., 1942-11-27
Reds Cut Across
Nazi Life|ines
To Sta|ingrad
New Strength Poured
Into Garrison by
RecentIy-Won Route
BY EDDY GILMORE,
Associated Press War Correspondent

MOSCOW, Nov. 27.-Danger
deepened hourly for Hitler's bat
tered spearhead at Stalingrad
today, the latest battle dis
patches indicated, as fresh
strength poured into the aggres-
sive Red Army garrison over a
newly won land route, and fast
wheeling field columns cut
across the besiegers' lifelines to
the west.
A confused war of movement
swirled across the broad steppes
west of Stalingrad and it was i'm
possible to define battle lines
clearly, but overnight dispatches
said that in some places the Red
offensive gained such momentum
that fleeing Germans were frus-
trated in efforts to burn warplanes
on fields overwhelmed too swiftly
to permit take-offs.
Dozens of planes were reported
captured undamaged at one air.
drome in sector described only
as hilly.
Axis Casualties Mount.
Overnight reports pushed to u.s.
500 the number of Axis soldiers said
to have been killed or captured in
the nine -day-old drive, with pos
sibly another 10000 wounded.
CThe German radio, reporting
Russian offensive blows from
Leningrad. admitted today the
Red Army had driven tanks deep
into Nazi lines west and north
west of Moscow and was batter
ing at a curving, 200-mile line
from Rzhev to Velikie Luki,
barely 100 miles from the Latvian
border.
tThe official Nazi communique,
issued subsequent to these broad
cast accounts, confirmed the
scope of the Russian activity,
but claimed the Red Army had
been "frustrated' in the north as
well as in the blazing Stalingrad
sector.
(The war bulletin failed, how
ever, to claim that the Soviet at
tackS had been smashed. as usu-
ally is the case. 1t said 1872 Rus
sian tanks had been destroyed in
"a hours northwest of Moscow
and SIS more in the Volga and
Don region.
Whether failure of Moscow to
mention this reported fighting
along the entire eastern front
was the same official Russian
reticence which kept the drive
to relieve Stalingrad secret for
its first three days or whether
the Germans were magnifying
the northern phase for some
propaganda purpose was not
clear)
Striking Across Supply Lines.
Details were lacking, but in broad
outline the picture sketched by front
lines dispatches showed the esti-
mated 100000 survivors of the Axis
legions that have attacked Stalin-
grad for three months were beset
by fresh perils on two sides.
To the east the Russian garrison
of Stalingrad was strengthened by
supplies and reinforcements run
down the west bank of the Volga-
for the first time since early in the
siege-and behind them, $3.50 miles
TO the west, the Russians were
spreading over the Don bend and
striking across vital supply lines.
Opening of the new land supply
line into Stalingrad was made pos
sible by the column which early this
week drove southwark to join with
the garrison. For weeks the garri-
son had depended on supplies and
reinforcements carried perilously
across the river which now is in
creasingly choked with ice.
Hundreds of miles of rail lines,
becoming more and more vital to the
Germans as winter whistles across
the southern steppes, were under
serious threat elsewhere as the
powerful Soviet offensive swept into
new areas.
Reds Tighten Grip on Rail Lines.
AllC AeuhooloAio llSllGCllCu GIlCll Sll
on the two lines running southwest
ward and west out of Stalingrad to
what is now the Nazi rear, denying
a stretch nearly 100 miles long to
the invaders.
Farther to the west, Red Army
groups driving west from Cherny-
shevskaya were approaching a Sec
tor traversed by the Nazi-held Mos
cow-Rostov line, one of the most
vital rail connections with the
Caucasus.
Thus the Russians were in posi-
ton to gain control of a triangular
network bounded on the north by
Mlllerovo, on the south by Tikhoretsk
and on the east by Stalingrad.
The Soviet Information Bureau
Continued on Page Ais, Column i