Evening star., 1942-08-29
Airdrome at Rzhev
Reported Retoken
In Northern Drive
By EDDY GILMORE,

Associated Press Foreign Correspondent.
MOSCOW, Aug. 29-Soviet
troops have hurled back German
attacks both above and below
Stalingrad by vigorous counter
attacks, but enemy tanks and
infantry are wedged deeply into
the city's defenses in another
sector and the Nazi command
has moved two fresh divisions
into action, the Russians said
today.
Dead men clad in the grayish
green of Adolf Hitler's legions were
reported piled high on the sandy
steppes before Soviet trenches and
the government newspaper Izvestia
described prisoners as hungry and
almost exhausted.
Red Star said the Germans were
having difficulty supplying their
tanks with fuel. At one place,
along the Don front, 700 tanks were
reported halted because of a gaso-
line famine and Russian bombers
destroyed many of them.
(Tlhe British radio said the
Russians in their great counter
attack on the central front had
captured the Rzhev airdrome
and cut an important road link
ing German positions. Fighting
in Rzfev was said to be pro-
ceeding from house to house.
German field headquarters
acknowledged that the Red
armies were counterattacking be-
fore Stalingrad and had broken
into German defenses in the Ka-
luga sector, 100 miles southwest
of Moscow, but issued the Gus
tomary claim that Nazi troops
had repulsed them and were
continuing their own attacks.
Defense Crisis Apparent.
Nevertheless, a defense crises was
apparent A Nazi tank division and
one more infantry division maneu
vered into position after forced
march from the Don bend bridge
heads and aerial transports, plying
the skies with fighters and Stukas,
brought up hundreds of other Ger
mans.
Some of these dropped as para
chutists behind the Russian lines.
Automatic gunners dueled in the
areas between fortified positions.
Smoke spiraled up from bombed
areas Of Stalingrad, sprawled on the
west bank of the Volga.
The government declared 1890
Germans, Rumanians and Italians
died in vain attempt to hold one
wedge under Russian counterattacks
northwest of the city.
Red Army men were declared
bearing up under mass bombings
and their sharp flanking blows
southwest of Stalingrad were re-
ported to have put the Germans on
the defensive.
The sector of the deep German
penetration was not identified, but
the implication was that it was west
of the town. The midday communi-
que said that "in this engagement
dlSU Ifl6 SullClCo IlSoFJ
losses in men and equipment"
Axis Columns in Caucasus Hit.
Russian forces were reported to
have struck heavily at Axis columns
driving into the Caucasus and re-
captured 13 additional villages dur
ing increased assaults on German
Notifications in the Upper Volga
bog lands near Rzhev.
Soviet companies still hold the
northern section of Rzhev, a Pravda
dispatch said, and are striking at
the Germans behind plane-laid
smoke screens.
The Red Navy and supporting
warplanes were credited with the
destruction of four more Axis YES
sells, submarine in the Black Sea,
a transport in the Baltic and two
transports totaling 10000 tons in
the Barents Sea.
Numerous prisoners were declared
by the Army newspaper Red Star to
have been captured on the central
front, where Field Marshal Model
was reported in charge of Nazi de-
fenses as commander of the 9th
Arny