Evening star., 1942-08-22
Reds Push Nazis
Back Northwest
Of Sta|ingrad
Germans Maintain
Initiative in Other
Southern Areas
By EDDY GILMORE,

tIlc hleISkdyd area OF U0e Don
bend northwest of Stalingrad by
surprise attack last night while
the Germans generally main
tanned the initiative in other
southern theaters, the Russians
said today.
quarter fighting developed
from The Soviet thrust and the Nazi
survivors were reported to have left
on the battlefield 200 dead, field
guns, machine guns. l3 munitions
trucks and a radio station.
This relatively limited operation
and a report that Russian detach-
ments, forced ever deeper into the
Central Caucasus, had pinched off
and wiped out German vanguards
in the hills southeast of Pyatigorsk
were balanced by acknowledgment
OF sustained Nazi attacks southeast
of Kletskaya, northeast of Kotel-
nikovski and southeast of Krasno-
dar.
The Moscow radio said Soviet
forces southeast of Kletskaya were
launching one counterattack after
another and in some places were
throwing the NaZis on the defensive.
Nazi Riflemen Ambushed.
Several small German forces.
mostly of automatic rifiemen, which
crossed the Don at its curve south
west of Kletskaya in an attempt to
establish a bridgehead only about
40 miles from Stalingrad, were de-
clared by Moscow newspapers to be
suffering heavy punishment. A ma
chine-gun ambush accounted for
about 60 of their riflemen, it was an
nounced.
Soviet troops were said to be cut
ting down a German infantry COL
umn mouse-trapped behind a minor
NaZi tank penetration southwest of
the Stalingrad industrial center on
the Volga.
The midday communique re-
ported the invaders had lost heavily
IN that sector-centering along a
95-mile railway line from Kotelniko-
viski-and were throwing in re-
serves.
Twelve tanks OF a 5O-tank form
alton were declared knocked out Of
action and about 800 Germans killed
In a battle against an unyielding
Soviet front.
New Withdrawals Recorded.
New Russian Withdrawals were
recorded below both Pyatigorsk and
Krasnodar, but the Soviet Informa-
ton Bureau said Red Army mortar
crews of one unit killed over 1000
German officers and men in three
days and destroyed IL tanks and a
number of trucks
Red Army men on the northwest
ern front-part of an area in which
the Russians have been probing on
the offensive-were reported to have
driven the Germans from a popu-
lated place, killed several hundred
and destroyed six German tanks
and four enemy blockhouses.
A midnight communique indicated
no abatement of the peril in the
two-way thrust against Stalingrad,
but the eighth week of Field Mar
shall Fedor Won Books big push
was ending with lines of the Red
Army still intact.
In the Central Caucasus, German
detachments assigned to the drive
toward the Grozny and Baku oil
fields were reported repelled yester-
day southeast of Pyatigorsk.
Fighting Along Highway.
Field dispatches said this fighting
centered along 5O-mile asphalted
highway toward Nalchik, itself 100
miles west of Grozny.
Natural defenses of the Caucasian
foothills appeared still to be behind
the Russians conducting a fighting
retreat south of Krasnodar, Ger
man-occupied Kuban River port
Soviet soldiers withdrew again in
one sector, the communique said.
Soviet bombers and naval vessels
hammered away at Adolf Hitlers
factories and ships and a broadcast
beamed to Western European peoples
said that "a great United Nations
offensive against Germany is now
being prepared
A large force of Russian bombers
raided war industries of Warsaw
East Prussia and Upper Silesia
Thursday night and left explosions
and fires behind, 1t was announced.
Red Navy men were credited with
sinking 15,000-ton German tanker
in Baltic waters and minesweeper
and two patrol boats in the Barents