Evening star., 1942-08-31
Germans Soy Troops
Are Now IS Miles
From VoIgo City
By EDDY GILMORE,
Associated Press War Correspondent.


MOSCOW, Aug. 31.-The Rec
Army held back the growing
German pincers push agains
Stalingrad from the northwest
and southwest for the sixth day
today and apparently won the
initiative in bloody engagements
on several other fronts.
Field dispatches said tank de-
tachments we're battling in the
corridor between the Don and the
Volga and the Soviet armored
crews we're holding their own, dis
abling many of the invasion ma
chimes.
1n Berlin the German high
command said Nazi troops had
reached q position only Is miles
south of Stalingrad and that
night raiding planes had spread
vast fires in the Volga River
city. Railway objectives and airs
ports east of the Volga were
heavily blasted from the air, the
AtASll ohldJ
Tanks, Planes Screen Tactics.
Hundreds of tanks and bombers
screened maneuvers by large inva-
sion forces northwest of the Volga
River city, where German van
guards had been swept from a stra-
tegic zone by weekend counter
attacks.
The Germans struck hard also
southwest Of Stalingrad in the sec
tor officially designated as north
east of Kotelnikovski, the Nazi-
held rail town 95 miles below the
city.
Russia's central front troops ex-
panded their holdings by forcing a
river crossing yesterday and fought
on with the Germans in the streets
Of Rzhev, 100 miles northwest of
Moscow.
The Soviet Information Bureaus
midday communique said there were
no material changes at the front
overnight.
1t was declared that 498 German
planes were destroyed during the
last week, against Russian loss of
206.
-Four Villages Recaptured.
Invasion columns were stemmed
In the Western Caucasus and four
villages were recaptured in the
Prokhladnenski sector, Russian field
dispatches said.
While as many as TOO German
tanks were reported stalled in the
Don-Volga corridor area for lack of
fuel, Red marines and armed peas
ants joined Soviet soldiers in de-
lenses of Staltngrad.
Marshal Semeon Timoshenko's
men forced the invaders from a
community northwest of Stalingrad
in house-to-house fighting which
left hundreds of German casualties
In the streets and also regained
nearby hills, thus obtaining a COM
manding position over the whole
locality" the Moscow radio an
nounced.
The Soviet Information Bureau
illustrated the scope of the counter
attacks by declaration that one
Red Army force, supported by
armored crews, destroyed 18 Ger
man tanks and nine field guns and
wiped out 600 Germans.
Heavy Losses Among Italians.
"On another sector northwest of
Stalingrad," it said, "a heavy defeat
was inflicted on an Italian battalion.
which in the course of one day
lost at least TO per cent of its
electives"
Three engagements in the battle
for Stalingrad were officially de-
elared to have cost the Germans %
tanks, Is field guns and 600 dead.
I'm the Klestskaya area within
the Don bend northwest of Stalin-
grad Jour troops continued active
fighting operations and made q
slight advance" it was announced
Cossacks sabered about 300 Ger
mans and fired 20 munitions trucks
in an attack on the rear of an in
fantry column in the mountainous
approaches. to the Black Sea south
of Krasnodar, in the western Cau-
CaSlls