Evening star., 1942-09-12
Sto|inqrod Defense Holds Firm
In Face of Fresh Nozi Menace:
Reds Open Own Drive in North
More German Troops
Are Sent to Front
In Steady Stream
By EDDY GILMORE,
Associated Press War Correspondent.

MOSCOW, Sept. 12-Stalln-
grads defenders, for whom re-
treat was declared impossible,
held the besieging Germans at
bay today in perhaps the great
est battle of the war, a battle
which overShadowed five others
flaming on a Russian front of
more than 1900 miles.
: Despite the heroic stand of the
Red Army for Is days against the
battering Nazi steel, apparently
without backward step for the last
"a hours, Fresh German activity
on the north of the Volga River city
.fnenaced it as never before.
: Even in the midst of that struggle
In which Joseph Stain has ordered
that there be no retreat, however,
the Russians found strength to
launch an offensive of their own on
the Leningrad front far to the
north.
There. some so miles east of Len
tngrad, the Russians were storming
the railroad station at Sinyavino in
an action mentioned for the first
time in a communique issued at
midnight.
(Sinyanvino does not appear
on available maps but the Rus
sian reports indicate it is on the
: railroad east from Leningrad
and about so miles west of Tiki
win, which had been the point
of deepest Nazi penetration on
that front north of Moscow.
The Volkhov River is crossed by
the railway at about that point,
and this may be the German
bridgehead against which Ger
man reports have mentioned
many attacks recentlyD
The Russians acknowledged that
Novorossisk, great Black Sea naval
base, had been surrendered to the
Germans after the enemy had dis
rupted its use as a base. Novoros-
sisk had been claimed by the Ger
mans Sunday.
First Snow i'm Caucasus.
At the southern tip of the long
front, new German efforts to ex-
pand their bridgehead south OF the
Terek River on the road to the val
liable oil fields of Grozny were said
to have met failure as the first
snow In the high Caucasus ranges
heralded another Russian winter.
But Stalingrad, where probably
more men and more armor were
locked in fiercer combat than on
any other battlefield of this war,
stood in its gravest peril.
(The German high command
reported that heavy fighting is
continuing within the fortifica-
tions" of Stalingrad, and said all
Soviet relief attacks had been
repulsed.
tBerlin also reported break
/: through by the Germans along
the Terek River front where
they have been battling toward
the Grozny oil fields.)
No Reports of Break Through.
At some places the enemy threw
as many as $4,000 men into narrow
sectors at functions in the Red
Army and Stalingrad defense. At
isolated spots they wedged into the
lines, but nowhere was there a re-
port that they had broken through.
New German activity north of
the city, adding to the main weight
of the onslaught which has centered
to the west and southwest, sug-
gested that the attackers might be
trying to set still another offensive
into motion with reinforcements
coming up in steady stream.
So far, this threat was reported
held off by Russian artillery.
New Fascist forces appearing
from other fronts were being put
swiftly into action.
Nazi planes, with great numerical
superiority, were pounding the Rus
sian lines, but Soviet troops were
reported standing up to the constant
air assault.
AT MOZdoK also, where the Ger
mans have speared deepest into the
Caucasus, the invaders were getting
reinforcements, but Russian field
dispatches said enemy forces which
had spanned the Terek were in
peril of being wiped out and that
the snow was hampering Nazi noun
tain operations.
All temporary bridges which the
Germans have strung across the
swirling Terek were reported de-
4stroyed and the Russians said that
captives informed them that many
German tanks were without gaso-
line.
Troops which made a night cross
- (See RUSSIA, Page A-2)