The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-08-10
RUSSIANS ARE
 FIGHTING HARD
(ContLnued from Page D

NSEtANeAe@ANA AA0AAA = AAE$ ~
 were no ofIicial appeals or state ments regarding the urgent need of an Allied invasion in the west, many Russian people were beginning to believe that they are being let down.
 The wave of fresh enthusiasm evoked by the signing of the Anglo Soviet treaty and the statements re- garding the urgent needs Of c second front issued in Washington and London after Foreign Commis- sar V. M. MoIotov's visits there have given way to a mood of depression.
 Many in Moscow are complain ing that Russia must cary on alone against the tremendous odds, but there still is Q steel determination to fight on at any cost and a con- viction that, somehow, somewhere the enemy will be stopped.
 The Germans are taking full ad- vantage of this situation and are showering leaflets on the Soviet lines accusing RuSsia's allies of de- ceit.
 The Moscow press meanwhile ceased all editorial references to a second front, but each day the newspapers carry dispatches from Britain and the United States teE- ing of second front rallies.
 Bitter hand-to-hand fighting was reported underway at the ap- breaches to the Maikop oil fields. COssacks Are Furious
 Furiously fighting Don and Ku- ban Cossack cavalrymen killed at least 1000 in two actions-l 900 Ru- manians and 5000 Germans.
 Having broken through around Kropotkin, the Germans were push ing along paved highways, graveled roads and across sun-baked Steppes toward Armavir, to join forces with Germans already fighting in that area. It is 45 miles to the southeast from Kropotkin to Armavir, and the next German objective was the Mai kop oil field, source of Russia's best aviation gasoline, 55 miles south west of Armavir.
 (The German high command claimed last night that Maikop had been stormed and captured, as well as Krasnodar, 60 miles to the north- west.)
 The Soviet noon communique re- ported that the enemy was striving to advance in the Armavir area, and that, after bloody battles, in which five German tanks were destroyed, Soviet units fell back to new de- fense positions. Tense fighting con- tinued, 1t said, with enemy groups which had broken through on a neighboring sector (perhaps Krop- otkin).
 The communique indicated that German wedges, driven deep into Russian defenseS around Kletskaya and Kotelnikovski, 75 miles north- west and 90 miles southeast of Stall ingrad, respectively had not gained. The Russians were rushing up tanks and artillery to pinch of and de- stroy the wedges.
 Revealing that fierce fighting had broken out again around Voronezh, on the northern end of the southern front, the communique said Soviet forces had occupied several inhabit- ed localities and killed more than 1000 Germans.
 PeriIous Situation
 The situation in the Caucasus was of utmost peril. A crucial bat tie had developed for the fertile wheatlands of the Kuban valley, the Mako oil, and ultimately Rus sia's remaining Black Sea fleet bases of Novorosk and Tuapse.
 Front-line dispatches mentioned the hard pressed Cossacks fighting only bitter delaying actions" a. gainSt the Germans pouring south from the Kropotkin breakthrough.
 The retreating Cossacks ruthless ly enforced a scorched earth policy. The smoke of their burning villages clouded the horizons. Explosions could be heard for miles.
 Flame raced across ripe, yellow fields of waist-high wheat, resembl- ing the prairie fire sweeps that used to sweep the American plains. Knocked-out wrecks of German tanks smouldered in fields of tassel- ing corn.
 The Communist party Pravda re- ported that the Cossacks, supported by Stormowik planes, started ser- ies of counter-at in which 1000 Rumanian cavalrymen were killed and thousands routed.