Germans Repel Counterattacks on Eastern Front

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Globalization41
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Posts: 1453
Joined: 13 Mar 2002, 03:52
Location: California

Germans Repel Counterattacks on Eastern Front

#1

Post by Globalization41 » 25 May 2004, 05:54

Moscow, Associated Press, The New York
Times,
Saturday, December 6, 1941: The
Soviet Information Bureau's midday
communique said: During the night of Dec.
5-6 our troops fought the enemy along the
entire front.
... Comrade Orioff's unit, operating
in the Western Front, during one day's fighting
destroyed 20 enemy tanks, annihilated over a
battalion of enemy infantry, and captured four
heavy machine guns, four trench mortars, 12
trucks, and a large quantify of other military
equipment. ... In another sector, Comrade
Ridiukoff's
men destroyed eight tanks, and
several guns, killed more than two battalions
of enemy infantry, and captured ten heavy
machine guns, four trench mortars, and other
military equipment. ... The patriot movement
in Yugoslavia is developing intensity.

Numerous guerrilla detachments are
operating successfully against the German
invaders. ... A large guerilla detachment
routed a company of Italian infantry south of
Belgrade, Nov. 26. Guerrillas also are active
west of the city. The Italians brought their air
force and artillery into action but, in spite of
this, guerrillas annihilated more than a
battalion of Fascists occupying several
villages.
... A large area has been cleared of
the German and Italian invaders.

Moscow, Associated Press, The New York
Times,
Sunday, December 7, 1941: [Late
Saturday, U.S. time.]
The Russian
communique issued early [Sunday] said:
During Dec 6 fighting on all fronts continued
throughout the day. ... On Dec. 5 fourteen
aircraft were brought down. We lost four.
... On Dec. 6 three German aircraft were
brought down at the approaches to Moscow.
... On Dec. 5 our air force destroyed 70
German tanks, more than 530 motor vehicles
carrying troops and supplies, seven field
guns, nine fuel tenders, and more than 200
carts with ammunition
and dispersed and
annihilated two regiments of enemy
infantry and 300 enemy cavalrymen.

Berlin, Associated Press, The New York
Times,
Saturday, December 6, 1941: The
German High Command issued this
communique today. At several points on the
East Front the enemy was thrown back in local
counter-attacks.
... In the Donets bend strong
Soviet attacks were repelled with heavy losses
for the opponent. ... Enemy attempts to break
out of Leningrad were frustrated with high and
bloody losses for them. ... In the Gulf of
Finland the island of Osmussar was occupied
by naval shock troops. ... The air force scored
direct bomb hits on several transport trains in
the Vologda region and last night attacked rail
facilities and supply industries of Moscow. An
airplane plant at Rybinak on the Volga was
bombed with heavy caliber bombs. ... In the
fight against British supply shipping,
submarines sank five ships totaling 25,500
tons. ... Last night combat planes attacked
harbor facilities of Southwestern England. ...
In the course of attempted attacks by the
British air force on the Channel region and
the Netherland coast, eight enemy planes were
brought down. ... Two submarine chasers of
the navy attacked a British submarine off the
Norwegian coast, forced it to the surface with
depth charges, and sank it with artillery fire.
... New and heavy battles have started in
Northern Africa.

[Stay tuned for late breaking war bulletins.
... Globalization41.]

Globalization41
Member
Posts: 1453
Joined: 13 Mar 2002, 03:52
Location: California

Russians Fiercely Contest Donets Basin

#2

Post by Globalization41 » 05 Jun 2004, 23:13

Berlin, Associated Press, The New York
Times,
Saturday, December 6, 1941: A
strong new German flanking drive midway
between Moscow and the fiercely contested
Donets Basin was reported tonight in military
dispatches. The Germans were said to have
overrun five towns and to have swung close to
the headwaters of the Don River,
approximately 200 miles southeast of the
Soviet capital. ... Intense cold, with
temperatures as low as 31 degrees below
zero Fahrenheit
on the Moscow front,
hampered all operations, but the Germans
declared that the severe conditions were
temporary and had been anticipated.
...
Numbing temperatures were reported even on
the Donets front, where the Germans
acknowledged the Red Army is still coming on
in a spirited offensive. The High Command,
giving no details on the fighting there, said
only that the Soviet attacks were being
repulsed. ... Russian attempts to break
through the German lines at Leningrad and
local counterattacks elsewhere along the front
also were reported to have been beaten back
with heavy losses for the Russians. ... A
spokesman asserted that the German forces
before Moscow were continuing slow, steady
gains. Mozhaisk, 60 miles west of Moscow,
and Klin, 50 miles to the northwest, are firmly
in German hands, he declared. ... Reports of
German gains in attacks launched from the
Orel and Kursk areas were taken here as an
indication that a new menace to the Russian
capital was developing in a German surge
around the southern flank of its defenses. ...
Advices from the front listed as captured the
town of Malo Arkhangelsk, midway between
Orel and Kursk, and Livny, Novosil, Mtsensk,
and Chern, all in a 60-mile arc east of Orel
and near the upper reaches of the Don.

Vichy, France, By Wireless to The New York
Times,
Saturday, December 6, 1941: The
French killed in the [May-June 1940] war [with
Germany]
numbered close to 130,000,
according to figures in a booklet about to be
issued under the signature of Captain Jean
Labusquiere,
who was killed in an airplane
crash with General Charles Huntziger, War
Minister. ... Prisoners were put at 1,500,000,
of whom 1,200,000 remain captives. Most
were taken prisoner, the booklet asserts,
because they stayed at their posts to allow
comrades to escape.

[Stay tuned for late breaking war bulletins.
... Globalization41.]


Globalization41
Member
Posts: 1453
Joined: 13 Mar 2002, 03:52
Location: California

Russians Attempting Encirclement of Germans Near Taganrog

#3

Post by Globalization41 » 07 Jun 2004, 03:48

Berne, Switzerland, By Telephone to The New
York Times,
By Daniel T. Brigham, Sunday,
December 7, 1941:
[Late Saturday, U.S.
time.]
The entire Taganrog area of the
southern front in Russia had been isolated by
the Soviet Army and the German forces there
no longer can receive reinforcements or
supplies, it was announced this morning by a
military commentator on the Moscow radio. ...
Russian forces, having by-passed Taganrog
and progressed about 11 miles to the west in
Friday's fighting, turned southward yesterday
[Saturday] and reached the shore of the Gulf
of Taganrog at a point west of the Mius River
delta. Leaving behind the troops needed to
hold the Germans in the pocket, the main
body of the Russian armored units and
Cossack cavalry continued its drive toward
Mariupol, the commentator said. ... The
Russians expected this morning that a great
battle would be fought at Mariupol within the
next 48 hours. The Germans, in preparation,
have been bringing up large forces from
Crimea, despite almost continual
bombardment of their route by Russian
planes. German losses, according to reports
from Soviet reconnaissance pilots, must have
been enormous, since the roads are blocked
with wrecked materiel and flaming gasoline
trucks.
... Whatever the German plans may be,
Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, commander of
the Russians in the south, apparently has
plans of his own. Strong reinforcements were
rushed up yesterday [Saturday] to assist in the
Donets push. These troops enabled the
Russians to make further important gains --
notably in the neighborhood of Gajcul, about
40 miles northwest of Mariupol. The main
Russian effort in that area is directed toward
forcing a passage through to the coast before
the Germans have time to consolidate their
positions around Mariupol for a large-scale
counteroffensive. The advantage is apparently
with the Russians. ... The cold weather that
set in two days ago on the Moscow front has
spread to the southern front, where subzero
temperatures
were reported at noon
[Saturday]. In the south as on the northern and
central fronts, the cold can be said to working
in the Russians' favor.
... Neither the Russian
communique nor the military commentator
gave any particulars of [Saturday's] fighting on
the Moscow front, but unofficial reports from
Moscow of continued local counterattacks
along the Moscow-Volga Canal, chiefly in the
region of Dimitrov, where the Russians
apparently are slowly getting the upper hand.
Heavy snowfalls are seriously hampering
operations on both sides. ... On the Mozhaisk
front, one Soviet spokesman acknowledged,
the Germans made a frontal attack and again
succeeded in denting the Russian line.
However, the spokesman added that several
bitter Russian counterattacks "of a local
character" had sufficed to drive the Germans
out of their new positions. ... There were
conflicting reports from both sides regarding
the Tula salient, but it was established that the
Germans, at some time during the last 48
hours, had cut the Tula-Moscow road. To the
east of Tula, Col. Gen. Ivan S. Koneff won
further "local successes in the Stalinogorsk
area, where fighting continues on a large
scale," the Russians reported. ... On both the
Crimean and Leningrad fronts the fighting
was reduced to what a Berlin spokesman
characterized as harassing actions by Soviet
troops.
A Russian commentator's remarks
more or less confirmed this, but added that on
the Crimean front small Russian units
northeast of Sevastopol had recaptured a
strategic position, dislodging in the process a
strong German force and seizing some
materiel.

London, Special Cable to The New York
Times,
Saturday, December 6, 1941:
Commenting on reports that Japanese troop
reinforcements had been sent to Indo-China,
Dr. V.K. Wellington Koo, Chinese
Ambassador to London,
said today: "If Japan
decides to pounce on another victim it will be
just as well if the democracies should avail
themselves of the opportunity to remove once
and for all this constant menace to the safety
of the freedom-loving countries
of the Far
East." ... In a speech opening a weekend
gathering for the discussion of China and the
Pacific, held under the auspices of the
Chinese Campaign Committee, Dr. Koo said:
"Whether Japan means business or whether
she merely desires to continue her game of
bluff
remains to be seen. But her course will
perhaps be revealed in the very near future. If
she takes a leap into the dark she will have no
one but herself to blame. She cannot be
unaware that the ABCD [America, Britain,
China, Dutch Indies]
front is ready to take up
the challenge. It is up to Japan to decide."

[Stay tuned for late breaking war bulletins.
... Globalization41.]

Globalization41
Member
Posts: 1453
Joined: 13 Mar 2002, 03:52
Location: California

Germans Halt Drive on Moscow Until Spring

#4

Post by Globalization41 » 24 Jun 2004, 04:21

Berlin, Associated Press, The New York
Times,
Monday, December 8, 1941: Winter
has stopped the Germans short of Moscow
and the capture of the Soviet capital is not
expected this year, a military spokesman
declared tonight. ... It seemed likely from the
spokesman's statement that until spring there
could be no further major German offensive
except along the extreme southern front.
This word reduced the Russian campaign to
secondary interest for the Germans for the
first time and attention focused on Japan's
war with the United States
in the Pacific. ...
The German news agency D.N.B. asserted
that nearly 10,000,000 Russian troops had
"been put out of action" since Germany
invaded Russia last June. [The alleged loss
of 10,000,000 Soviets in six months makes
for an impressive holocaust.]
... Explaining a
statement by the High Command that the
conduct of the war in Russia "now will be
delayed by Winter," the spokesman said:
"The cold is so terrific that even the oil freezes
in motorized vehicles. Soldiers and officers
trying to take cover simply freeze to the
ground." ... "Fighting under these conditions
is practically impossible. This does not mean,
however, that the front will become stagnant or
fixed. There will be local operations, local air
attacks, and local straightening out of our front
in such a manner as either to shorten it
advantageously or, as in the space between
Taganrog and Rostov, to fix the front line so as
to be most advantageous to us." ... Military
sources said a Soviet attempt to land forces
on the west coast of Crimea had failed, but
gave no exact information.

Galveston, Texas, Associated Press, The
New York Times,
Monday, December 8, 1941:
Some hours after the United States acted
against Finnish ships in American ports,
Coast Guardsman took charge of the
Panamanian freighter Delaware at her dock
here and sent her crew of 23 Finns to the
Galveston County Jail. Maritime records
show that until last Summer the vessel flew
the Finnish flag.

The New York Times, Monday, December 8,
1941:
American naval vessels are named
in accordance with a definite policy that
received President Roosevelt's approval in
1938. ... Battleships are named for states;
e.g. -- Oklahoma, Pennsylvania. ... Cruisers
are named for cities; e.g. -- Salt Lake City,
Boise, Brooklyn. ... Aircraft Carriers are
named for historic vessels of the Navy or
battles; e.g. -- Saratoga, Lexington, Wasp.
... Destroyers are named for officers and
enlisted men of the Navy and Marine Corps,
Secretaries of the Navy, members of
Congress, and inventors; e.g. -- Edison,
Aaron, Ward, Buchanan. ... Submarines
are named for fish, minesweepers and
submarine rescue vessels for birds, coastal
gunboats for small cites; river gunboats for
island possessions of the United States
(e.g. -- the Wake); ocean tugs for Indian
tribes
and harbor tugs for Indian chiefs and
dialects;
cargo ships for stars; ammunition
ships for constituents of smokeless powder
(e.g. -- Nitro); oilers (tankers) for rivers;
repair ships for mythological characters
(e.g. -- Vulcan); destroyer tenders for natural
areas of the United States (Dixie, Prairie);
large seaplane tenders for sounds; small
seaplane tenders for bays, straits, and inlets;
submarine tenders for pioneers of submarine
development, and transports for Marine
officers.

[Stay tuned for late breaking war bulletins.
... Globalization41.]

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