World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF RUSSIA: Shadows on the Snow

For two weeks the Red Army had not appreciably advanced on either the central front or the Don-Volga front. This could mean one of three things: 1) the offensives were stalled; 2) the Russians were slowly reducing German strong points and mopping up German pockets; 3) the Red Army was preparing new attacks.

From the battles, shrouded in the Russian snows, fragments of specific news emerged:

> The Luftwaffe had thrown German, Rumanian, Italian and Hungarian planes into the German defense and counterattacks. Air transports flew men and supplies to the relief of the partly encircled German and Rumanian troops at Stalingrad, and (according to the Russians) evacuated several high German officers. The Russians said that they shot down 391 transports in 23 days, 191 in five days last week. They said the Germans had pressed old mail planes and trainers into transport service. These reports indicated not only that the Luftwaffe was taking heavy losses, but that, by hook or crook, it was still able to assemble a great transport fleet on the Russian front.

> The encirclements near Stalingrad were mutual: a great German army was hemmed between the Don and the Volga, but the Russian forces in their wedges were also between German armies. Both sides depended on corridors for overland supply.

> Moscow reported enormous German losses: 94,000 Germans and Rumanians killed and 72,400 captured, 632 planes and 548 tanks destroyed, 105 planes and 1,510 tanks seized on the Stalingrad front up to Dec. 11; 75,000 killed, 2,100 officers and men captured, 200 planes and 416 tanks destroyed on the central front.

Temporary Stalemate. After many days of local skirmishes between companies and battalions, the battles on the Stalingrad front suddenly increased in scope and fury. “Large groups” of Russians within besieged Stalingrad tried to break out and join Russian forces on the outskirts. On the Don front, west of the city, two German regiments and 80 German tanks drove back the encircling Russian lines. The Russians said only that they retreated. This week Moscow dispatches reported “a temporary stalemate,” and said that the Russians were now looking to winter weather to win their winter offensive.