Word: kharkov
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...claimed 1,500 Russian dead, 2,000 prisoners. "Frontline corrections," the Nazi communiqués called these engagements, suggesting preparations for something bigger. The Russians, confirming action in this area but suggesting nothing, said they killed 5,730 Germans. To the south, where the Russians had failed to take Kharkov, Marshal Semion Timoshenko's forces tightened their hold on positions very near the city. But holding on was all they attempted last week. In the Baltic, at Leningrad's rear, Russian dive-bombers spotted Nazi troop convoys on the move. The Russians said that they sank nine German...
...Moscow claim gave a clue to the Luftwaffe's whereabouts, its plans. The Russians said that during May they destroyed 1,366 Nazi planes, including 432 in May's final week, when the battles near Kharkov were ending. (In the last nine days of May, the Germans said, they destroyed 610 Russian planes, lost 53.) By the Russian account, the Nazis had scattered the bulk of the Luftwaffe across the face of Russia, on airdromes just behind the forward lines. Thus they exposed themselves to continuous Russian harassment. But they could give their troops in each sector some...
...dogged push began to slow up. The Germans had retreated slowly to the line of their stoutest defenses, then held. And while the Germans stood the battering, they flung reserves into action. Under 57-year-old Lieut. General Viktor von Schwedler, they knifed savagely into the Russians below Kharkov in the Barvenkovo-Izyum area. The Russians, admitting that it was a surprise attack, braced to meet it. The Germans were stopped. Once again the Russian defense proved itself...
...Russian attack had not. The German Army still held Kharkov, Pittsburgh of the Ukraine and key to a fine transportation net whose loss would have hurt the Nazis immeasurably. When the battle subsided after a Russian thrust into German supply lines north of Kharkov, the Germans claimed "a proud victory of annihilation": 240,000 prisoners taken, 1,249 tanks captured or destroyed, 538 aircraft shot down...
...Germans killed or captured, 540 tanks and 200 planes knocked out of action. A few more such German "victories," said the Russians, would put Germany out of the war. It was a brave explanation, but it did not explain the weeks- the Russians must have spent preparing for the Kharkov push. To the question the whole world asked-could a Russian offensive be maintained...