BITTER FIGHTING

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 135, 10 June 1942, Page 5

BITTER FIGHTING

REDS AND GERMANS

Waves Of Bombers Swoop On

Soviet Base

United Press Association.—Copyright. Rec. 2 p.m. LONDON, June 9. .7 Bitter local fighting is reported from practically every sector of the Russo-German front. Sideshows continue to be fought out from SebastoPol to the Barents Sea. A large-scale offensive could break out in any one of half a dozen sectors at any time. Sebastopol continues to resist by land and air. giving the Germans blow for blow, and the defenders have yielded no ground, according to the Times Moscow correspondent, reporting the failure of the preliminary intensive bombing with which the Germans hoped to reduce the fortifications. By this means the Axis air forces were feeling for Russian weaknesses. German bombers on the fifth day of the onslaught continued to swoop on the city and harbour in waves of at least 30 planes. The majority of the population has been called on to rignt thousands of ineendiarv bombs. The Russians claim to have destroyed 70 planes since the beginning of the present attack. Bitter fighting flared up in the Bryansk region when the Russians captured two dominant hills and two villages. Between Leningrad and the Valdai Hills the Russians held up large parties supported by tanks. There were sharp engagements in several sectors, in which the Germans attempted to drive wedges into the Russians' positions. The Russians disabled 20 tanks in one such engagement and are now counterattacking at several points on this front. In the Barents Sea area th 2 Russian Air Force and Fleet Air Arm are night and day attacking German communications, while determinedly defending their own supply lines. * RUSSIANS IN ODESSA Rec. 2 p.m. LONDON, June 9. Berlin radio, quoting a Bucharest report, stated that in the eight months since the fall of Odessa, 50 Bolshevik terror bands had been forced out of the catacombs of the city after the Germans had bricked up the exits. Electric lighting, short-wave radios, special drainage and other installations were discovered in the catacombs. Radios were used to communicate to the Russian Command. The Russians planned the hiding place before the fall of the city.