TITANIC CLASHES EXPECTED IN RUSSIA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 85, 10 April 1943, Page 5

TITANIC CLASHES EXPECTED IN RUSSIA

RESERVES MASSING Germans Say Novorossisk Under Siege N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. noon. LONDON, April 9. With both sides feverishly gathering their resources for titanic spring clashes, only guarded news at present is seeping out of Russia. Moscow correspondents for several days have uniformly kept to the same subject—the struggle for the Donetz bridgeheads, German resistance to encirclement in the Kuban and the accumulation of reserves of both sides. Confirming the Russian admission that the Germans yesterday south of Balakleya advanced, but were driven back in a counter-attack, Moscow correspondents state that Balakleya was the scene of the fiercest fighting yesterday when the Russians, by smashing back the Germans, succeeded in enlarging their bridgehead. The Germans did not attempt a further blow because of the heavy cost of this failure. Reds Hold Entire Donetz The Times Stockholm correspondent says the Russians for a fortnight have held the complete course of the Donetz. They at present hold the entire left bank, also the right bank from the confluence of the Donetz with the Don to above Liman, but the Germans have regained stretches of the right bank between the Liman and Byelgorod areas. German attacks are intermittent in other sectors of the eastern front with the exception of the Kuban, where the enemy maintains bitter opposition against the Russians' continued advance, frequently with the use of boats over flooded areas. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says the Russians yesterday captured two small inhabited places in the Kuban and the Red Army are improving their positions

along the whole Kuban front. The Moscow spokesman re-emphasised the extent the Germans are massing reserves at their Ukraine bases for the spring offensive. Russian observers also reported that the Germans were sending to the front increasing numbers of new type of fighters, including heavily-armed FockeWulfs, partially armoured-plated. The Germans are making mass raids in the Rostov area in an attempt to paralyse the Russians' railway communications. Terrific Artillery Barrage The British United Press Stockholm correspondent reports that a blazing curtain of artillery fire, which may precede the new Russian effort to break out south of Leningrad, is going on day and night. The big Russian guns at Kronstadt, the naval base on the Baltic, are lobbing shells across the Karelian Isthmus into trenches protecting the German flank. The Germans in a counter-barrage are reported to be using the famous siege guns from Sebastopol. German reports received in Stockholm say the Black Sea port of Novorossisk is under siege. One German correspondent says: "Russian heavy artillery and aircraft are pulverising the Germans' positions day and night." Russian long-range guns are reported to be firing on the port across "the bay on which Novorossisk lies. Battle for Bridgeheads On the Russian front activity is mainly confined to two bridgeheads, one near Izyum and the other on the lower Kuban, says British Official Wireless. The Izyum bridgehead has been defying all efforts of the Germans, who fear to leave a single square mile in Russian hands. The Germans have been throwing in all their weapons, including the powerful, close support of guns mounted on 22-ton tanks, but the Russians havte defended successfully. The other scene of activity is the Kuban bridgehead. Russian pressure continues, both on the lower reaches of the Kuban and in the mountains behind Novorossisk. London observers, summing up the results of the year of warfare on the eastern front, estimate the Russians are in stronger defensive positions than last spring. They have wiped out nearly all the German gains of 1942 and bitten into the enemy's fortified network in several important areas. From the German point of view, the past year may be written down as an almost completely wasted effort with a very heavy bill of costs.