MAIN FRONTS IN RUSSIA

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23918, 9 April 1943, Page 5

MAIN FRONTS IN RUSSIA

Soviet Pressure In Kuban GERMAN ATTACKS ON DONETS (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, April 8. Far from the Germans slackening their efforts to dislodge the Russians from their Donets bridgeheads, the latest reports show that the Germans in the second week of stubborn effort are again using large panzer forces, after experimenting with smaller attacks with mixed panzer and infantry units. Large formations of the Luftwaffe are also being thrown into the battle for the bridgeheads, particularly in the Izyum area, where the Red Air Force is constantly engaged in beating off air attacks. The Germans are finding the Russian hill positions at the entrance to Izyum a hard nut to crack, and the enemy is no nearer than when he started the attack last Sunday. The Germans, in a series of bitterlyfought battles in the last four days, have lost nearly 3000 men killed and at least 40 tanks. *

Moscow correspondents agree that the Russians on the middle and upper Donets, in spite of the heavier German assaults, are holding their ground everywhere, although the battle is spreading southwards from Izyum to Chuguyev. The Moscow correspondent of “The Times” says: “The battle of Izyum is a battle of armour against artillery, in which wave after wave of infantrymen is being held up by a resolute Russian force, strongly entrenched. The Germans’ chief advantage is that they have dry land behind them, whereas the defenders are backed by the swollen Donets.”

Reuter's Moscow correspondent says the heavy concentration of enemy aeroplanes behind the Kharkov-Izyum-Taganrog front, and the unflagging movement of German troops from the rear, suggests that the Germans expect large-scale fighting on this sector. The Russians are strongly entrenched here on hills overlooking the river. Sixty miles further up the river, the Russians are beating off persistent German attacks.

Fierce Fighting in Kuban

NAPLES AGAIN BOMBED

FRENCH EMPIRE UNITY

ESCAPE OF BRIGADIER MILES

Fighting in the Kuban is still fierce, and the last German positions are being assailed by a two-pronged drive, one on the Kuban river and the other on Krymskaya, the last railway junction held by the Germans. The Russians have already gained a foothold on the north bank of the river. Fighting in the Kuban is still fierce, as the Russians attempt io drive the enemy from his last positions in the Caucasus. The German News Agency admitted that several Soviet groups had breached the end of the Kuban bridgehead. Reuter’s correspondent reports that the Russians wrested another point from the Germans and advanced a step nearer the Kerch straits. The great Caspian-Volga oil route has been reopened. The first fleet of tankers from Baku has arrived at Astrakhan, with tens of .thousands of tons of aviation, tractor, and industrial oil. The fleet arrived before the , official opening of the navigation season, after battling its way through giant ice floes in the south Caspian, and made the voyage in the record time of four days. Hundreds of tons of machinery and other supplies urgently required in Russia have been supplied by the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation, an organisation backed by the Government. .... .... - An official said that within a fortnight of the outbreak of the RussianGerman war the corporation became the medium for the purchase through Britain of hundreds of thousands of tons of all manner of merchandise, ranging from the smallest tools to large self-contained mobile electric power-generating plants to replace those destroyed areas which the Germans had overrun. Eighty-two thousand tons of rubber were shipped o Russia from Ceylon and 26.000 tons of tin from Cornwall. The Corporation has also sent industrial diamonds by air, It has drawn on the Empire for Russian requirements. It has obtained wool from New Zealand, Australia, Syria, Iraq, and Persia, and copper, zinc, ferro-chrome, and ferrosilicon from Canada. Non-war supplies valued at 250.000,000 dollars have also been sent to Russia. A large number of American fighters and bombers were handed over to the Russians in Persia.

DAMAGE DONE IN EARLIER RAIDS (Rec. U p.m.) LONDON. April 8. A Middle East air communique says Allied heavy bombers attacked Naples again on Tuesday. Messina and other targets in Sicily were also attacked According to the Zurich correspondent of the “Evening Standard. Naples is to be evacuated. Telephone communication in Naples has broken down and rescue squads are still working in piles of wreckage. Reports from Stockholm say that all southern Italy is in a state of alert as a result of the devastating Allied air raids on Naples and Sicily. The Italians believe that the Allied raids are a prelude to the invasion of Italy. The Stockholm correspondent of the “Daily Express” links these . “invasion” reports to the following activities:—(l) German armoured trains are being rushed south to form a mobile defence system; (2) Italian newspapers give prominence to stones of an anti-invasion secret weapon; (3) Black Shirt militia have formed special squads to deal with paratroops and saboteurs; (4) the Italian Government has adopted regulations putting all civilians under martial law in the event of invasion. An Italian communique says that serious damage was done in the raids on Tuesday on Trapani and Messina, in Sicily. Forty-six wore killed and 109 were injured.

STATEMENT BY MR CHURCHILL (8.0. W.) RUGBY, April 7. Mr Churchill announced to-day that Britain was in the ful’est agreement with General Eisenhower in deprecating a visit by General de Gaulle to North Africa during the battle crisis in Tunisia, which required the undivided attention of the Allied High Command. General Giraud’s spokesman, broad - casting on the Morocco radio, declared; “General Giraud and General de Gaulle have shaken hands. The gesture will bear fruit. The unity of the Empire is on the way. and its benefits will soon become evident in the military sphere. All French armed forces fighting the Axis will fight under a single command."

LONDON. April 7. Mrs G. Miles, wife of Brigadier R. Miles, of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, was working to-day for the Merchant Navy Comforts Fund in London after receiving confirmation from New Zealand of her husband’s escape with. Brigadier J. Hargest, M.P. Mrs Miles two days ago received a letter from her husband from a prison camp. He said that he was learning carpentry to pass the time. He added: “Our hosts descended on us the other day and demanded all our jewellery, except watches and wedding rings. We will be given a receipt and the jewellery will be kept in a bank in Italy until after the war.’*