RUSSIAN GAIN IN CENTRE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 303, 19 September 1941, Page 7

RUSSIAN GAIN IN CENTRE

Relief For Red Army , NAVAL DEFENCE OF LENINGRAD

LONDON, September 17.

With Leningrad subjected to the severest pressure from every German military device, and Field-Marshal llundstedt’s advance across the Dnieper developing dangerously, the news of Marshal Timoshenko’s success at Tartsevo is a welcome relief in the generally critical outlook for the heroic Itussians.

The “Red Star” says that the Germans, wheu driven back to Yartsevo, suffered 10,000 casualties. The battle of Yartsevo, which is on the main highway between Moscow and Smolensk, began on September 1 and drew a large part of the German reserves which were originally intended to support the German drive toward Elnia. The Russians captured vast quantities of stores. “A Red Army detachment now firmly blocks the road to Moscow, ready to fulfil new fighting tasks,” says the “Red Star.”

General Rokossovski, writing in the official Government newspaper, “Izvestia,” emphasizes the importance of the victory at Yartsevo in barring the motor, road to Moscow. He says the recapture of Yartsevo and Elnia has destroyed German hopes of a further drive from this sector.

Explaining that a German tank division succeeded in occupying Yartsevo by a sudden thrust some six weeks ago, with the object of developing an offensive through the town and reaching Moscow by the shortest route —the straight motor road—General Rokossovski says that the sudden resistance of numerically small Russian forces managed to stem the enemy advance. Town Occupied. The Germans lost a number of tanks and men near Yartsevo ajid .were forced to take the defensive while they were bringing up reinforcements before resuming the offensive. By several strong eounter-blows the Russians not only foiled the second German offensive but routed the German tank division, threw back the enemy from Yartsevo, and occupied the entire eastern bank of the Vop River. Tlie Russian news agency reports that the Germans are concentrating tremendous tire power on Leningrad and are hurling in new troops. It adds that a million citizens of Leningrad are engaged in building several layers of fortifications round the city. ■The Berlin military spokesman claimed that the advance forces at Leningrad, after being driven back, returned with flame-throwers and, supported by hundreds of divebombers, smashed through the second belt of fortifications. A German report from the front claims that the region of swamps and forests has been passed and the Germans now have in front of them wide flat land. It says that the heights beyond this plateau, 10 miles south of Leningrad, comprise the last and heaviest belt of Russian defences. Battle of Crossroads. Russian reports describe the recapture by the Red Army of a village on the junction of two roads leading to Leningrad. The battle was fierce in character, as the Germans had planned to launch a powerful new thrust from the village. Naval artillery gave support to the land forces, who stormed the enemy positions with no regard for themselves, and the village was recaptured after very heavy losses had been inflicted on the Nazis.

The enemy is reported to be hurling in new forces and concentrating vast curtains of fire in order to .break the resistance of the defenders. A battle is also reported to be taking place on the distant sea approaches to Leningrad, where the Germans have been repeatedly attempting to capture Osel and the other islands controlling the Gulf of Riga and the southern entrance to the Gulf of Finland. The Russian fleet in these waters was so admirably served by the defeat of the German attempts on the islands that the major-general commanding the coastal defences has been promoted to lieutenant-general. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says this successful action has made the German possession of the Riga naval base almost worthless to them.

The attacks against Odessa have also been resumed at full blast after the relief of the badly-battered Rumanians

by German crack troops, who, however, seem to be equally unable to make headway. Ring Closing on Kiev. Field-Marshal von Rundstedt is pressing on beyond the Dnieper, not only across the lower reaches toward Azov, but further north between Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk. The German offensive north of Kiev and south of Gomel is also being accelerated, so that the ring is closing round Kiev.

The German objectives are obviously Kharkov and Bryansk. If these towns are captured, encirclement of the whole of the Ukraine will be hardly preventable. The German troops in the Arctic are meeting with fierce resistance as they move against Murmansk in an endeavour to close the port to British and American aid to Russia.

Summing up recent exploits of Red Army soldiers, airmen and marines in the Baltic, the “Izvestia” says that a convoy consisting of two destroyers and 13 transports and also a barge laden with tanks was sunk and that 13 other transports were set on fire, and that Baltic sailors a few days later sank 11 transports and a tanker. Moscow radio stated that when the Germans entered Chernigov they brought 35 inhabitants to the microphone in the great square and ordered them to speak welcoming the German army as liberators. Upon refusing they were machine-gunned.