BIG DRIVE BY BUDENNY IN SOUTH

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 9, 6 October 1941, Page 7

BIG DRIVE BY BUDENNY IN SOUTH

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received October 5, 9.40 p.m.) LONDON, October 5. Today, the beginning of the sixteenth week of the battle in Russia, finds the Russians still holding grimly to their lines and fighting back strongly at several points. Russian counter-attacks have pushed the Germans back at new points on the central front and in the 'Leningrad and Odessa sectors. Moscow radio says that Marshal Timoshenko’s forces have driven the Germans back 15 miles in one sector of the central front, while in the Leningrad sector Russian troops advanced 13 miles at some points. Marshal Budenny’s forces in the southern Ukraine have launched a strong counter-attack to relieve the German pressure on the Crimea. The Germans and Rumanians were ejected from 30 settlements. The “Izvestia” reports that the Russians recaptured a city railway junction in an important sector of the Karelian Isthmus. More than 600 Finns were killed. There is a fierce battle on the shore of Lake Ladoga, where the Finns have concentrated large forces in an effort to break through to Leningrad. The Russians killed 1200 of the enemy. The situation in the Ukraine is extremely critical for the Russians, according to the “Daily Telegraph’s” Stockholm correspondent, who declares that they will have to retreat considerably further before being able finally to stabilize the front. The “Daily Mail's” Stockholm correspondent says General Rundstedt has launched a vast new offensive, apparently aimed at the junction of Marshal Timoshenko’s.and Marshal Budenny’s armies near Kursk, with the object of turning both Soviet flanks and then driving north to Moscow. The latest information received in London shows that the German Jrrust toward Kharkov met with fierce counter-attacks from the Russians, and bitter fighting is still proceeding. Fierce resistance and counter-attacks are also reported from the isthmus joining the Crimea to the mainland and the Germans have not succeeded in breaking

through. Though they are reported to have advanced seven miles « along the isthmus, further progress is rendered more difficult by the fact that, as the isthmus widens, it is divided by water into three distinct and narrow portions. This part of the isthmus was successfully held for a very long time by General Denikin against the earlier Red Army. :

The latest Russian communique states: "On October 3 our troops were engaged in fighting along the entire front, On October 11G German planes were shot down in aerial combat. Our losses were eight planes. In one sector R.A.F. pilots shot down four Messerschmitts 109 without loss to themselves. A German submarine was sunk by units of the northern fleet.’’

The Russian night communique said: "During October 2 our forces engaged the enemy in stubborn battle on the whole front. During September 30 twenty German planes were destroyed and we lost nine." Moscow radio announces that a number of German planes attempted to raid Moscow on Friday night. They were dispereed by anti-aircraft lire and night fighters. Two German planes were shot down.

A further Russian communique states that after heavy fighting in one sector of the south-western front for two days, the battle ground was strewn with the bodies of the enemy, more than 2700 German soldiers and officers having been killed. Fortyone guns of all calibres, sixteen tanks, seventeen mortars, ninety-two machine-guns, several armoured cars and other war materials were captured.

Guerrillas in the Chernigov district blew up in the second half of .September eleven bridges and destroyed 19 tanks, six armoured cars, 69 lorries with ammunition, numerous guns ami other war material. More than 450 German officers and soldiers were killed by tire same group. in the north-western sector large groups of guerrillas arrived only a short time ago from France. Destruction by Russians. A Moscow report states that the Russians on October 2 shot down 51 enemy planes and two observation balloons for the loss of 19 planes. Russian warships sank three transports in the Barents Sea, Bombers in the Poltava district destroyed a German infantry battalion, four tanks and 44 vehicles. The Eighth Rumanian Cavalry Brigade was routed in the Odessa region. Heavy casualties were inflicted and large Quantities of arms, ammunition and war material captured. Russian planes in another district destroyed two cavalry squadrons, two infantry companies and 03 motor vehicles. Guerrillas in the Leningrad area, who have already wiped out 106 German officers, including a general, and 1600 soldiers, have in the past few days derailed seven military trains, destroyed three bridges and 166 telephone lines, and set lire to nine food depots and twenty-two barracks. A German communique states that operations on the eastern front were continuing successfully. The Luftwaffe on Friday night effectively bombed military objectives in Moscow and an important arms work near Kharkov, The German news agency claimed that troops in the Leningrad area captured Tsarkoese. German Success Claimed. LONDON, October 3. While unofficial sources in Moscow state that the Germans are making slow progress in their drive toward Kharkov, the Helsinki radio this morning quotes a Berlin war correspondent for the statement that in the huge tank battle progressing east of Dnepropetrovsk the Germans have already succeeded in getting large infantry units across the Dnieper and have captured several towns and villages, the names of which the military censorship does not reveal. ‘The German troops," the radio says, "are advancing along tributaries of the Dnieper in a swift attacking movement along a line from Kursk to Kharkov.”

The ‘-Pravda” predicts that this will be a long and weary war, but declares that the Powers with the greatest reserves and resources, namely, the Soviet Guion, Britain, and America, are bound to win. An Italian news agency message from Helsinki said that when the Finns entered Petrozavodsk they found that the Russians had dynamited the fac. tories and set fire to part of the town, and that almost the whole of the civil population had gone. An Ankara message says that according to usually well-informed Axis quarters, preparations for the new offensive on the Russian front have been completed and that it is bound to start within 48 hours. The direction is not stated.