GERMANS FORCED BACK

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 82, 3 October 1941, Page 5

GERMANS FORCED BACK

EAST OF LENINGRAD

COUNTER-OFFENSIVE BY

RUSSIANS

LONDON, October 2. The Stockholm correspondent of the "Daily Mail" says that a drive by the Russians at Kolpino, 20 miles south-east of Leningrad, was the strongest of four thrusts which forced back the Germans in confusion. Simultaneously the German right wing was subjected to very great pressure to prevent the dispatch of reinforcements to Kolpino. ;

The Russians penetrated so far in the Kolpino sector that all the German troops to the east as far as Schlusselburg have been forced to retreat. Troops of the Leningrad garrison joined up with outside units of Marshal Voroshilov's forces and reopened the railway to Moscow.

The Germans halted the Russian counter-attack only by rushing up fresh German motorised divisions and strong' formations of dive-bombers.

The correspondent adds: "South-east and east of Leningrad General yon Leeb now finds himself back in the position he was in early last month."

According to the correspondent .of the "Daily Telegraph" in Stockholm, the Russians are following up their attack round Kolpino by a general counter-offensive in all sectors of the Leningrad front. The attacks at Kolpino, he says, were preceded by a tremendous artillery barrage in which the heavy guns of a Soviet warship participated. Powerful forces of the heaviest and newest tanks turned out by Leningrad's shock-workers then drove the Germans headlong from their prepared position.

The opposing forces were locked for some time so tightly together that neither side could se its artillery for fear of slaughtering its men.

This correspondent comments: "The Russian victory is new and encouraging support for the view which is widely held in Stockholm that the Germans will not capture Leningrad this year."

The Moscow radio, referring to these thrusts, says that "four more areas were occupied round Leningrad. The Germans lost 2000 dead in one village in two days'! fighting and 600 in another."