STUBBORN FIGHTING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 134, 9 June 1942, Page 5

STUBBORN FIGHTING

SEBASTOPOL FRONT

GERMAN ADVANTAGE IN THE AIR

LONDON, June 8

The wholesale German attack on Sebastopol is still going on, and the latest Moscow communique reports stubborn fighting: on the Sebastopol front. It says that Russian troops are successfully beating off enemy attacks and are inflicting enormous losses.

Paul Winterton, in a dispatch from Moscow, makes three points. The first is that the German attack is as much defensive as offensive, because as long as Sebastopol remains in Soviet hands the Germans know it may be a bridgehead for a dangerous Russian counter-offensive. The second point is that the Germans have one great advantage: they can put a very big air fleet over the city from many Crimean airfields. Russian airfield space is very limited. The third point is that if the attack goes on. it will cost the Germans an enormous price. Mr. Winterton has been speaking with people from Sebastopol, and he says the Black Sea marines stationed there are some of the toughest and most daring fighters in the world. The city has a big concentration of guns, and big reserves of food and ammunition are hidden away in underground caves. An underground arsenal is now in full production. He says that if they press the attack, the Germans, with their miserable Rumanians, will wade into another blood-bath. AIR CONTEST. The Germans are making mass raids on the city's defences, but the Russian dive-bombers a*re attacking the German mechanised columns on the ground. Leningrad radio speaks of intensive fighting, and the Germans speak of violent Soviet counter-attacks south and east of the city. The Soviet Baltic Fleet is playing a big part in the Leningrad battle. According to Moscow radio, Russian naval units have smashed more than 300 dug-outs and scattered and partly wiped out about 50 enemy motorised columns. During last week, the Soviet j navy and the air arm sank or dam-j aged five enemy transports, seven patrol vessels, and two torpedo-boats. A military spokesman in Berlin said that the fighting on the northern and central fronts had made terrific demands on the German troops. Here and there the enemy had broken through the German line and consolidated their position in the rear, and some German detachments had been cut off for a long time before being relieved. He admitted that Soviet guerrilla bands had been causing trouble with communications and supplies. He ended with the boast that the Germans had had great successes in the last week, but he did not say what the successes were.