Battle For Sevastopol

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 140, 16 June 1942, Page 5

Battle For Sevastopol

FEROCIOUS AXIS ATTACK

LONDON, June 15. The battle for Sebastopol has now reached a new peak of intensity. An observer says that the ferocity of the Nazi attack can rarely have been surpassed in the annals of war. The Axis, regardless of cost, is throwing in fresh troops, while the defenders are able to replenish their forces and supplies only by sea and cannot be expected to receive reinforcements on anything like the scalejpossible for their enemies.

A correspondent says that the Nazis are "now making their supreme effort to batter their way into the fortress, and are completely unsparing of man-power, especially of Rumanian man-power. Soviet dive-bombers are causing havoc among tank concentrations, and the latest report indicates that in one day they destroyed 13 enemy tanks and damaged six others. •

Flyers of the Russian fleet air arm are putting up a' magnificent show, compensating in some extent for the numerical superiority of the Germans in land based planes.

Sebastopol is now being shelled by artillery as well as being attacked by dive-bombers, and the enemy is also using parachute mines.

Every man and woman in the citadel, capable of bearing arms has been given a rifle and told haw to deal .with German parachutists if they attempt to land in the rear. ( An observer says that the defenders are outnumbered in some places five to one, and that they have to fight against a tremendously superior weight of planes and artillery. »

Cruisers of the Black Sea fleet are shelling enemy concentrations at night. "The Nazis are still paying a big price for their small gains," he says, "and the final goal is not in sight."

A Berlin report says that General Antonescu, the Rumanian dictator, has visited the Sebastopol front. His troops

have been badly cut up in the recent fighting.

East of Kharkov the German attack goes on, but apart from small gains in terrain the position remains substantially the same. An observer speaks of the heavy Nazi losses, and says that in one sector nearly 3000 were kilied in two days' fighting.

It is not yet possible to say whether the large-scale attack by the Germans on the Kharkov front heralds the opening of a general offensive. In London, it is pointed out that the enemy may have gained some ground, but that the German claim to have captured 35,000 prisoners in the Kharkov fighting is without confirmation.

Moscow i*adio announced that the Russians had launched counter-attacks in which heavy, losses were inflicted on the enemy. An observer says that yesterday one Soviet tank unit accounted for nearly two battalions of German znotorised infantry and two batteries of artillery.