KUBAN STRUGGLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 102, 1 May 1943, Page 5

KUBAN STRUGGLE

REPORTED NEW ATTACK

GERMAN ASSERTIONS-

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec, 12.20 p.m.) LONDON, April 30. -Although the Russians are maintaining silence, persistent German reports declare that the Rijssians have not slackened their efforts to drive the Germans out of their last Kuban stronghold, Reuters Stockholm correspondent says that the Germans report that General Maslennikov . has thrown 100,000 men and several tank brigades into the new assault. Captain Sertorius, the German military commentator, elaborates the assertion that the Russians are attacking on a large scale in the Kuban. He sa3'S that nine Russian rifle divisions and three tank brigades fruitlessly attacked both German flanks at Krymskaya in the main thrust of the new offensive. The Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says the Germans are continuing to move up large amounts of munitions and supplies to the whole Russian front. It is also reported that large numbers of reinforcements are moving up by train an<j lorry. The Russians are hitting the German lines of communication with heavy blows, chiefly from the air, with Stormoviks and bombers. Reuters Moscow correspondent says that the Red Army is on its toes from Leningrad to Novorossisk as the great May Day national holiday ushers in the spring and summer campaign. The "Isvestia" states in an editorial: "Not many days separate us from big and stormy events. The hour of liberation is approaching." 'The crushing: defeat of the Luftwaffe over the Kuban on April 28 and 29, when.Russian pilots destroyed 116 German planes, marked the culmination of a terrific struggle for air supremacy that had been going on throughout April. Many Russian air aces in April added 10 and 15 German planes to their individual scores.