SEVENTY DIVISIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 136, 10 June 1943, Page 5

SEVENTY DIVISIONS

POSSIBLE BLOW AT MOSCOW (Rec. 11 a.m.) LONDON, June 9. Although the fighting has slowed down in the Kuban, it should hy no means be thought that the Russian operations there have concluded, says Berlin radio. "Air observation," it declares, "shows that the Russians are regrouping for a new assault. The Luftwaffe bombed Gorki, and reconnaissance planes later reported that 600,000 square metres of Gorki were destroyed and the river port rendered unuseable."

Hitler is reported to have massed 70 divisons for an offensive against Moscow in the hope of occupying Moscow and forcing the Russians to conclude a separate peace, says Reuters Ankara correspondent. Moscow confirms the probability or an offensive in a report that the Germans are massing big forces at Orel, the southern rampart of the German front before Moscow. Rome radio gives the first news of a new Russian attack on the Karelian isthmus, where recent fighting has been desultory. Moscow radio says that large forces of Soviet long-range planes on Monday night raided enemy aerodromes _at Bryansk and in other areas, destroying and damaging many German planes. Ammunition and fuel dumps were bombed, and numerous fires and explosions were observed.