ENORMOUS LOSSES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20825, 2 July 1942, Page 5

ENORMOUS LOSSES

NAZI OFENSIVE KURSK & SEBASTOPOL MANY TANKS DESTROYED (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) (3 p.m.) RUGBY, June 30. To-night’s Soviet High Command communique says that on the Kursk front Russian troops to-day repelled attacks of enemy infantry and tank units. The enemy suffered enormous losses. The Russians put out of action 150 tanks.. On the Sebastopol front, Soviet troops repelled fierce attacks of large enemy forces. On other sectors of the front no important changes took place. Further details of the fighting on the Kursk front are given in the Red Star, which said that the Germans concentrated a number of tank and motorised infantry divisions there and launched an offensive on Sunday morning. This was preceded by intense shelling and bombing. Groups of 20 enemy planes raided Soviet positions in wave after wave without respite and then tank columns of 60 to 75 machines attacked, but by 9 a.m. 53 enemy tanks were ablaze or-wrecked. • „ • •.* Despite their losses, The Germans hurled in an additional several hundred tanks, some of which broke through the Soviet lines, but they left the Soviet infantry behind in trenches and these cut off the German infantry from the advancing tanks, and proceeded to wipe them out with machine-guns and trench mortars. Fourteen hundred Germans were killed. Similar Soviet tactics in another sector, adds the Red Star, accounted for 2000 Germans being killed. A Panzer division which broke .through was engaged by Soviet tanks;. Tank, battles continue to rage. The < Germans are hastily bringing up reserves and retaining their numerical superiority, while .the Russians report that they successfully repulsed all attacks. Fighting is said to be raging day and night. The Soviet air force was most active, forcing dog-fights, in the course of which 25 enemy planes have been shot down At the same time, GO enemy .tanks were destroyed. Hungarians are said to be supporting the Germans, but it is reported that they sustained such heavy losses in the course of the first attacks that they have been completely withdrawn from .the battle, at least for the time being. The Russians are fighting the Panzers with all anti-tank means, including tanks, planes, anti-tank rifles, fire bottles, and hand grenades.