CARPATHIAN FRONT

Grey River Argus, 22 May 1944, Page 5

CARPATHIAN FRONT

GERMAN ATTACK _, Again Unsuccessful lAus. & N.Z- Press Assn.l (Rec. 10.20) LONDON, May 21. . Sunday’s Russian communique says: Again the Germans have been unsuccessful in attacks north-west ot Tyraspol, and also south-east of Stanislawow. „ , T . x , ’ The Germans south-east of Vitebsk have vainly attempted to recapture a height that they had lost after two days’ fighting. The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press says: The Germans at present isolated along the front are constantly.y repeating their attempts to improve their position south and east of Stanislawow and north-west of Tyjraspol, the key sectors which will play a most important part in the coming battle. Six hundred Germans were killed in smallscale attacks between Tyraspol and Grigoriopol. German patrol activity in the Vitebsk area indicates that the enemy fears a big Russian drive on the central front when the summer offensive begins. A Russian communique stated: Russian Air Arm planes attacked shipping in the Gulf of Finland. They sank two patrol vessels, two landing barges and a launch. They shot down fifteen German planes in aerial combat. RUSSIAN ATTACKS. IN CARPATHIAN FOOTHILLS. LONDON, May 21. The British United Fress Agency,' ’ quoting Budapest reports stated: Powerful Russian forces launched a! new drive in Carpathian foothills ■west of Kolomea. Heavy, fighting has been going on for several days, according to reports. The reports added that the Germans and Hungarians have pushed the Russians back to their original positions.

FALL OF SEBASTOPOL. LONDON, May 19. A London press correspondent at /Sebastopol stated: Of the 200,000 Germans defending the Crimea, only 30,000 were evacuated during the Russian offensive from April 8 to May 12. On the night of May 11, 50,000 enemy troops ran in panic to a lighthouse, hoping to board ships and somehow fight their way through their own ranks to the water. Demoralisation was complete. Officers lost authority an'd men began to shout treason, and all along the lines Soviet artillery, trench mortars, and aircraft sowed death as the lighthouse was so jammed that no shell or bullet could miss. , Some tried to fight back; others committed suicide, and some surrendered, but the majority ran on to the sea. Nowhere was there a ship in sight. The German Command sent more than one hundred ships, but they were either destroyed, damaged, or forced to turn. back by gunfire and bombs. Lieutenant-Colonel Franz, who was captured early -on the morning of May 12, declared that everything was lost in the complete demoralisation. “I left soldiers to guard a division commander,' General Gruner, to prevent him committing suicide while I talked with other superior officers about the surrender,” he said. “They agreed, and on my orders our troops. ..laid down their arms and they themselves lay down on the ground.” The prisoners included General Gruner, who was wounded. A Reuter correspondent stated: “With only five hundred pre-w*ar stone houses left of 15,000, and ...the majority of its population of 100,000 dispersed, Sebastopol is a second Stalingrad'. This is the only comparison which fits the degree of destruction suffered by this once charming Black Sea port, with its white houses and tree-lined boulevards. The centre of the town has been destroyed and the docks and piers obliterated. Of the original population of 100,000, there were over 50,000 left when the Germans arrived. When the Red Army retook Sebastopol it found no more than 10,000 inhabitants remaining, all of whom were living in the outer suburbs. , Vasili Yefremov, 36 year old Mayor of Sebastopol, who was wounded during the siege by the Germans, told the correspondent that between April 20 and May 9 the inhabitants were frequently' given from ten to twenty minutes to prepare to abandon their homes and board evacuation ships for Roumania. Twelve thousand were thus removed. Civilians were used as camouflage on the ships taking German troops. Women. and children were crowded on the upper deck and were made to wave their handkerchiefs whenever Red Army aeroplanes passed overhead. j, SOVIET AND BULGARIA. (Reec. 9.10 ) LONDON, May 20. Reuter’s Moscow' correspondent describes as being pssibly, Russia’s final warning to Bulgaria, a Russian journal, “War and the Working Class” warning to the rulers at Sofia that they will not succeed in the double game of helping Germany while trying hypocritically to protect themselves by maintaining diplomatic re-, iations with the Soviet Union. The paper said: “Even members of the. Government at Sofia are participatingin evil anti-Russian slanders. Bulgarian papers are full of filthy slanders. The Bulgarian Government created insupportable conditions for Soviet representatives in Bulgaria.”