HEROIC CITY

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3137, 29 June 1942, Page 3

HEROIC CITY

BESIEGED SEBASTOPOL every citizen a soldier WAR, WORK, CHEERFULNESS Following is an article reprinted in the London Soviet Embassy’s “Wai News” magazine issue of March 31: — The streets of Sebastopol are full of people. Citizens and Red Army men are filling in shell holes. Sailors are marching along, .singing as they go Young women in naval uniform; nurses and stretcher-bearers march with them towards the front.

The Sebastopol battlefront is complex and peculiar. Tire Soviet forti fled line reached out claws into the ravines of the mountains which surround the city on the landward side. The enemy occupies the ridge, and

thus has the more favourable position

Nevertheless, the besiegers continually lose men and equipment, and even important points.

Every inhabitant of Sebastopol has become a soldier. All able-bodied citizens carry rifles. On days when the enemy lacks the initiative to stir from his trenches the workers go ahead with the production of material for the front. But their weapons are stacked within easy reach of the bench.

The output of arms and ammunition has actually increased during the siege. Certain factories have doubled their output. Engineers have found more economic means of using machines and plant.

Besieged People Evolve New Ideas For example, one screw-cutting job used to require four operations on separate machines. The Sebastapol engineers devised a method of doing the whole job on one machine, cutting pro-duction-time -by half.

The stock of tubing in this particular factory was exhausted. The workers deliberated among themselves and found a way of making tubes from

steel bars. They have now so far perfected their process that produc-tion-time has been reduced by’ threequarters.

Sebastopol factories to-day produce ammunition, mines, mortars, grenades, telephone apparatus .and clothing. The only workers left behind in the city railway depot were old people, but these made their own contribution to the front —a- bath-train which could serve 2000 men in 24 hours. They built the train with material from damaged railway coaches. Women are staffing the factories. One woman worker lost an arm in an air raid. She is still working in the plant. Another has carried 35 wounded men off the battlefield in- spells of duty at the front as a stretcher-bear-er. But war work at the factory is still her main job. Chronicle of a Day

Here is one day’s chronicle of events in Sebastopol. The date is March 18, 1942:— 1. On one sector of the front, Soviet artillery’ destroyed nine enemy’ pillboxes and dugouts.

2. The political department of the Coastal Defence Service sent gifts to Red Navy’ men, received from working people of Armenia and Krasnodar.

3. One hundred and sixty-three men discharged from local hospitals returned to the front line.

4. The workers of one plant fulfilled their production plan by’ 110 per cent.

5. An agricultural conference discussed plans for extending the cultivated area and increasing yields from factory allotments and gardens. The delegates pledged themselves to ensure supplies of vegetables for the defenders of Sebastopol.

6. Housewives reported that in three months they’ had sown over 20,000 suits and sets of underwear for Red Army men. On March 18 the housewives’ committee, headed by Rakova, district Soviety deputy, mended and laundered 750 suits and underwear.

7. High school No. 13 opened to schedule. Five hundred children attended.

8. Artillerymen of Captian Alexander’s battery gave an enthusiastic welcome to Moscow variety actors visiting the front. 9. Orders and medals were presented to a group of men, commanders and political workers of the Sebastopol coast-guard service. Men Throw Themselves At Tanks

Day and night the town is awake. The other day nine men of Sebastopol, hiding in a roadside ditch, waylaid some Grennan tanks whioh were attempting an attack. As the tanks came by, the men hurled themselves, with their bundles of hand-grenades, bodily under the tank tracks. • Four tanks were blown up, four were damaged and the remainder of the column turned back.

No one gave those nine men the order to throw themselves to death under the tanks. They acted on theU’ own initiative. This is Sebastopol, 1942.