RUSSIANS HIT BACK

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 194, 18 July 1941, Page 5

RUSSIANS HIT BACK

STALIN LINE UNBROKEN. HEAVY GERMAN LOSSES. (United Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, July 17. The Associated Press's Moscow correspondent says there is a general atmosphere of growing confidence in Aloscow. The evacuation of women and children has slackened and workmen have been brought back to their peacetime jobs. The British United Press's Moscowcorespondent says the Russian counteroffensive against the German advanced units westwards of the Dnieper is continuing with all its forces. The Vichy correspondent of the same agency quotes the Government spokesman as saying that the German advance has been virtually halted. The Germans have suffered heavy losses and the Stalin Line is unbroken. Russian resistance is strengthening and the Russians are counter-attacking over the whole of the central and southern fronts.

The spokesman in Moscow described how a Soviet- cavalry division, supported on the flanks by infantry and tanks, hold a four-mile front for four days against strong enemy forces. The cavalrymen dismounted in the cover of the woods, fought on foot, and engaged the Germans in bitter hand-to-band fighting. The Germans left many dead, tanks, motor-cycles and guns on tho battlefield.

Rutheniar. guerrillas have been very active since the outbreak of the war and have destroyed many planes and blown up petrol dumps. [Ruthenia. forming the eastern extremity of old Czechoslovakia, was annexed by Hitler to Hungary in 1938Tho people are of Ukrainian stock and are usually described as CarpatboUkrainians. j There are many reports of bitter fighting on the Baltic front. Tallinn is reported to bo ablaze. The Finnish radio says Russian steamers are busily evacuating troops from Tallinn which the Germans have encircled.

ft is reported from Stockholm that Soviet warships shelled Riga successfully, fighting off an attack by German dive-bombers.

Finnish military circles confirm the stubborn Russian resistance. The Germans have thrown in strong reserves into the fight on the Estonian front but have made little progress. The marshes and forests are assisting the tenacious Russians.

The Berlin radio says German planes twice bombed the railway marshalling yards in Leningrad and blew up a munition train.

RUSSIAN SURVEY

A Moscow communique says: "Throughout Wednesday heavy light ing continued in the Pskov. Smolensk, Bobruisk and Novograd-Volynsk sectors. Our air force destroyed enemy motorised units, attacked aircraft on enemy aerodromes and operated against enemy troops concentrations on river crossings.

"A battalion of enemy tanks retiring from Rogachev was surrounded and destroyed. The crews of six of the tanks were so exhausted that they were unable to got out without assistance. Examination showed that their weakness was duo to systematic malnutrition and physical overstrain." The communique for the first time mentions fighting in the Smolensk sector, apparently indicating a German advance, possibly from Vitebsk through the gap between the Dvina and the Dnieper. It says serious disturbances have occurred at Piraeus (the port of Athens) among soldiers of the Italian division about -to be sent to the Turkish irontier, also among other Italian units: sent there.

A later Moscow communique says: "There was violent fighting last night in the Pskov and Porkhov sectors, but no large-scale fighting and no significant change has taken place in the disposition of our troops in other areas. Our planes continued operations against enemy mechanised units and destroyed enemy planes on the ground and at the aerodromes. "After the rout of German and Rumanian units in the south-westerly sector, a Rumanian battalion bringing their officers, went over to the Russians and handed over three antitank guns, 12 machine-guns, 420 rifles, a mobile radio station, five cars, and a large quantity of other war materials. "During fighting in another sector Russian tanks broke through into the enemy's rear. Their appearance caused such confusion that two German batteries began firing at each other and suffered casualties. The Russian tanks succeeded in greatly damaging the enemy's rear positions and destroyed communications between German units over a wide area. Russian guerrillas, according to the latest reports, are most active and destroyed telegraph and telephone lines in the German roar."