TERRIFIC BATTLES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 199, 24 July 1941, Page 8

TERRIFIC BATTLES

SLOWER GERMAN ADVANCE. RESISTANCE AT LENINGRAD. (United Press Association —Copyright) (Roe. 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, July 20. The correspondent of the British United Frees in Berlin quotes official sources as saying that tho terrific battles south-westward of Novgorod and around Smolensk have somewhat slowed down the German advance. The existence of very large Soviet forces in we rear after German armoured units had passed beyond Smolensk ltave forced the Germans to make a wide detour around the city in order to contact their own advanced forces. The Soviet Command is hurling in enormous reserves, seeking to protect Leningrad, M oscow and Kiev. It is also admitted that substantial Soviet lorcee have been “left behind” in a large pocket in the Jitornir area. The Germans have still not yet reached the main defences at Leningrad, where they expect to find the toughest resistance yet met. The Berlin radio’s official commentator refers to continuous rains on the southern front, which have so thoroughly soaked the ground that the German advance can be made only very slowly and with great difficulty. It is claimed that numerous Russian “pockets” in the central front have been subjected to heavy pressure, lhe “pockets” were aided by counter-at-tacks from the outside and on numbers of occasions the Russian troops attempted to break out. They sometimes succeeded but “were soon surrounded elsewhere.”

The commentator added that, whereas the French resistance collapsed because most ol tile commanders and every soldier realised that further resistance was hopeless, the Russians fight on stolidly, ignoring that fact. . Tho Berlin correspondent ot the Zurich National Zeitung says the Russian High Command is throwing in more reserves than the Germans expected. Other reports, originating in Berlin, harp on the claim that the Russians are being forced to use up more and more reserves, but even from the fronts northwards from Leningrad it is now becoming apparent that the German progress is being overestimated. OPERATIONS IN NORTH.

The Times Stockholm correspondent reports that, despite the Russian reference to fighting in the Petrozavodsk sector, information from Finland is that General Manncrhcim’s troops are scarcely within one hundred miles of Petrozavodsk and have not crossed tho 1930 Finnish frontier. There is no trustworthy evidence that the enemy anywhere have reached the Len-ingrad-Murmansk railway. The Associated Press correspondent with the Finnish army in Karelia says that clouds of smoke on the eastern horizon show how closely the Russians are following the “scorched earth’ policy. Terrific Russian artillery concentrations are covering their withdrawals, and keep up the shelling through the night, reducing the woods and abandoned villages to ashes. Indescribably bad roads are heavily mined and it is impossible to detect all the mines. Many German vehicles have been blown up. A Finnish communique claims that major Soviet units are encircled in several sectors and a number of strategically important points in Karelia have been reoecupicu. A German communique states that German, Rumanian, Hungarian, and Slovak troops in the Ukraine are pressing forward in ceaseless pursuit of the enemv whose attempts to counter-at-tack have failed everywhere with extremely heavy losses. Operations on flie Finnish front are proceeding according to planwith further gains of territory.