FLAMING RUINS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 121, 20 April 1944, Page 5

FLAMING RUINS

SEBASTOPOL DEATHTRAP BATTLE LEAKING END (N.Z. Press Association. —Copyright.) (Ilec. 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, April 19. In flames and ruins, Sebastopol is now a grim deathtrap scaled off by sea, land, and air, and the end i in the' Crimea is in sight, says I?outer's Moscow correspondent. The Russians, breaking their way through the precipitous rocks, have readied an aqueduct south of the city, thus com Dieting the ar c around its landward sides and bringing the whole port under gunfire. Hundreds of Germans and Rumanians after being driven to the edge of the Crimea near Sebastopol were forced into the sea from high cliffs. Russian land batteries, warships, and Stormoviks have virtually scaled tl>o sea exit and the last enemy plane has been effectively grounded. The city is now shaken by explosions and overhung by clouds of dust and smoke. The streets are jambed with battle-weary troops from all parts of the peninsula. Fighting is going on for the last fortified positions butside Sebastopol, where the Germans are throwing in their remain ing tanks. The Russians who fought through from the south had a bitter slugging struggle over ground, every yard of which holds memories of von Mannstein's siege in 1942. According to a front-line dispatch to the Izvestla quoted by the. Moscow radio, remnants of the broken German divisions are being pressed against the sea, battered and scattered divisions are streaming to the coast, and the bodies of the dead and masses of wrecked equipment fill the roads everywhere, while in the port men arc packing into barges and transports and putting to sea in the face of relentless and unceasing attacks from Russian submarines and planes. The enemy's losses on lea and land arc enormous. The British United Press's Moscow correspondent says that before losing Balaclava the Germans massed equipment on the beaches, where power barges were waiting to take them off. Russian planes, submarines, and surface craft circled the beaches and completely destroyed the embarkation fleet, killing thousands. The Germans reduced the equipment to a mass of twisted iron.