Successes for Russians

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 266, 8 November 1941, Page 7

Successes for Russians

GERMANS GIVE GROUND AT A NUMBER or POINTS

LONDON, Kov. 6. Earlier reporta stated that the position in front of Moscow—broadly speaking between Kalinin in the north and Tula in the south—may be said to have been established, it is learned authoritatively in London. While the warning is added that the situation may be only temporary, there are no indications that the Germans are making any progress. In fact, they are definitely held, and at least in the Kalinin area, the .Russians are counter-attacking. The weather is still very bad. Nazis Porced Back “The German positions on the Moscow front have oeen pierced and the Germans have retreated at several points with heavy 108868,“ says the Soviet Tass News Agency. The agency reports that the fighttng is particularly obstinate on the left and right flanks of the Moscow front. A Soviet infantry unit, supported by strong artillery fire, attacked the Germans in two districts and seized several inhabited points from the enemy, it says. Jn addition to cutting railway lines, a Russian tank unit captured a village after a two hours' fight on November 4 and drove the enemy to a point from which he was still further pushed back the following day. Another unit in a neighbouring sector also drove back the enemy, capturing two important positions and inflicting heavy 1 j«ses. Sebastopol’s Stand. The Germans in the Crimea have reached the outer defences of Sebastopol, roughly 20 mileß from the city's centre, but nowhere have they made a penetration. A British officer now in London, who 9 as in the Crimea a month a go, reports

that Sebastopol is very strong and very well supplied. There would in fact, to be a strong chance of establishing a “second Odessa" at .Sebastopol, and not necessarily with the same results.

The officer also revealed that there was no intention on the Russian side to hold any intermediate position once they withdrew from the Perekop Isthmus.

Though it was a military headquarters, Simferpol, the capital, was not defended in any way, he said, and it might therefore be said tnat the withdrawal went according to plan. The B P| ri t fh® Russian troops, said this officer, was extremely good. They were, he said expressively, “full of guts." Baltic and Leningrad | The Russian Baltic Fleet has not ceased its attempts to break through the Nazi minefields in the Gulf of Finland. Fifty minesweepers have beeu operating. Some of these have been mined, and others have been sunk by Finnish batteries. It is believed that ten warships have crossed the minefields. According to a message from Stockholm, Leningrad is experiencing 27 degrees of frost.