German-Held Italian Cruiser Damaged by Air Raid

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 263, 5 November 1943, Page 5

German-Held Italian Cruiser Damaged by Air Raid

Received Thursday, 10.50 p.m. LONDON, Nov. 3. The Ottoviano Augusto which is the last Italian cruiser remaining in German hands was put out of commission during an American bomher raid cn Ancona Harbour on Monday. Recon naissance photographs show the cruiser lying on it 3 side, says an Algiers message. The cruiser was completed in 1941,

ported to have effected a landing near Kerch. The Crimea is about the size of Sicily. There, however, the Germans had a short crossing to make and tn Allies a long one. In the Crimea, it is the Russians who have not one, but three short routes to the peninsula itself, while the only German com munications are now by the long sea crossing. In this situation the enemy in the Crimea, it is thought in London, will have such need of all his available troops to oppose the Russians at the three entrances that he will not easily be able to evacuate large bodies by sea Probably much depends on which side has air command over the ports. Without it the Russian fleet could hard ly operate effectively against trans ports.

At Krivoi-rog, the Germans, although they have not broken the Russian spearhead, have probably managed to hold it up long enough to secure their withdrawal from the Dnieper Bend. The enemy in so doing, however, has been compelled to fight a major battle *on most unfavourable ground, namely, at the most easterly part of the long Dnieper front. It is likely that German reserves have been sent east from othei threatened sectors where tho Russians gained footholds across the river. Hazard of Three Pockets

Nor have the Germans succeeded in holding their promised winter line Their forces have been compressed into three great pockets from which they have been compelled, or will be com pelled, to make frantic efforts to extn cate them if they are not resigned to losing them. The first is the Dnieper Bend itself, the second is the tongue ol land between the Lower Dnieper and the Crimea, and the third is the Crimea. In the middle of these three areas, the Germans are still fleeing towards the bridgeless crossing at Kherson and the Dnieper Estuary, which may afford some hope of escape by water to Niko laev and Odessa.

Yesterday the Russians were reported to be under 30 miles from Kherson and on the Black Sea coast almost south of that place. Whatever major disasters the Ger mans so far have evaded they have certainly not succeeded in shortening their front, which runs in an ever-lcngthen ing series of curves from Kremenchurg, via Krivoi-rog, Zaporozhe, Berislavl, Armenak, and Geniscliesk to the Kerch Strait..