AIR ATTACKS CHIEF ACTIVITY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 30 June 1943, Page 5

AIR ATTACKS CHIEF ACTIVITY

RUSSIAN'S MAINTAIN PRESSURE CHANGED TACTICS BY ENEMY (Rec. 11.50 a.m.) London, June 29. Activity on the Russian front is still chiefly confined to air attacks with the Russians asserting that the Luftwaffe is chary of venturing out. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says the Red Air Force is maintaining pressure against key points of German communications, making at least three major sorties for every German one. This has aroused the belief that the German Command is playing a waiting game in the air as well as on the land. Russians ascribe the lull in land operations to the Germans’ inability to i risk a really great offensive move. One military commentator claims that the Russians’ military blows in the last two years have so weakened the German Army that “Hitler cannot undertake an offensive this spring.” Reuter continues that the Germans’ losses in attempting to bomb inhabited localities and communications near Leningrad, were so heavy in June that they are adopting modified tactics. They are flying with stronger fighter escort, bombing from higher altitudes, and also changing course more suddenly than previous, hoping to confuse the Russian fighter defence screen. Paris radio to-night declared the Russians were massing west of Moscow. This follows a German report yesterday that the Russians *re massing on the Orel and Kuban fronts. Moscow radio said numerous contradictory reports from Axis sources indicate the Nazis are increasingly nervous over the trend of war on the Eastern Front. —P.A.