LENINGRAD STRIKING BACK

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24085, 2 October 1941, Page 9

LENINGRAD STRIKING BACK

RUJECHER'S SECRET SIBERIAN ARMY

Rv Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright 11.30 p.m.') LONDON, Oct, 1 important agricultural centre in the Ukraine, 85 °est of the great industrial centre of Kharkov, has fallen, miles we Russians in their midnight communique. Ae —, " r d - " ated by the Russians only after stubborn fighting. The to be making progress toward Kharkov. At Leningrad the struggle continues with unabated violence . b l oo d-soaked approaches to the city. There is some evi--00 support reports that the Russians, far from concentration mere defence of Leningrad, are actually taking the initiative at several points. Germans Find Town Full of Mines A remarkably frank admission of Russian tenacity in the * erad sector is contained in an article by the war corresLen f r Q f t h e Berliner Borsenzeitung, who says: "The diffi?°y "of our troops on the Leningrad front are interminable, c advance is possible only with losses, often severe, owing he fact that the retreating Russians have mined practically t0 t v Our troops came into minefields—mines in rivers, f and schools—and sustained losses through mines in the fields The High Command was forced to forbid troops enterTanv house of lodging. This order was given when time after 7e delayed-action bombs had exploded in the town of Luga ' 0 ro iUs south of Leningrad), where bombs were hidden under In stoves and behind cupboards, thus causing heavy losses. German pioneers discovered in one district alone in Luga 1500 • nes while the greater part of the town ha, still to fee cleared of mines! It became necessary to despatch pioneer reinforcements to the Leningrad front. "Enormous" Battle Going on at Crimea The Soviet official spokesman, M. Lozovsky, stated that the Russian position at Leningrad was better than it was a month ago. Fitting was going on day and night near the Crimea but it was still outside the peninsula. An enormous battle, with huge losses, was continuing, but the German hopes that the major part of the war would be settled after the fall of Kiev had been dashed to the ground. The Russians, before evacuating Kiev, had destroyed everything that could be used against them, and had also evacuated half the civilian population. Marshal Bluecher, the Soviet commander in the bar Last, has been secretly organising in Siberia for the past year, and has been training on skis a crack winter army of 500,000 men. He has now informed the Moscow Government, and also the British military mission, that his "ghost army" will be ready for action early in November. Reporting this, the Daily Telegraph s Stockholm correspondent says the news of the secret army has leaked out from German circles in Stockholm, who are greatly concerned about the effect the arrival of a fresh, powerful and efficient force will have on the winter battlefields.