TOWN RETAKEN

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

TOWN RETAKEN

LENINGRAD SECTOE HAND-TO-HAND FIGHTING IMPORTANT RUSSIAN SUCCESS LONDON. Oct, 1 The Russian military paper the Red Star reports the recapture of the strategically important town of "B" after a 12-hour battle, culminating in fierce hand-to-hand fighting. A Russian regiment approached the town and entrenched under cover of darkness. Russian artillery next morning put over an extensive barrage, after which tanks advanced. The infantry followed and stormed the defences.

By noon the regiment had occupied the southern and western suburbs of the town, and other units hnd readied the north-eastern outskirts. The main Russian forces hy 6 p.m. had forced a passage over an unnamed river, completed the recapture of the town, and driven the Germans back a significant distance from Leningrad. An entire German regiment was destroyed. The Finns claim to-day that they have taken Petrozavodsk, to the west of Lake Onega on the MurmanskLeningrad railway. There is no confirmation of this from any other source. The German news agency says that Marshal Budenny was encircled with his armies eastward of Kiev, but escaped in an aeroplane. A German communique says that in operations in the Dnepropetrovsk region Italian units jn this operation formed a rough square, in which several Russian divisions were imprisoned. The Russians violently and vainly counterattacked, and the Italians captured over 5000 prisoners. It is learned in London that barefooted Russian prisoners, herded in cattle trucks, have arrived in the Netherlands.

DUST STORM AT TOBRUK LONDON, Sept. 30 A Cairo headquarters communique stoics: ,; At Tobruk a heavy dust storm yesterday hampered our general activity outside of our perimeter defences, in the frontier area our patrols continue their aggressive activity."