CAUCASUS GAIN

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24542, 26 March 1943, Page 3

CAUCASUS GAIN

NEW SOVIET OFFENSIVE FLOODS AND MUD DEFIED LONDON, March 25 The German bridgehead opposite the Crimea in the Northern Caucasus has shrunk still further. The Russians yesterday captured the rail town of Abinskaya, 25 miles north-east of Novorossisk. The Russians have resumed their attacks here in conditions that are still appalling. The spring thaw has swollen the rivers and turned large areas into lakes and mud swamps. Great demands are made on the endurance of the troops. Moscow reports a new Russian offensive against the remnants of the Germans in the Caucasus. The enemy is still not ousted from Novorossisk and the Tainan Peninsula, where they arc trying to maintain sis large a bridgehead as possible for a future Caucasus venture. With their backs to Kerch Strait and Ihc Crimea, the Germans hare been com pressed into appreciably smaller space in the past lew days. The Bus-

sialic, alLei raplu niifj, .Slavyanskayn. will probably make tlioir next important objective Krvmskaya Junction. The Russians also report the capture of TVtrovskoie in Hie Kuban sector, flie Tass news agency states that the Germans are fiercely defending the western districts of the Kuban with an are of concentrated lire, using as many as 25 machine-guns to the half-mile of front line. It adds that formations ol dive-bombers have arrived at this iront from Tunisia.