SIXTEEN DAYS BATTERING

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLXI, Issue 15076, 23 June 1942, Page 3

SIXTEEN DAYS BATTERING

SEBASTOPOL STILL STANDS GERMANS HAVE DRIVEN WEDGE. INTO CITY’S DEFENCES. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Com right LONDON, Jun e 22. Sebastopol is still standing up to the German; battering after sixteen days of seige, says the latest dispatch from Moscow. It is admitted, however, that the Germans have een a wedge into the city’s defences. The German High Command, announced that the Russians had launched several counter-attacks, blit claimed that they had been beaten off and further penetration was made into the Russian positions. It is estimated that at least 20 Axis divisions are operating in the Crimea. The Rumanian Prime Minister (General Antonescu) states that Romanian; casualties in Russia since the war began a year ago amount to 150,000 killed, wounded or missing. The Berlin correspondent of tlie newspaper Dagensnvheter says that the i isk of a sec ond front being opened ii France is one reason why the German summer offensive did not materialise in Russia. Other reasons are the heavy losses inflicted in the Russian Kharkov offensive; last month and the flooding of the southern front The Moscow radio says the Germans are on the defensive in some sectors of th ( , Kharkov front and have made withdrawals from some inhabited localities, the Russians capturing prisoners and war material.