HEAVY FIGHTING AT SMOLENSK

Southland Times, Issue 24492, 21 July 1941, Page 5

HEAVY FIGHTING AT SMOLENSK

GERMANS CLAIM FALL OF CITY LONDON, July 19. While the German High Command claimed Smolensk was captured on Wednesday, the latest Russian communique does not admit the fall of the city, although it reports heavy fighting in the Smolensk sector. The Red Star, the army newspaper, claims that guerilla forces operating in the German rear captured two neighbouring cities. Strong partisan bands helped to surround and wipe out German garrisons. The capture of Novograd-Volynsk is claimed by the German news agency, but there is no confirmation of this from Russian sources.

Amplifying the claim to the capture of Smolensk, the German agency says that while fierce artillery fire is still going on round Smolensk, a German detachment in a lightning attack penetrated the town and occupied the outer districts. Considerable Soviet forces were destroyed. Another German communique claims that German and Rumanian troops from Bessarabia forced a passage across the Dniester at several points. The Finnish Army broke stiff enemy resistance and pressed forward on the northern shores of Lake Ladoga. In the Kiev sector a Soviet divisional general and numerous high staff officers were captured. The Vichy news agency mentions an unconfirmed report that the Germans have taken prisoner M. Stalin’s son by a former marriage. He is an infantry lieutenant.

It is reported from Ankara that Russian bombings have so severely damaged the Ploesti oil fields that the Rumanian authorities notified Turkish importers that oil deliveries must be drastically cut in the near future. Rumania’s oil refining capacity has been reduced by millions of tons a year. The Unirea refinery was destroyed together with subsidiary plant. One plant burned for 18 hours. Two hundred thousand tons of petroleum products, 18 tanks and other equipment were set on fire. The Red Air Force reports the destruction of two transports and five oil barges on the Danube. The secret German anti-party radio violently attacked the treatment of German wounded on the eastern front. It alleged that the wounded were dying in thousands because after a simple injection they are transported back from the front in carts for hundreds of miles over bumpy roads before receiving further treatment. What may prove news of the first importance is contained in a brief message from the Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain. His message says: “Rain is falling over the battlefields of western Russia, threatening to turn into a vast bog the territory churned up by Hitler’s blitzkrieg vehicles.”