THIRD OFFENSIVE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLX, Issue 22028, 30 July 1941, Page 5

THIRD OFFENSIVE

FEVERISH GERMAN PREPARATIONS Failure Of Earlier Drives By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (11 p.m.) LONDON, July 29. There i« further evidence that Germany’s second offensive against Russia has petered out. At various points along the front the Germans are being forced to dig in because of the destruction of Supply lines by the Soviet Air Force. The Germans are reported to be making feverish preparations for a third drive to Moscow and Leningrad, which they now hope to reaeh by the end of August. A Moscow communique states: “The enemy offensive in the direction of Smolensk and Jltomir is breaking against the stubbornness of our troops. At some points we are energetically counter-attacking and inflicting heavy losses. No important battles have taken place elsewhere. The coastal defences and the Baltic Fleet Air Arm sank one enemy destroyer and two patrol vessels. We lost one destroyer.” A later communique states: “Our Air Three yesterday, in co-operation with land troops, raided large enemy concentrations and the enemy Air Force on the ground. It is established that oh July 26 109 German aircraft Were destroyed, we lost 36 planes.” The Moscow radio stated that 140 or 150 German planes tried to raid Moscow last night. Anti-aircraft batteries and night fighters dispersed the enemy formations and prevented them from reaching Moscow. Only four or five reached the city. At least nine of those attempting the raid were shot down. . . The Berlin radio announced that the German military spokesman said the weather was making the German advance in the southern sector very difficult. Pages of death notices in German papers which are reaching Turkey confirm reports that Germany is paying a terrible price on the Russian front. ‘The Neue Zuericher Zeitung’s” corresoondent in Finland reports that the Gelmans have brought up fresh reserves to assist in the drive to Lenlh-

grad. The Germans and Finns, in spite of the utmost efforts, are still at least 90 miles from Leningrad. The important town of Petrozavodsk is still in Russian hands. Mr G. E. R. Gedye, the American journalist, in a message to the “Daily Express” from Istanbul, states that casualty lists are not published in Germany, but Hitler has found himself obliged to provide an outlet for popular anguish by allowing relatives and friends of prominent party members to publish, at their own expense, notices of death in action. Evety day whole pages now record the deaths of important Nazi Party members. Those mourned include Hans Dietel, commander of the crack Gestapo College for training “super men”; Rudi Kranz, the German ski champion; Rudolf Amann, a son of the Nazi press chief, and Otto Schramm, who has been one of Hitler's cronies since the birth of the Nazi Party. The Moscow radio has announced that a strike has occurred at the naval shipyards at Hamburg as a protest by workers against the non-publication of casualty lists from the Russian front. The workers’ demand for casualty lists was at first granted, but patent inaccuracies in the lists so Incensed them than the strike continued. The magnitude of the task confronting the German armies is being realised in Germany, states the London “Evening Standard.” It adds that a second lull is developing on the eastern front. The German High Command has met resistance before, but not on such a vast scale.