KERCH STRAITS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1941, Page 5

KERCH STRAITS

MINED BY THE RUSSIANS SQUADRONS OF STORMOVIKS BROUGHT UP. NAZI THREAT TO CAUCASUS. LONDON, November 18. The Germans are at a standstill in the drive against Moscow. Fierce fighting continues in the Tikhvin area east of Leningrad. The position in the eastern Crimea remains critical. If the Germans have captured Kerch, i which the Russians so far have not announced, they are now within 15 miles of the Caucasus mainland, but before they cross the eight-mile straits they have to take Yenikal, which is seven miles east of Kerch and has not been mentioned by either side. A Berlin spokesman today boasted that the straits are no appreciable obstacle to the German forces. The Russians are sowing minefields In the Kerch Straits and are bringing up squadrons of Stormoviks to prevent the Germans from sweeping a channel. Marshal Timoshenko’s defence in the Ukraine has been so strong and the weather has been so unpropitious that the German advance has been effectually stopped. A Kuibyshev message says that the Germans have revived their plans to cut off the Leningrad and Moscow fronts and bottle up large forces on each front, but the ’Russians are resisting this manoeuvre with the utmost determination. At Kalinin and Tula, on the wings of the Moscow front, new German thrusts have been repelled by vigorous counter-attacks. The “Red Star,” describing. the recent headlong flight of the Germans from the southern suburbs of Tula, said that the ground has been strewn with the evidence of the enemy’s panic. They left great quantities of grenades, rifles, machine-guns, artillery, and even tanks behind them.