HEAVY LOSSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 June 1942, Page 3

HEAVY LOSSES

SUFFERED BY GERMANS IN LOOKING FOR WEAK SPOTS. IN THE KHARKOV AREA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, June . 15. After battering the stronglyheld Russian positions on the Kharkov front for four days, reports Reuter's Moscow correspondent, the Germans are now bringing up reinforcements. Their losses in men and tanks are very heavy. They have not managed to get beyond the stage of hitting sharply against several narrow sectors, hoping to find a weak spot to ,break through. Whereas Marshal Timoshenkois drive on the same front led to a great clash of armour, the present struggle appears to have developed into a great battle of fire-power. Russian methods of dealing with tanks are so effective that the advantage nowadays tends to lie with the defence. Panzers remain a danger, but are no longer the absolute menace they represented last year. The German High Command therefore has tried to give additional sting to the attack by closely supporting the tanks with planes. It is clear that this additional firepower has given the Russians a warm time on some of the narrow sectors, but it is equally clear that it has not had the devastating effect intended. The new Russian anti-tank guns are wreaking havoc among the German panzers. “Pravda” reports that 113 out of 150 tanks were wiped out during a recent attack. The report added: “Our armour-piercing shells cut through the German tanks like butter.” German paratroops dropped near the Russian lines in various sectors of the Kharkov front were all wiped out. Describing the fighting at Kharkov, a message from Moscow says that despite numerical superiority of enemy troops, tanks and planes concentrated in a number of narrow sectors, the Russians are hitting back at some points where the Germans have driven in wedges. The Russians continue to hold their positions in the face of growing pressure and the Germans are suffering heavy losses, frequently being ambushed. REPORTS AND DENIALS. Despite denials in Berlin yesterday, informed neutral observers believe that the initiation of the second chapter of the Kharkov battle, which is developing furiously, marks the beginning of the great German 1942 offensive. Berlin military authorities were quoted as saying that even if the Kharkov attack develops into something more than a local operation, it must not be regarded as the German summer offensive. The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” said yesterday that the entire front was becoming palpably more active and that the chief sectors

were approaching seething-point. For all its magnitude and intensity, the Sebastopol battle was a sideshow or a preliminary task before the German offensive entered into full swing. While the Russians said that they were holding the German attacks on the Kharkov front, the German High Command claimed that the Donetz was crossed at many new points and that several important heights on the west bank were captured. It added that boggy ground was making progress very difficult. German tanks at Kharkov, supported by massed artillery and very mobile and strong motorised infantry, yesterday furiously battered the Russian positions east of Kharkov with the object of bursting through toward the Don and north Caucasian plain. FieldMarshal von Bock attacked at several points between Kharkov and the Sea of Azov, but these were regarded chiefly .as probing feints, except at one point where a thrust was believed to be imminent for the lower Don near Rostov. A Soviet communique states that the German air force yesterday made five attempts to raid Murmansk, but only a few planes reached the town, where there were some casualties to civilians. Eight German planes were shot down. The Moscow radio says that the Russians stormed and captured an important height on the Leningrad front and wiped out almost the entire German garrison totalling 500. i