CLIMAX NEAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 May 1944, Page 3

CLIMAX NEAR

IN RUSSIAN ASSAULT. ON SEBASTOPOL WHOLE AREA A FLAMING CAULDRON. TOMMY-GUNNERS FIRING • INTO BLAZING SUBURBS. LONDON, May 9. Russian troops are battling their way forward on the outskirts of Sebastopol. A bitter hand to hand struggle is taking place, as the enemy falls back from one defence point 1o another. * Russian aircraft and guns are keeping up their intense bombardment, which has been going on for nearly three weeks. "The battle for Sebastopol is nearing the climax,” says the Moscow correspondent of the British United Press. "Russian shock troops are storming the last German strongpoints before the city, while tommy-gunners are already firing into the blazing suburbs. “One front-line dispatch states that Sebastopol city and port and its approaches by land and sea are seething. The whole area is a flaming cauldron, with Red air fleets hammering ceaselessly day and night and heavy Russian siege guns blasting the Germans from their final positions. ’ According to the Exchange Telegraph Agency, the Paris radio and the yichy radio are preparing listeners for the fall of Sebastopol by emphasising that the fortress is only of local importance and has lost its value for the German defenders. DOOMED GARRISON DO OR DIE ORDERS RECEIVED. BUT DEFENCE POINTS FALLING ONE BY ONE. (Received This Day, 9.25 a.m.) LONDON, May 9. The doomed Sebastopol garrison has received “do or die” orders from the German High Command, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. They are fighting savagely, but defence points aie one by one, under the rain of Russian shells and the onrush of the Red Army storm troops.