NEW DRIVE FOR CRIMEA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 221, 19 September 1941, Page 5

NEW DRIVE FOR CRIMEA

GERMANS MAY ATTEMPT TO MAKE NAVAL LANDING

RUSSIANS HOLD INITIATIVE IN THE CENTRAL SECTOR London, iScpt. 18. The latest news from the Eastern battlefront indicates that Germany appears to be making a new drive, on the extreme south, toward Crimea. Reports have been circulating in Japan of late, that when the German armies are in a position to threaten Crimea, the Germans will try to force a naval landing. German troops are said to have reached the Isthmus of Perekop, which is the mainland bordering the Gulf of Perekop, separating Crimea from the Ukraine. German armies are reported to have crossed the Dnieper River at a number of points. In the central sector, the initiative remains with the Russians, who are now in a position to threaten Smolensk.

There is little news of the fighting round Leningrad, where a great battle is raging with unabated fury. Russians say they drove the Germans back nine miles in one sector, using huge tanks.

With Leningrad subjected to the most severe pressure from every German military device, and with General von Rundstedt’s advance across the Dnieper developing dangerously, news of Marshal Timoshenko’s success at Vartsevo has weleomely relieved the generally critical outlook fol the heroic Russians.

A Berlin military spokesman claimed that advanced forces at Leningrad, after having been driven back, returned with flame-throwers and, supported by hundreds of divebombers, smashed through the second belt of fortifications. The attacks against Odessa were also resumed in full blast after the badly battered Rumanians were relieved by German crack troops, who. however, seem equally unable to make headway. General von Rundstedt is pressing on beyond the Dnieper, not only across the lower reaches towards Azov, but farther north between Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk. The German offensive northward of Kiev and southward of Gomel is also accelerating, so that a ring is closing around Kiev. The German objectives are obviously Kharkov and Bryansk. If these are captured the encirclement of the whole Ukraine could hardly be prevented. Genera' Rokossovski, writing in the Izvestia, emphasises the importance of Marshal Timoshenko’s victor} 7 at

Yartsevo in barring the motor road to Moscow. He says that the recapture of Yartsevo and Elnia has destroyed German hopes of a further drive from this sector.

Explaining how a German tank division succeeded hi occupying Yartsevo by a sudden thrust some six weeks ago. with the object of developing an offensive through the town and reaching Moscow by the shortest route —a straight motor road —General Rokossovski adds: “A sudden resistance by numerically small Russian forces managed to stem the enemy advance. Th° Germans lost a nv mber of tanks and men near Yartsevo, and for that reason were forced to take the defensive while bringing un reinforcement 1 : before resuming the offensive. By several strong counter-blows the Russians not only foiled the second German offensive, but also routed German tank divisions and threw back the enemy from Yartsevo and occupied the entire eastern bank of tlie Vop River.

A supplementary Moscow communique states that in the recen* fierc" fighting in the Brvansk area. German forces commanded by General Guderian, lost 20.000 dead, wounded and taken prisoner. The Russians captured large numbers of tanks, armoured ears, aeroplanes and lorries. . . The communioue admits that _ m fighting in the Lake Ilmen district lasting over a month, the Soviet lost 30 000 killed and wounded, but asserts that ,he Germans lost between 45 000 and 50.000. In order to .prepare trained reserves for the Red Army, the State Defence Committee ordered all males, between 16 to 65. to undergo •compulsory military train mg outside working hours. —U.P.A.