GERMAN CLAIMS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 111, 14 May 1942, Page 5

GERMAN CLAIMS

RUSSIAN DEFENCES PIERCED SUCCESSFUL NIGHT LANDING (Recd. 9.55 p.n..> London, Moy 13. A Vichy news agency dispatch from Crimea states that the Germans opened the Krrrli Peninsula offensive with a night bombing on the shore of the Gulf nf Theodosia behind the Russian lines, seizing' a strip of land stretching from the Black S<a coast to the southern shore of Lake Übundar. On the night of Sunday. German and Rumanian troops broke through the Russian defences, reaching the outskirts of Marienthal on Monday and thp Azov Sea coast at dawn on Tuesday, afterwards advancing along the Gulf of Arabat as far as OjuspeiP. The night landing was made in specially armed stool barges protected by motor tornedo-boals carrying cannon and light machine-guns. Throughout the following night reinforcements landed on either sid'- of the bridgehead parallel with the road. Anti-tank obstacles extending to a great depth hold up the Axis tanks for a lime, hut hv the night of Sunday the enemy's defences was broken and the main forces jclned up with the landing parties.