GERMAN PRESSURE

Waikato Times, Volume 129, Issue 21590, 28 November 1941, Page 5

GERMAN PRESSURE

STRUGGLE FOR MOSCOW AT CRITICAL STAGE (Uniled Press Assn.—Elcc. Tel. CopyrJffbt) LONDON, Nov. 27 On the Moscow front German panzer divisions are battling first in one sector and then in another in attempts to break through the city’s defences. There is nothing to suggest that any important breakthrough has occurred. Fighting is particularly fierce in the VoJiokalamsk and Tula sectors and both sides are throwing in reseives. A Moscow report states that, after 24 hours’ fighting, the enemy succeeded in forcing crossings at a number of points along a river in the Klin area, 42 miles north-west o.t Moscow. This river is presumed to be the Volga. The radio adds that the attack on the capital has reached its second phase, with the enemy trying to surround the city with wide encircling movements. The German efforts to break through have been intensified. In the past 10 days, the Russians admit, the enemy has succeeded in advancing his lines. In the north an entire German regiment has been wiped out, while the staff of another iias been captured. In the Tikhvin area the Russians are reported to be nearing the important railway station on the Lenin-grad-Vologda line. The Russians’ advance in the Donetz Basin has brought them local successes near Rostov.

The position in the Crimea is un changed. Russians Take Iniative

Whereas the initiative in the Moscow zone still rests with the invaders, says the Stockholm correspondent of the Times, the Russians have wrested it from them in a larger part, not only of the Black Sea area, but on the Leningrad front, and have recovered important ground from von Leeb, particularly in the Hikhvin area, where the Leningrad-Vologda railway appears already to be wholly or almost wholly cleared of Germans, who swooped down on it in the first half of November. Russian counter-aggression has stretched farther south, at least to the Bologoie-Pskov railway, where the Russians are pressing the Germans toward Lake liman. The Germans hereabouts apparently released part of their troops to support the operations in the Klin area.