INVASION AUGURY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 192, 12 May 1944, Page 5

INVASION AUGURY

Comment On' Fall Of Sebastopol (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, May 10. German military quarters believe tlie fall of .Sebastopol, which is now officially admitted, will be the signal for a Russian offensive in the southern sector, ending the lull on the Eastern front. This is indicated by the official spokesmaji of the German War Ministry, who stated that a Russian offensive was believdd to be shaping for the near future. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says that the fall of Sebastopol may be the beginning of the final blows from east and west against Hitler’s Europe, lhe way is now clear for the opening of the Red Army’s Balkan offensive. The Germans on the Black Sea flank have been placed in the greatest peril, lhe eyes of the Soviet Command are now fixed on Rumania and other Balkan countries./ The correspondent says Moscow is also 'taking the smashing of Sebastopol s “impregnable” defences as the herald and augury of the Allied invasion from the west. “Pravda,” hailing the victory, says: “On the eve of the new blow to be struck against Hitler’s Gerniany, the magnificent storming of Sebastopol is a happy omen. It shows what these unassailable fortifications,’ these ‘Atlantic walls’ are worth.” Results of Barrage. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says that 10,000 Rumanian and German soldiers were killed by the tremendous artillery blow from thousands of massed Russian guns which opened up the final assault against Sebastopol. It was the greatest artillery barrage ever carried out on the Russian front. Huge blocks of granite rocketed into the air as the shells struck the hills surrounding the city, and when the Russian infantry launched its assault they found the ground strewn with massed and twisted guns, and the wreckage of fortifications, together with the mangled bodie? of tens of thousands of Rumanians and Germans. Tonight’s Soviet communique reports no substantial changes on the front. The air communique says that two enemy transports, totalling 4000 tons, and also an escorting cutter and several landing barges, were sunk in the Black Sea. A number of other vessels were damaged. The Germans south-east of Stanislavov twice attacked the Russian positions, but were thrown back to their original positions, leaving 600 dead, says a supplementary communique. Red Air Force planes in the Barents Sea sank three motor torpedo-boa’s.