FIERCE STRUGGLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 June 1941, Page 5

FIERCE STRUGGLE

CONTINUING IN MINSK SECTOR DESPERATE EFFORTS BY NAZI INFANTRY. TO LINK. UP WITH ADVANCED TANK UNITS. LONDON. June 29. Following a deep thrust by German tanks in northern Poland toward Minsk, which Moscow yesterday stated had been halted with severe loss to the enemy, today’s Soviet communique says that fierce fighting is going on in the Minsk and Baranowicze sector and that German infantry are desperately trying to link up with the advan? ced tank units. By stubborn resistance and counter-attacks, the Russians say, they are holding up the enemy and inflicting heavy losses. South of the Pripet marshes in the Luck sector, a battle of 4000 tanks is continuing. The communique says that the result of the battle is under examination. It adds that Russian troops elsewhere are firmly holding the State frontiers, which is presumed to mean the old Soviet frontiers. The official German news agency says that the Finnish Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Mannerheim, in an order of the day this morning, appealed to the nation to rally to a fresh crusade against the enemy who attacked them a year ago. He described the armistice as now cancelled.