AIR BLITZ

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 July 1941, Page 6

AIR BLITZ

ATTEMPTED BV GERMANS

POWERFUL RUSSIAN REPLY.

FIRM STAND IN SMOLENSK AREA.

(Received This Day, 1.30 p.m.) LONDON, July 27. Flung impatiently ahead of the tangled battlefields on which the Germans ihave got nowhere worth mentioning for days, aerial armadas are striving to reintroduce the blitzkrieg into the German invasion of Russia. The Red Air.'Force is .replying with weight. Indicating the extent of air activity, although grossly exaggerating Russian losses, Berlin sources claim the destruction of hundreds of Soviet planes in the last two days.

According to the Moscow Radio, the Luftwaffe, which is sending hundreds of planes in waves against Moscow and Leningrad, is suffering heavy losses and achieving little. The “Izvestia” describes a Soviet attack on a German advanced aerodrome. Fighters first attacked, setting fire to Junkers and Messerschmitts. Then Soviet bombers joined in. The crews , in the last wave counted thirty planes on the ground on fire and another twenty riddled with bullets and out of action. The Soviet fighters paralysed anti-aircraft fire. The raid lasted for several hours, but no German plane succeeded in taking off. The aerodrome was finally destroyed. The Moscow Radio claimed that the German High Command admitted that the fighting front has been stabilised in the last few days. This has given both parties a respite, which the Soviet has put to better account than the Germans. “The Soviet has now learned how to deal with the tank.” The “Daily Telegraph’s” Moscow correspondent, in confirming reports that the Smolensk garrison is still holding out with the greatest firmness and courage, says the Nazi war machine has definitely been checked on the central front. Marshal Timoshenko’s army has been heavily reinforced and is counter-attacking gamely, around Smolensk. MANY BATTLES ON VITAL SECTORS OF FRONT.

HARD HITTING BY RUSSIAN AIR FORCE.

(British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.0 a.m.) RUGBY, July 27.

A Russian morning communique states: “In the course of the night of July 26, our troops continued many battles in the Smolensk and Jitomir directions. In other directions and sectors of the front no large scale military operations were conducted. Our Air Force inflicted blows on motor and mechanised units of the enemy and on aerodromes.”