ON ALL MAIN SECTORS IN RUSSIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 August 1941, Page 5

ON ALL MAIN SECTORS IN RUSSIA

Soviet Forces Actively Taking Initiative

COUNTER-ATTACKING ALONG WHOLE FRONT

ENEMY MUCH CONCERNED OVER PROBLEM OF MANPOWER LONDON, August 1. The latest reports from the Eastern Front state that the Germans have not made any apparent headway during the pas 24 hours. At the end of the sixth week of this momentous struggle the Russians are still holding the Germans at bay on all three of the main sectors—in the north, where they are 'attempting to drive to Leningrad; in the south, in the Ukraine, / where Kiev is the objective, and in the central sector, where • the outcome of the titanic battle of Smolensk still hangs m the balance. , . , . „ ' The second enemy- offensive appears to have lost mucii oi its impetus and there are indications that the Germans may be preparing to launch a third large-scale attack, the themselves appear to have taken the initiative in several par-.s of the front. The Rusians are counter-attacking in tne Smolensk area. Axis sources refer to Russian offensive operations a various other points. There is no definite evidence that the Russian counter-attacks have developed into a full-sized offensive, but the Russians are reported to be counter-attacking along the whole of the vast front from Lake Ladoga to the Biack Sea. The counter-attacks, it is stated, are being made both ■ from the east and the west and the Germans are being forced to fight in two directions. The attacks are being made at a time when the German High Command appears to be increasingly anxious about the problem of manpower. Berlin admits that Russia s vast resources of manpower have enabled fresh forces to be thrown into the battle. The German High Command, it is stated, is seriously concerned with the problem of filling the depleted ranks of the army. Russians say they have captured 18-year-old youths and 55-year-old men, who do not know how to use an automatic gun.