ENEMY ADVANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 August 1941, Page 5

ENEMY ADVANCE

ATTEMPTED FLANKING MOVEMENT AGAINST RUSSIANS AT JITOMIR (ENORMOUS GERMAN LOSSES. REPORTED BY SOVIET SPOKESMAN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, August 2. An enemy advance on the Ukraine front is announced in a Soviet communique .this morning. ' it states: “We engaged the enemy yesterday in the Porkhov, Smolensk, Korostyshev and ByelayaTserkov regions and also in the Estonian sector. Engagements elsewhere were of a local character.” Byelaya-Tserkov is on a railway 45 miles south-south-west of Kiev, and Korostyshev is 85 miles north-west of Kiev. It would seem that the enemy are attempting a flanking movement against the obstinate Russian resistance at Jitomir (85 miles west of Kiev), which for some time they have been unable to break by direct attacks. A correspondent in Ankara says that this move in the Ukraine may be the beginning of a third German offensive at the opening of the seventh week of the campaign, but there is no evidence yet of a general offensive. It is indicated that the enemy continue to be held elsewhere. • DEATHS & DESERTIONS. The deputy chief of the Soviet Information Bureau, M. Lozovsky, issued also, the following communique: “We have smashed Germany’s crack shock divisions. The Reichswehr is bogged and is suffering immense losses in men and material, and the fighting daily hastens the defeat of Germany. The German and Axis troops on the Russian front as estimated at 248 divisions (probably about 3,750,000 men), including 30 armoured 'divisions. Hitler’s time-table envisaged the capture of Moscow in three weeks. The German casualties in the six weeks exceed 1,500,000, with desertions increasing.” A Berlin communique yesterday stated: “Germany troops struck deep into the enemy retreating in the Ukraine, iand a further great battle of annihilation is proceeding south of Kiev. The Soviet divisions encircled east of Smolensk have been further compressed. The Luftwaffe last night bombed public utility works and military installations in Moscow and railway junctions in the upper Volga districts and the southern Ukraine.” M. Lozovsky’s communique today added that the Russian naval and air forces attacked a German convoy in the Baltic, comprising eight transports and five destroyers. One transport and one destroyer were sunk and one transport and two destroyers were damaged and forced to turn back. The Russian air force, it was stated, dealt heavy blows at panzer units, infantry and artillery along the front yesterday. Forty-one enemy planes were shot down on August 1 for the loss of 19 Soviet planes.

Moscow reported that only three or four German planes succeeded in penetrating the city’s defences on the night of August 1. They dropped incendiary bombs, which were quickly dealt with. Two raiders were shot down.