NAZI THRUSTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 August 1941, Page 6

NAZI THRUSTS

IN SOUTH ANO NORTH FOLLOWING ON FAILURE IN CENTRE. , SANGUINARY BATTLES IN PROGRESS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.10 p.m. LONDON, August 3. After the failure to penetrate the Russian defences in the central sector, German offensives apparently have been intensified towards Kiev and Leningrad. The latest official reports received from Moscow indicate that sanguinary battles are proceeding, day and night, in the southern sectot. The Germans seemingly have thrown a wide arc around the southern and western approaches to Kiev, although the indefiniteness of German references to the fighting in this sector indicates that the German advance may be no more than a break through by tanks. A Rumanian communique claims that, after fighting between the Dneister and the Bug rivers, large Soviet forces are threatened from the rear. The communique added that an encircling manoeuvre is developing, putting the Russians in a serious position.

There are apparently no important developments in Finland, but fighting furiously flared up in Estonia after the lull following upon a decisive check to the Germans around Pskov and Porkhov. The Germans claim considerable successes west of Lake Peipus, but the British United Press correspondent in Moscow reports that drives towards Leningrad from both the north' and south are again halting. The Finns admit great Russian activity northwards of Lake Ladoga, where the Russians are stated to have been constantly attacking. The “Pravda” publishes a special message from Tallin, reporting the city as calm and vigilant and consistently beating off enemy raids from the Gulf of Finland. Thousands of Tallin workers have joined “destruction battalions,” for fighting parachutists, and have already been in action. A people's army is also being created. Bitter fighting continues in the Smolensk wedge, but no change is reported from either side, though the German News Agency claimed good results east of Smolensk.