VIGOROUS DEFENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 August 1941, Page 5

VIGOROUS DEFENCE

IN NORTHERN AND OTHER AREAS GERMANS REPORT ATTACK ON ODESSA. NEW THREAT TO LENINGRAD. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, August 20. Berlin states that s land onslaught has been opened against the Black Sea port of Odessa. It is believed in London that while the Germans recently occupied the port of Nikolaev, near the mouth of the (Bug, Russian troops still hold the Bug estuary itself. An unofficial report from Berlin states that the Germans have already passed Novogorod in the drive on Leningrad, but this is not corroborated from Moscow. The latest Russian reports indicate that fighting continues along the western and southern shores of Lake Ilmen. There is nothing to suggest that the Germans have pressed farther eastward between Lake Ilmen and the Valdai Hills to the south-east, where the Russians strongly defend the approaches to the Moscow-Leningrad railway. In the meantime the people of Leningrade and Tallinn are intensifying their preparations to resist the invaders. Men and women volunteers are throwing up sandbag and concrete defence posts, and the Home Guards in each city are undergoing special training to deal with parachutists. Moscow dispatches confirm that the Russians in the central sector are holding on strongly, while counter-attacks have thrown back the Germans in the vicinity of Smolensk. The Moscow radio claims that 1,500,000 Germans have been killed, wounded or taken prisoner and more than 6000 tanks and 8000 guns destroyed and captured in the past six weeks. It is announced in Moscow that an improved fighter plane is being produced and is ready for immediate action.

The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” says that with the drives from south and north blunted and turned aside, a direct thrust against Leningrad has evidently been entrusted to the German army in Estonia, which has been exerting increased pressure for several days. Though the loss of Kingisenn, reported by Moscow yesterday, represent a German advance of only a few miles, 'this will possibly be the most dangerous threat yet made to Leningrad. However, there is no easy route to Leningrad. The Russians for 10 years were spending vast sums in constructing defences. Unless the Germans have brought up enormous reinforcements their long finger risks being severed between Lake Ilmen, Lake Peipus and the Gulf of Finland. The Russian forces inside Estonia are more than guerillas; indeed, they still hold a large part of the interior and coastline and also the valuable islands. Russia’s Estonian forces may be invaluable if the main forces are able to launch a serious counteroffensive.

A Helsinki communique states that the Russians who were cut off at Sortavala, at the north of Lake Ladoga, continue to resist strenuously, but the encircled area has been further reduced.