NEAR THE OUTER DEFENCES OF LENINGRAD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 September 1941, Page 5

NEAR THE OUTER DEFENCES OF LENINGRAD

Enemy Plans to Encircle City VOROSHILOV COMMANDING RUSSIANS IN FORWARD AREA MILITARY PREPARATIONS IN KIEV LONDON, September 3. On the Eastern front fighting is said to be raging a few miles beyond the outer defences of Leningrad. The Moscow radio states that incessant Russian artillery fire has immobilised the German forces and that thousands of dead and wounded Germans are lying on the battlefield. The Tass Agency announces that Marshal Voroshilov, Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Army, has arrived in the forward battle zone to take personal command of the troops. Russian forces are reported to be attacking across a river just below Leningrad. The Germans are attempting to reach Lake Ladoga in the hope that Leningrad will be encircled completely by Finnish and German forces. The German Air Force claims to have sunk a Russian gunboat and two lighters. A big air battle is said to have taken place in the Baltic, when over 100 German planes attempted to attack a vital objective. In an unspecified area, the Russians are reported to have hurled back the enemy a distance of thirty miles and to have recaptured 22 villages in a battle lasting ten days. In the Ukraine, the people of Kiev are preparing for battle and men of sixty are working in factories to release others for military service. The Russian authorities in Moscow are so confident that the capital will never fall that they have already ordered the restoration of buildings damaged by German air raids. Lord Beaverbrook, British Supply Minister, will head the British delegation to Russia for talks between American, British and Russian representatives.