HOPEFUL TURN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 September 1941, Page 5

HOPEFUL TURN

PERCEIVED IN MOSCOW DEFENCES OF LENINGRAD. / ORGANISED WITH IMMENSE THOROUGHNESS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON. September 6. Agency messages from Moscow state that Russian counter-attacks are hammering the German defences. The Germans in the Leningrad area are battling with enormous Russian forces against which they are obliged to send constant reinforcements in order to maintain their positions, says Reuter's Moscow correspondent. There is a strong impression in Moscow that events are taking a more favourable turn. Leningrad’s defence, like Kiev’s and -Odessa’s, has been organised with immense thoroughness. The Germans claimed today that long-range guns were now shelling positions inside Leningrad, but there is no confirmation of this in Moscow. Finnish reports state that fires in Leningrad can be seen from the frontier. It is considered that, though the Germans may pass Leningrad by. they do not want to do so. since it would leave a troublesome bastion on their flank. The latest attempt of the German air force to raid military objectives on the approaches to Leningrad cost the raiders 17 aircraft out of 30 which took part. Fifteen were brought down by fighters. The Rome radio stated that British-made planes were among Russian aircraft shot down in the Leningrad area. SOVIET THREAT IN CENTRE. Marshal Timoshenko’s successes in the Smolensk-Gomel area are immediately threatening to amputate the slender finger with which General Bock is aiming to encircle Kiev. The Russians have either regained Smolensk or completely marooned the Germans who entered the city sixweeks ago. The defenders of Kiev made a counter-attack and routed three German divisions. They pursued the enemy, inflicting heavy losses and retaking villages. Berlin for the first time admits that the German forces in the central sector are everywhere on the defensive. That the German army has become debilitated by the ferocity of the Russian resistance is openly admitted by the Wilhemstrasse. The subject of Moscow’s fall is now never mentioned. STOUT DEFENCE OF ODESSA. Persistent bayonet charges by the Russian forces are throwing back the Germans and Rumanians attacking Odessa. Hundreds of men and women are risking death to gather wrecked enemy war material as scrap for the arms factories in the city. The latest reports regarding Odessa state that Russian marines killed 700 and captured 200 Germans and ten artillery batteries have been put out of action. Two Rumanians infantry battalions have been routed by the marines. A dispatch from the front to the “Red Star” says that one ' squadron of Russian aircraft this week destroyed 42 enemy aircraft on aerodromes, the Soviet forces have destroyed 110 tanks, 600 motor-cars, and the German dead amount to 3000.

SUBSTANTIAL AID FROM UNITED STATES. & BRITAIN. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. September 6. Keen interest is shown in London in authoritative statements made in Washington and reported by an agency that the United States and Britain are likely to arrange substantial assistance to Russia at the forthcoming Moscow conference at the expense of their own armament requirements. This is no doubt due to the belief that assistance to Russia is the best way of defeating the enemy, the Red Army’s strong resistance and heavy German losses —estimated in Washington at I,soo,ooo—having encouraged the expectation that the Russians can hold out through the winter.