POSITION REVIEWED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 September 1941, Page 5

POSITION REVIEWED

MILITARY COMMENTATOR’S OBSERVATIONS ENEMY HELD FIRMLY I , IN NORTH. LITTLE DEFINITE NEWS FROM SOUTH. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.43 a.m.) RUGBY, September 23. A military commentator, reviewing the position of the fighting in the East, from reliable information available in London, stated: In the north there is no further news from the Murmansk sector, where enemy activity has been greater recently. On the Karelian Isthmus the Russians appear to be successfully holding the Finns on approximately the line of the old frontier and to have inflicted very heavy casualties on the Finnish troops. Very heavy losses, too. are reported to have been inflicted on the German forces attacking Leningrad, where, though very severe fighting continues, ther&, is no appreciable change in the position. Particularly heavy losses apparently have been suffered by officers in this sector and, from information learnt from prisoners, in some units two-thirds of the officers are casualties. The weather is very cold and wet and the forest area around Leningrad is becoming boggy. In the neighbourhood of Glokhov, 120 miles north-east from Kiev, there are reports of successful local Russian counter-attacks. In the Kiev sector heavy fighting continues, but there is no news of the success of Marshal Budenny in withdrawing his forces from the encircling German armies. It appears that at least a part of these forces succeeded in eluding the Germans and have taken up new defensive positions and the remainder are fighting. Further unsuccessful enemy attacks against Odessa, which still holds out, have been repulsed, with heavy losses to the enemy. In the extreme south there is no further information regarding a German advance, but it is considered that the German claim, to have reached Marivpol, three-quarters of the way along the northern shore of the Sea of Azov, must be treated with the greatest reserve. Most of the successful Russian counter-attacks are still in the central sector, round Smo--lensk, where the position is very difficult to estimate.