NEW SOVIET HERO

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 September 1941, Page 6

NEW SOVIET HERO

IVAN PETROV GAINS RENOWN IN COMMAND OF SECTOR AT ODESSA.' RUMANIAN ONSLAUGHT SMASHED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) j (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) LONDON, September 23. A , new Russian hero, Ivan Petrov, has arisen, the Tass Agency says. His name is renowned on the whole Russian-German front. He commands a sector of the Odessa front which has repelled seme of the most terrific onslaughts of the war. The enemy hurled nine divisions against Petrev’s command and lodged ?. large force between the junction of two Russian - units. The Rumanians drove a wedge nearly a mile deep. The enemy then threw a second large force into the gap and their success seemed assured. The Russian artillery, however, went into action and a hurricane of pointblank fire mowed down the Axis battalions. The attack spent itself and the enemy began to retreat. The entire valley was strewn with dead and dying. One Rumanian battalion was completely annihilated. The wedge was cut off at its base. The enemy began to mass large forces in the evening for a fresh attack, but immediately met a hail of grenades and machine-gun fire and the attack collapsed. A semi-official German military review admits that the defences of Leningrad are extraordinarily strong, necessitating heavy losses. The review, which was cabled from Switzerland, says the obstacles before Leningrad consist of huge tank traps and also rows of pine trunks jammed several yards in the earth, and extending for a mile in depth. Forests cut down a yard above the earth are additional to countless concrete pyramids and barbed. wire. The Russian garrisons occupy new great rings of forts immediately squads of workers finish their construction. The forts are fully protected. against all but the heaviest bombs and shells.