HEAVY FIGHTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 September 1941, Page 5

HEAVY FIGHTING

IN LENINGRAD & OTHER AREAS GUERILLA BANDS ACTIVE IN WHITE RUSSIA. PUNITIVE EXPEDITIONS FAIL. LONDON, September 25. Moscow reports today state that savage fighting is still going on in the approaches to Leningrad. Heavy German attacks are followed by fierce Russian counter-at-tacks. Marshal Voroshilov’s forces outside the City’s defences are also striking at the enemy’s flank and rear. 1 ; The Germans have repeated their claim to have penetrated the suburbs of Leningrad. This, however, is believed in London to refer to the claimed capture of the town of Peterhof, nearly 20 miles to the west of the city on the Gulf of Finland. Moscow does not admit the fall of this town. A Finnish communique says the Finns have bombed the Murmansk railway at Petrozavodsk, on Lake Onega. In the Gulf of Finland a Russian motor torpedo boat sank an enemy transport. Fierce fighting is still in progress on the islands of Oesel and Dago. In the central sector Marshal Timoshenko is keeping up his pressure. Behind the German lines in this sector guerilla activities are increasing, particularly round the White Russian city of Minsk. In many places enemy lines of communication have been completely destroyed. Punitive expeditions against these guerilla bands have had no success. Local Russian counter-attacks in the Ukraine are reported. The Germans this morning claimed territorial gains in unspecified parts of the southern front. Moscow had a long air-raid alert last night but not a single enemy plane succeeded in reaching the capital.