FIRM CONFIDENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 September 1941, Page 5

FIRM CONFIDENCE

EXPRESSED BY MOSCOW SPOKESMAN SAYS NAZIS WILL NEVER TAKE LENINGRAD. WISHFUL THINKING IN GERMAN REPORTS. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON, September 28. The Moscow spokesman, M. Lozovsky, said he was absolutely confident that the Germans would never take Leningrad. He said the enemy was still held in the distant approaches of the city, and, referring to the frequent enemy claims of progress, he adde: “But even if they crawled on all fours they should have been there by now.”

He declared that the land communications with Leningrad were not interrupted. The Germans had not gained a foothold on the island of Osel. The German navy had sustained such losses in attempts with destroyers and Üboats to .seize Baltic positions that they did not wish to risk the remnants of the fleet in big onslaughts, and only their small craft were now active. The German claims of the capture of hundreds of thousands in the Kiev sector were mere wishful thinking, and fierce fighting continued there. There The enemy were making a desperate effort to capture the Crimea, but the fighting was still outside the Crimea proper, including the Isthmus.

“The farther- east the Germans go, the nearer they' get to the grave of Nazi Germany,” M. Lozovsky remarked. .

The Stockholm correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says the Russians repulsed a large-scale attack at Oranienburg. 25 miles west of Leningrad. The Germans now admit that Schlusselburg, east of the city, is in Russian hands, but says that the German and Finnish troops are steadily approaching it. Another Stockholm message says that the Germans claim now to be attacking Leningrad's third defensive line, running from Peterhof to Trotsky and thence to the River Neva.

The Finns claim to have taken Kandalaksha, on the White Sea, thus cutting the Russian line to Murmansk. A Berlin spokesman said that with the dead and wounded the Russian losses east of Kiev are more than a million men.

A Moscow message states that the German drive in the eastern Ukraine appears to have slowed down. It is not clear what the next German move will be.

A broadcast from Odessa said that the defenders have resumed the initiative and are pushing back the enemy in the north-west. The Italian war correspondents in Russia are sobering up after their exaltation of the Axis successes in the Ukraine. They admit that the Germans have far from conquered Leningrad’s 1 external defences and that the Russian air force has increased in numbers and activities along the whole front. The “Giornale d’ltalia’s” correspondent says, “Who can say anything about the future of the Russian campaign? The future is unpredictable.”

RETREAT FROM KIEV

MADE IN ORGANISED MANNER. COVERED BY CIVIL & HOME GUARDS. LONDON, September 27. In a denial of the extravagant claims of the encirclement of hundreds of thousands of Russians east of Kiev, it is reported in Moscow that the bulk of the Russian troops were evacuated from Kiev in an organised manner, and the final stage of the rearguard action to cover the withdrawal of the Red Army regulars was entrusted to the Civil and Home Guards. Important pockets of resistance in parts of German-occupied Ukraine include not only the Odessa area but also a substantial region in the Kherson sector on the lower Dnieper. The Russian news agency reports that the defence of Odessa is proceeding courageously, vigorously and with determination. Tanks and armoured vehicles are being assembled at an unprecedented speed and immediately rushed from the factories to the front line.

FALSE CLAIM MADE REPEATEDLY BY NAZIS. BRITISH PAPER'S SUMMARY. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. September 27. A German spokesman’s promise that the capture of Leningrad is expected by the end of next week (October 4) is regarded in London as a piece of wishful thinking calculated to impress the German public with the precision of the victorious advance of the German armies. The “Manchester Guardian” summarises the earlier promises concerning the attack on Russia. “We are now nearing the end of September. and if we go back to the first three weeks in July we shall find that most of what the Germans were claiming then is not true yet,” it states. “At the beginning of July, before a battle had been won, the High Command announced: ‘The power of resistance of the Soviet army seems to have been broken.’ On July 2 Swedish newspapers reported from Berlin that Murmansk had been captured. On July 12 the Germans issued a report that the routes to Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev lay open. On July 15 the Berlin correspondent of the Stockholm “Tidningen” reported that it was expected that the eastern campaign would be essentially completed by August 15. “Every one of these claims was false except the one about Kiev, which was absurdly premature.” SOVIET SUBMARINES TAKEN FROM THE BALTIC TO THE CASPIAN. EN ROUTE TO BLACK SEA. LONDON, September 27. It is revealed that the Russians have removed between 60 and 70 submarines from the naval base of Kronstadt, near Leningrad, via the VolgaMoscow Canal to the Caspian Sea, from where they are going to the Black Sea by river and canal. The remainder at Kronstadt are too large for the canals. RUSSIAN WARNING CAUCASUS AS DANGER POINT. LONDON, September 26. The need for rushing war material from Britain and the United States along the Persian route to Russia has been stressed by a Russian spokesman in Iran. Speed, he said, was the prime factor, owing to the German threat to Rostov, which might in the next two months go further and outflank the Russian communications in the Caucasus. MESSAGES FROM BRITAIN YOUTH MEETING IN MOSCOW. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. September 27. A number of messages of greetings, encouragement and respect have been sent to Moscow from Britain to synchronise with the mass youth meeting which is being held there tomorrow. Messages have been sent from young members of Parliament and from representatives of art, the stage, films, industry, labour, students, the Church, civil servants, decorated civil defence workers, scouts, guides and others. SOVIET REPORT FORTIFIED POSITIONS TAKEN. HEAVY LOSSES INFLICTED ON ENEMY. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.42 a.m.) RUGBY. September 28. A Moscow supplementary communique announces: “During seven days’ fighting in one sector in a western direction of the front, Comrade Lushkevick’s unit forced the enemy to abandon fortified positions and wiped out eighteen infantry companies, destroyed eighteen tanks, fourteen ammunition lorries and ten trench-mortar batteries. Some 2,300 German corpses were left on the battlefield. On one sector of the north-western direction of the front we killed 580 enemy officers and men and put out of action and captured considerable war material.”