NOT CONFIRMED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 October 1941, Page 5

NOT CONFIRMED

LOSS OF PETROZAVODSK TO FINNS MURMANSK COMMUNICATIONS STILL OPEN. SEVERE FIGHTING AT GATEWAY TO CRIMEA. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) RUGBY, October 2. There is no confirmation in Londanu )of the Finnish claim to have captured Petrozavodsk . (on the Leningrad - Murmansk railway). However, so long as the Finns have not captured Kandalaksha, communications with Murmansk remain open by water to this port, and then by rail. Severe fighting continues in the Perekop Isthmus (Crimea) and the Germans are reported to have made slow progress, but they are still on the isthmus and have not reached the mainland. Direct land communications between the Crimea and the rest of Russia presumably has been cut, but' there is still a line of communication open through the Sea of Azov. RUMANIAN DICTATOR RETURN TO BUCHAREST. COMMAND ON ODESSA FRONT RESIGNED. LONDON, October 1. > It is reported from Istanbul that General Antonescu has resigned the command of the Rumanian forces on the Odessa front and has returned to Bucharest. AIR VICTORIES CLAIMED BY RUSSIANS. ■ MANY NAZI PLANES DESTROYED. •I ! (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) i RUGBY, October 2. • A midday Soviet communique states:, “During the night of October 1 our i forces engaged the enemy along the - whole front. During two days’ air battles, a squadron of our planes shot j down thirteen Fascist planes over the £ north-western sector. Eleven aircraft i were wrecked and thirteen damaged on - enemy aerodromes by direct hits. Dirr ect hits were scored on twelve. antiaircraft and ten field guns.”