GERMANS HELD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 November 1941, Page 5

GERMANS HELD

ON THE MOSCOW FRONTS BUT FIERCE BATTLES YET iTO BE FOUGHT. SITUATION IN THE CRIMEA. LONDON, November 6. Reports.from Moscow state that the enemy is held at all points, though the stabilisation may be temporary. The weather is extremely bad, with intense frost and cold. The danger to Moscow / • still exists and fierce battles have still to be fought, but the Russians • in places’have pushed the Germans back and have recaptured several villages. In the Kalinin sector the Russians are keeping up their counter-attacks West of Moscow, where villages have been recaptured, Russian cavalry penetrated the enemy lines and attacked him from the rear. In the Mojaisk area an enemy tank formation was smashed by concentrated Soviet artillery fire. In the Tula sector, south of the capital, the Germans have been held for more than a week. The position is still grave, however, and the Germans are massing further reinforcements. In the Crimea, the Germans have nowhere penetrated the outer defences of Sebastopol, although the port is now under heavy fire from enemy artillery and bombers. A British officer who has returned from the Crimea, says it was never the intention of the Russians to hold any. intermediate positions once they had been driven back from the Perekop Isthmus.- The Russian withdrawal was carried out according to plan. The defences of Sebastopol were very strong, their outer lines being 20 miles from the city. The British officer describes the Russian troops as being “full of guts.” In the Murmansk area and elsewhere in the Arctic the weather is preventing large scale operations. l As showing the effect of the Russian winter weather on transport movement, an observer who has returned to Ankara states that his car took four hours to cover about six miles in the neighbourhood of Kuibyshev.'