NO RELIEF

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1942, Page 3

NO RELIEF

FOR TRAPPED GERMAN ARMY NAZI SUPPLY PLANES DESTROYED MANY SUCCESSFUL SOVIET ATTACKS. RENEWAL OF ACTIVITY. IN CRIMEA. LONDON. March 4. The Russians are delivering new blows against the German 16th Army trapped near Staraya Russa. While the Red Army is keeping up its pressure Soviet dive-bom-bers are• hunting down German transport planes trying to supply the encircled enemy troops. Fifty-one of these planes were wrecked on one aerodrome. Fierce fighting is also reported at Sebastopol and elsewhere in the Crimea. The Germans admit that the Russians have broken out of Sebastopol and captured positions which were held bv the Rumanians.

The Germans in many sectors are being driven from their third line of defences and are hastily building a fourth line. BROKEN UP ENEMY “WINTER LINE.” BRILLIANT RUSSIAN STRATEGY. I British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. March 3. Russian policy, brilliantly designed and brilliantly executed, during recent months, has resulted in the the formation of a front far different from the “winter line” which the German High Command planned and hoped to hold. The new front is described with its strategical and tactical implications in an expert summary. The front now appears to run in a series of loops as a result of the operations of the past three months. The Germans have been holding on doggedly to certain bastions, based on larger towns, while the Russians have been thrusting mainly with cavalry and ski patrols across country in between. Such pivots of German resistance have been the areas round Schlusselburg, Lake Ilmen, Rzhev. Mojaisk, Orel, Kursk, Kharkov, Stalin and Taganrog. One bastion, Mojaisk, was captured by frontal and encircling attacks. Another, Staraya Russa, is surrounded and is being reduced. Rzhev is almost surrounded and others are more or less threatened as the Russians enlarge and deepen their thrusts. The policy of retaining these strong points has certainly prevented any large-scale Russian drive toward central Europe, but it has not spared the Germans great losses in men and setback of morale, both of which they desire to conserve for a renewed spring campaign. • ENEMY SACRIFICES. Latterly it appears that in order to hold up the Russian advance the Germans have been compelled to cling to the bastions even after the danger of encirclement becomes critical. The deduction may 'be drawn that they fear that any further retreats may cause the front to give way and jeopardise their main gains in the east. The result, in any case, has been very heavy losses in Staraya Russa and the prospect of further sacrifices there and in the central pocket about Viazma. The German strategy has been exploited by the Russians, who have been able to keep up the pressure both against the bastions and in between. How far this strategy can be continued after the front has thawed and dried by the end of April is the subject of speculation. It is thought that the Russians, will by then be well supplied with material by the factories transferred from areas to the east and by British and American deliveries. In that case they should be better able to withstand the panzer divisions than last year, when they suffered a treacherous surprise and were relatively unfamiliar with tjie German tactics. SUCCESSES IN SOUTH. The Russians are now only 30 miles from the Dneiper Bend, according to the “Daily Telegraph’s” Stockholm correspondent. The Russians reoccupied nine localities 30 miles eastward of Dnepropetrovsk and continue to advance. The Italians in this area were heavily defeated. The entire staff of one Italian divisional headquarters were either killed or taken prisoner. General Zhukov’s shock troops in the Smolensk district reoccupied three fortified villages which are believed to include Korobetz. on the SmolenskSukhinichi railway. The Russians are reported to have again recaptured Theodosia and also an important town in the Rzhev district after a battle .in which 1100 Germans were killed and much booty captured.