SOVIET RESERVES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1942, Page 4

SOVIET RESERVES

MASSING BEHIND FRONT IN READINESS FOR HEAVY BLOW. PACIFIC EVENTS “AUXILIARY.” (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m.) LONDON, March 4. The Russians are deeply thrusting into the German positions in the Starya Russa region. Sixty thousand Germans now remain of the original 96,000 trapped in this area, says a Stockholm message. There are a hundred German staff officers in Staraya Russa. The Russian Political Commissar Korobko announced that the German defences in the Leningrad front had been broken at two vital points. The Russians in one sector of this front wiped out a German division brought up by air. The Germans, have already withdrawn behind a third defence line, preparatory to their spring offensive. M. Korobko added that Britain and America were fulfilling successfully their supply obligations to the Soviet. "Whatever events thep may be in the Pacific and Mediterranean, they play an auxiliary part, for the main front remains in the East,” according to messages from Switzerland. .These add that the Russians are massing all their forces for an all-out blow at the Germans. German aerial reconnaissance gives the same picture as war reporters have repeatedly pointed out —the massing of troops on the Russian side of the front under the protection of the Red Air Force and movements on all railway lines and supply lines to the front. This means that the German Air Force has to devote almost its entire energy to an attempt to disrupt communications.

The “Pravda” says a big batch of trained Russian reserves is now ready to go into action. They will be used to deal a final blow at the retreating Germans.