NO RESPITE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 March 1942, Page 3

NO RESPITE

GIVEN TO GERMANS IN RUSSIA RUSSIANS PRESSING HARD ON ALL FRONTS. HAND TO HAND FIGHTING IN CRIMEA. LONDON, March 17. The Russians continue to press the enemy hard on all fronts. Their attacks seem to be heaviest in the Crimea, where the Germans speak of hand-to-hand fighting. Berlin admits fresh Russian attacks before Kharkov, the big industrial centre, and a big battle is developing to the south. WINTER IN RUSSIA SOVIET GIVES HITLER THE LIE. LONDON, March 17. A reply to Hitler's complaint in his latest speech that his army had had to face a winter “such as has not been known in 40 years,” has been made by the Moscow radio. It calls the statement an absolute lie. The weather, it says, has been normal for the period of the year.

RAILWAY CUT VIAZMA ENCIRCLED. EXPLOITS OF RUSSIAN PARACHUTISTS. LONDON, March 16. Advanced Red Army units this morning cut the Viazma-Smolensk railway, thus completing the encirclement of Viazma and enclosing between three and five German divisions. Even

if the Germans succeed in fighting their way out of the pocket, their losses of material will be enormous, because the Germans massed in Viazma all the materials they intended to use for the assault on Moscow. Russian parachute troops dropped at night during a snowstorm, stormed and dynamited a number of important strong points behind the German lines covering Smolensk. German reinforcements were rushed to the scene, but all attempts to dislodge the Russians from their vantage’ points have so far failed. The parachute troop operation enabled Russian tanks and infantry to smash through . the enemy's second fortified line guarding the Viazma-Smolensk highway. The position of Hitler’s armies on the central front has been further endangered by a new Soviet advance to the north-west of Yukhnov which has carried storm troops and tank units into Djagileva, 12 miles south-west of Viazma.