ONLY DENTED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 June 1942, Page 3

ONLY DENTED

CITY’S OUTER DEFENCE LINE WARSHIPS STILL BRINGING SUPPLIES. HEAVY FIGHTING CONTINUES ON KHARKOV FRONT. (Bv Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON, June 18. After 13 days of fighting before Sebastopol, all the Germans have to show for the thousands of men they have flung into the battle are a few dents in the city’s outer defence line. The Russian positions are not seriously undermined. Russian warships continue to move in and out of Sebastopol harbour, replenishing supplies to the fortress. At Kharkov, the fighting is still * heavy and a Moscow communique reports that Soviet forces repelled an attack by tanks and infantry. Russian raids since the weekend near Yalta, Mariupol and the Kerch Peninsula do not exceed commando exploits. General von Manstein is using all his reserves, including sappers and labourers, to break through some of the sectors before Sebastopol. A Soviet rifle unit, holding a road from the south, checked six heavy German attacks, two at night. The Germans who had rushed the dug-outs in one sector, were later beaten back with the bayonet. The Vichy radio claims that Germans and Italians advanced three miles nearer the centre of Sebastopol along a highway from the south, also capturing the fortified monastery of St George, seven miles south of Sebastopol. The Germans are trying to block deliveries by mining from the air the sea approaches used by Russian warships, but Berlin admits that the supply route remains open. The Germans in Sebastopol have almost unlimited reinforcements from their forces concentrated in the Crimea region for the eastern drive. A Soviet communique states: “Yesterday our troops repelled fierce enemy attacks on the Sebastopol front. On other sectors of the front, no important changes took place.” Marshal Timoshenko’s army on the Kharkov front is holding the Germans in continuing attacks which are losing their punch. Moscow radio placed the enemy losses in three attacks at 3000 men.