STILL RESISTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1942, Page 3

STILL RESISTING

IN “CAPTURED” FORT SOVIET SOLDIERS HOLD LOWER STORIES. ATTEMPTS AT NEGOTIATIONS SCORNED. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON. July 1. The German radio, quoting a frontline reporter, said that Fort Maxim Gorki in the Sebastopol perimeter is still fighting on, though “captured” by the Germans. It sounds unbelievable, but it is true. “The upper stories of the fort are in our hands and the “battle-line has moved 1400 yards forward,” he said, “but Soviet soldiers in lower stories deep underground continue to resist and will not listen to negotiators sent to explain to them that further resistance is useless. We blasted several hundred men from the upper stories by hurling grenades and explosives through the apertures, but cannot reach the remainder. “Fort Maxim Gorki, like the others already captured —Forts Stalin, Molotov and Lenin—surpassed Verdun’s strongest in the last war. We have not previously seen such armour-plate, such concrete walls and, above all, such concrete, which is quite new to us. “Fort Maxim Gorki’s 13in. guns continued to blast away after our shock units were storming the guns within close range. They fired on at a range of 500 yards. This is the first time in military history that such heavy guns have been used for such close-range shelling. The air pressure alone from two shells fired simultaneously at such range is enough to blow to pieces anything in the neighbourhood. “Dive-bombers plastered the fort, making craters which would take a whole house. Still the fort held out. Storming Sebastopol’s forts makes Verdun look like child’s play. We still have to deal with other forts.”

NAVAL FORCE REPORTED SOVIET LANDING IN CRIMEA. LONDON, July 1. A Vichy news agency dispatch from the Russian front stated that in the past 24 hours Field Marshal von Bock’s forces had reached a point 23 miles north-westward of Staryoshol. The dispatch added that a Soviet naval force landed six miles westward of Yenikale, on the Kerch Peninsula,

but attempted landings near Berdyansk, on the north-west coast of the Sea of Azov, and near Mariupol on the north shore of the Sea of A.zov, were repelled by coastal artillery.