SMASHED IN PORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1942, Page 4

SMASHED IN PORT

GERMAN INVASION FLEET DESTINED FOR ATTACK ON KRONSTADT. RUSSIANS STRIKE FIRST & FINAL BLOW. (By Telegraph-Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 1 p.m.) LONDON, October 27. The Russian Baltic Fleet has smashed a major German attempt to capture the Kronstadt naval base. The Russians attacked and crippled the German invasion fleet before it could leave its home port. A Stockholm report says the Germans had assembled barges and landing craft for the attack when Russian cruisers and destroyers, supported by bombers, blasted hundreds of the barges massed in an unidentified Nazioccupied harbour in the Gulf of Finland. The “Daily Telegraph's” Stockholm correspondent says the German operation was prepared by Admiral Carls, planner of the invasion of Norway, and of the unattempted invasion of Britain. The Germans were determined to take Kronstadt because submarines, operating from this base, had inflicted such heavy losses on German troop transports in the Baltic Sea. FIRM DEFENCE MAINTAINED BY RUSSIANS IN STALINGRAD. GROUND TAKEN BY ENEMY RECOVERED. (Received This Day, 1 p.m.) LONDON, October 27. That Stalingrad’s position is extremely tense is emphasised in the ' latest despatches from Moscow, but references to successful Russian counter-attacks in the Stalingrad area and on other active fronts are constantly coming in. The British Moscow United Press Moscow correspondent says the Russians, after a fortnight’s fighting, have driven the Rumanians and Germans to the steppes beyond the ridge of hills surrounding Stalingrad’s southern approaches. The Russians, as a result of this success, now have the Germans on the defensive on both flanks of the army attacking Stalingrad itself. The Germans gained some ground in Stalingrad yesterday, but the Russians before dusk reoccupied their original positions, except for one 300 yard stretch, which they are still struggling to recover. The Russians north-west of Stalingrad have recaptured a large village, street after street. An Associated Press correspondent reports that the Luftwaffe continues to concentrate against sectors holding out in the Stalingrad area. The Red Army, Cossacks and marines. are holding off the Germans from the Tuapse area. Across the Caucasus towards Novorossisk, the Russian scout detachments are constantly infiltrating to the enemy’s rear, the fighting on the whole Caucasus front being mobile.