SOVIET OFFENSIVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 March 1943, Page 4

SOVIET OFFENSIVE

AGAINST AXIS REMNANTS IN CAUCASUS COMPRESSION OF ENEMY FORCES. ATTACKS ON DONETZ STILL BEING REPULSED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.15 p.m.) LONDON, March 24. Moscow reports a new Russian offensive against the remnants of the Germans in the Caucasus, who are still not ousted from Novorossisk and the Taman Peninsula, where they are trying to maintain as large a bridgehead as possible for a further Caucasus venture. With their backs to .the Kerch Strait and the Crimea, the Germans have been compressed into an appreciably smaller space in the past few days. The Russians, after capturing Slavyanskaya, will probabty make their next important objective Krymskaya Junction. The Russians also report the capture of Petrovskoie, in the Kuban sector. The Tass Agency states that the Germans are fiercely defending the western districts of the Kuban territory, with an arc of concentrated fire, using as many as 25 machine-guns to half a mile of front line. The agency adds that formations of dive-bombers have arrived on this front from Tunisia. Hard fighting is in progress along the upper course of the Rivet Ugra, with strong artillery, armoured and infantry forces engaged on both sides. The Germans say the Russians are using flame-throwers in this area. German attempts to cross the Upper Donetz are still being repulsed.