WASTED EFFORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 April 1943, Page 3

WASTED EFFORT

AND VERY HEAVY BILL OF COSTS RECORD OF PAST YEAR IN RUSSIA FROM GERMAN STANDPOINT. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.35 a.m.) RUGBY, April 9. On the Russian front, activity is mainly confined to the two bridgeheads—one near Isyum, on the Donetz, and the other on the Lower Kuban. The Isyum bridgehead has been defying all the efforts of the Germans, who fear to leave a single square mile in Russian hands. The Germans have been throwing in all weapons, including the powerful and close support of guns mounted on 22-tori tanks, but the Russians have defended successfully. The other scene of activity is the Kuban bridgehead. Russian pressure continues both on the lower reaches of the Kuban River and in the mountains behind Novorossisk. London observers, summing up the results of a year’s warfare on the eastern front, estimate that the Russians : a re in stronger defensive positions than they held last spring. They have wiped out nearly all the German gains of 1942 and bitten into the enemy’s fortified network in several important areas. From the German point of view, the past year may be written down as one of almost completely wasted effort, with a very heavy bill of costs. GERMAN FAILURE ATTACK ON DONETZ SMASHED. TEMPORARY GAIN LOST SPEEDILY (Bv Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.5 a.m.) LONDON, April 9. With both sides feverishly gathering their resources for titanic spring clashes, only guarded news at present is seeping out of Russia. Moscow correspondents for several days have uniformly kept to the same subject—the struggle for the Donetz bridgeheads, the German resistance to encirclement in the Kuban region and the accumulation of reserves, by both sides. Confirming a Russian admission that the Germans yesterday, south of Balakleya, advanced but were driven back in a counter-attack, Moscow correspondents state that Balakleya was the scene of very fierce fighting yesterday, when the Russians, by smashing back the Germans, succeeded in enlarging their bridgehead. The Germans did not attempt further blows, because, of the heavy cost of this failure. . “The Times” Stockholm correspondent says the Russians for a fortnight held the complete course of the Donetz. They at present hold the entire left bank and also the right bank from the confluence of the Donetz with tlje Don to above Liman, but the Germans have regained stretches of the right bank between the Liman and Byelgofod areas. BLACK SEA BASE NOVOROSSISK UNDER SIEGE. RUSSIAN HEAVY GUNS IN ACTION. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.10 p.m.) LONDON, April 9. German reports'received in Stockholm say Novorossisk is under siege. One German correspondent says Russian heavy artillery and aircraft are pulverising the Germans’ (positions day and night. Russian long-range guns are reported to be firing on a port across the bay on which Novorossisk lies. German attacks are intermittent on other sectors of the Eastern front, except in the Kuban, where the enemy maintains a bitter opposition against the Russians’ continued advance, frequently with boats over flooded areas. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says the Russians yesterday captured two small inhabited plates in the Kuban and that the Red Army is improving its positions along the whole Kuban front. A spokesman again emphasised the extent to which the Germans are massing reserves at their Ukraine bases for a spring offensive. Russian observers have also reported that the Germans are sending to the front increasing numbers of new types of fighters, including heavily-armed FockeWulfs, partially armour-plated. . The Germans are conducting mass raids in the Rostov area in an attempt to the Russians’ railway communications. The British United Press Stockholm correspondent reports that a blazing curtain of artillery fire, which may be the prelude to a new Russian effort to break out of Leningrad, is going on day and night. The big Russian guns at Kronstadt are lobbing shells across the Karelian Isthmus into the, trenches protecting the German flank. The Germans, in a counter-barrage, are reported to be using their famous siege guns from Sebastopol. ______