BITTER STRUGGLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 April 1943, Page 4

BITTER STRUGGLE

0 RAGING ON THE DONETZ RUSSIANS SILL HOLDING FIRM. PREPARATIONS FOR SUMMER CAMPAIGN. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.5 p.m.) LONDON, April 12. Balakleya remains the only point on the Eastern front where fighting of any scale is going on. The Germans obviously set a tremendous value on the capture of this bridgehead. General Von Mainstein keeps hurling in assault groups, and reports from Moscow state that fighting during the past 24 hours between Balakleya and the Donetz bank has been almost ceaseless. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says the Germans have failed to gain a foot of ground in the past three weeks, while at a number of points the Russians have enlarged their bridgeheads on the western bank. The enemy suffered substantial losses in yesterday’s attacks in the Balakleya area. “The Times’’ Stockholm correspondent asserts that the Russians’ Donetz bridgehead is firmer than it was a week ago and cannot be shifted without a much greater German offensive than has hitherto been attempted. In the race for the general initiative for summer operations on the southern front, the chances appear to favour the Germans, because they have intact railways right up to the battle zone; whereas the Russians are struggling to repair lines. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent reports that the weather has taken complete control in the Kuban country. The Russians and Germans are taking advantage of an uneasy lull to gather strength for the next round. Activity in other sectors has dwindled to patrolling, except in the Karelian Isthmus, where the ground is still snow-covered, enabling Russian ski troops to make sharp raids against German strongpoints. Fighting French pilots have been in action against the Germans over Russia, says a Moscow report. These pilots were trained in Russia and are flying Russian-built machines. NEW GERMAN PLANES. According to Lieutenant-Colonel Denisov, the arrival on the Russian front of the four-cannon Focke-Wulf 190, and a revised model of the Junkers 87, armed with medium-calibre guns, is ’ apparently a German attempt to evolve an attack plane similar to the Stormovik, and has opened a new phase of aerial warfare, in which a severe struggle for supremacy is going on.