KUBAN BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 April 1943, Page 3

KUBAN BATTLE

MAY SOON FLARE DP AGAIN RUSSIAN GUNS POUNDING ENEMY DEFENCES. RED AIR FORCE ACTIVE. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, April 27. On the Russian front there are signs that the battle for the German bridgehead in the Kuban area may flare up again before long. Russian guns are pounding the enemy

defences and the Red Air

Force is ceaselessly attacking enemy airfields and other targets in the Crimea.

I’he Germans are showing some nervousness about their foothold in the Kuban, where they are still recovering from their recent losses. They claim that the Russians are fighting hard south of Novorossisk, trying to break through to the outskirts. There is no word of this in today’s Moscow communique, which says that the entire front is quieter than for the last 12 months. The Red Air Force has been active in attacking the German rear.

two New Zealanders each shot down a Messerschmitt 105, and a third New Zealander damaged another. Bostons on Sunday night dropped 142,0001 b. of fragmentation and demolition bombs on a single hill 10 miles northwest of Pont du Fahs, blasting gunposts and starting many fires in German command headquarters buildings. “Frenchmen, Americans, Britons and Dominion forces —they are all in it now, fighting with one purpose; to scrape the enemy from his mountain perimeter. They arc doing it splendidly,” says the Algiers correspondent of the “Daily Express.” “Wherever you look at this Tunisian battle today you see the same picture. We are storming hills and fighting our way up mountains, usually under savage fire. Our troops have made some advance along the whole front. Not much, perhaps, if you start measuring it on the map, but the whole point of this stage of the battle is that the Italians and Germans are being levered from their mountain stronghold. HILL DEFENCES STORMED. “Just now the capture of a hill may be as important as an advance of many miles. The Germans for weeks had prepared concrete nests on the mountains reaching from the north to Enfidaville, and they are crammed with mortars and machine-guns, but now the Allied forces are chipping through the rim and the mountain strongpoints are caving in. “Longstop Hill has gone. That hill, crouching over Mejez el Bab, was encircled with trenches and was one of the enemy’s boasted strongpoints, but the British have it.

“This hill-snatching is being done with great spirit by the troops, who weave their way through red-stained poppy fields from the plains and creep up the slopes where a desperate enemy is waiting for them. They use the bayonet over the last lap. “These are big days for the infantry, but there are tank crews in this battle of the mountains as well. Look at what happened at Tangouche, a hill of at least 1500 ft. which is north of the road from Mejez el Bab to Tebourba. Tangouche is at the centre of a cluster of high features which within the last few hours have come into our grasp. “The Germans had been fighting hard in this area for two or three days. Our infantry yesterday made magnificent attacks, rushing the lower slopes and fighting their way up with bayonets, guns and grenades, and our tanks clattered up in the path made by the infantry. The German mountain garrison was cut up and all the survivors were taken prisoner.”