7,000 MEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 May 1943, Page 4

7,000 MEN

LOST BY THE GERMANS IN UNSUCCESSFUL ATTACKS NEAR NOVOROSSISK. 25 ENEMY TANKS AND VEHICLES KNOCKED OUT. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, May 2. No material change was reported during the day at any point on the Russian front, states a Soviet communique. Some days ago the Germans threw large forces of ground troops, supported by aircraft, against the Russian positions near Novorossisk. All the attacks were repulsed, and the Germans did not succeed in gaining any land, Mere than 7,000 of the enemy were killed in six days’ fighting, and 25 enemy tanks and armoured cars were knocked out. RUSSIAN ATTACKS ENEMY & SOVIET REPORTS. MUTINY OF GERMAN REGIMENT. (Received This Day, 12.55 p.m.) LONDON, May 2. The Russians’ latest assault against the German Kuban bridgehead was on a large scale, the Berlin radio declares. The Russians, it states, massed all their available forces, amounting to nine divisions, two brigades and three tank brigades, in an .attempt to force the issue. The radio said the Russian attack yesterday was delivered on a seven-mile front and preceded by an artillery barrage and dawn bomber attacks. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says the Red Army in the Kuban continues to hold the initiative and is pushing forward. The Russian artillery fired over 20,000 shells into the German positions cast of Krymskaya. The Berlin radio stated that one Russian regiment and two battalions participated in an offensive between Kharkov and Orel. The radio added that the Russians captured a German position, but were later thrown back. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says the Russians south of Orel are still holding a big bulge in the German line. Red Army forces captured a hill dominating the flat plains, between Kursk and Orel, which is tactically important. The Moscow radio reports that an entire German regiment mutinied and disarmed its officers when it was ordered to move up to the front line. The regiment was the Ninety-Ninth Infantry, part of the 106th Infantry Division. The radio added that when the mutineers were finally disarmed, the execution of six ringleaders was ordered but the firing squad refused to fire. They were also arrested and the six men, who were manacled, were put against a wall and shot by an officer with his revolver.