NOVEL TACTICS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 June 1943, Page 3

NOVEL TACTICS

SOVIET TROOPS DIGGING TUNNELS UNDER ENEMY LINES. NEAR LINENGRAD. OPPORTUNITIES FOR SURPRISE ATTACK. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, June 8. Reuter’s Stockholm correspondent says that the Russians are operating a novel variation of the “W plan” on the Leningrad front. They are digging tunnels under the German lines, from which Soviet troops suddenly appear in the midst of enemy positions. This is revealed by reports from German front-line reporters. In spite of the protective belt of swamps round the enemy positions on the Leningrad front, the Russians, taking advantage of the soft ground, are digging tunnels into which they push concrete tubes about a yard in diameter. Russians creep through tne tubes, appearing suddenly among the enemy. The Germans say that the Soviet ruse was betrayed by air holes which the Russians are compelled to maintain on the surface to provide ventilation. The “W Plan,” which was first described by Colonel Graham Seton-Hut-chison in a book of that name published in the last war, was a scheme for digging tunnels from one’s own line trenches into or behind the enemy’s front line. Adaptations of the scheme were actually started to break up trench warfare toward the end of the last war.-