ZERO HOUR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 June 1943, Page 4

ZERO HOUR

NOW CLOSE AT HAND ON THE EASTERN FRONT I BOTH SIDES MASSING MEN & MATERIAL. INTENSE AIR ACTIVITY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) LONDON, June 8. There are further signs today that zero hour on the Russian front is only a few days away. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says that although a deceptive lull still hangs over the 2,000 mile front, there are reports of increasing quantities of men and materials moving up to the battle line on both sides.

Major land fighting has virtually died down and operations are now confined to tentative efforts on both sides to nibble away against enemy positions, probe for weak spots and make local improvements of their dispositions. These minor but significant movements are continuing at a number of points along the front. A German military spokesman stated that after the repulse of four major Soviet offensives against the Kuban bridgehead, a lull had set in on the entire Eastern front, but that the Russians evidently were determined to continue the battle for the bridgehead. According to the Soviet front line despatches. local fighting has flared up on the northern Donetz front, both north and south of Kharkov. Fresh German attempts to force a Donetz crossing at Balakleya, in the vicinity of the Soviet bridgehead 50 miles south-east of Kharkov, have been smashed. A German attack was also beaten back, in bitter hand to hand fighting, in the Byelgorod area. PRELUDE TO feATTLE. The Allied air offensive in the west is linking up with Russian air attacks of growing intensity. The “Daily Telegraph's’’ Moscow correspondent says that at present, before the beginning of major land operations on the Eastern front, the air war is already as intense as anything known during the Voronezh and Stalingrad battles last year. The Soviet air operations are of twofold significance defensive and offensive. Russian fighters are tirelessly and daringly interfering with 'the Luftwaffe's attempts to bomb Soviet objectives; such as the approaches to Moscow and Leningrad and to vital industrial centres like Gorki, while in offensive operations the Red Air Force is aiming primarily against vital railway junctions and stations. The latter is part of the Soviet effort to dislocate enemy communications and weaken the impact of possible German attempts to take the initiative on land. Guerillas behind the enemy lines are working towards the same end as the Soviet air offensive, by blasting roads, wrecking trains and stripping telephone lines. Guerillas also co-operate with the Soviet bomber operations by messages trans mitted by radio. The correspondent adds that the great bulk of the Soviet bombers are Soviet-made, but British and American planes, arriving along the northern route and also via ■the Persian Gulf, are already making themselves felt. SOVIET STRATEGY. Reuter's Moscow correspondent says the Red Air Force’s big attack against the rail junction of Unecha, on Sunday night, in which fires and explosions were observed among ammunition dumps, arms and fuel stores and military trains, represented the third stage in the systematic disorganisation of the main railway used by the Germans for feeding the Orel salient. The first stage was the heaviest raid yet against Orel, last week, which put out of action this vital junction for days. Bryansk, further down the railway, was heavily attacked on the following day, with similar results. Long lines of trains were then held up at Unecha, 80 miles south-west of Bryansk, which was hammered in its turn on Sunday night. If Unecha is fully out of action, it will mean serious interference with the cross-country rail link between the German communications from Orel and those leading to Smolensk. The Reuter correspondent adds that valuable evidence of the effect of the Soviet air offensive is coming from German prisoners and from Russian guerillas. The persistency and accuracy of the Soviet bombing is beginning ‘to depress the German troops in the affected sectors. A large German barracks in one town was reduced to a shambles in a few minutes and 1,500 Germans were buried under the ruins.

The Germans are still stressing the effectiveness of their raids on Gorki, one of the biggest centres of the Molotov tank factory organisations. Berlin claimed today that all the assembly shops, covering an area of 600,000 square yards, were very largely destroyed, also machine tool shops and press shops. Other vital areas are thought to have been very heavily damaged.