ANTICIPATED BY NAZIS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 June 1943, Page 4

ANTICIPATED BY NAZIS

GREAT SOVIET OFFENSIVE REPULSE OF ATTACKS CLAIMED BY THE GERMAN HIGH COMMAND. ENEMY BOMBS CAUCASIAN OIL CENTRES. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.15 p.m.) LONDON, June 15. Axis military critics, according io statements from Berlin and Paris, consider that the flaring up of activity on various sectors of the Eastern front indicates that a new and great Russian offensive is impending. The Berlin radio reported a Russian attack in a sector which has been quiet for several months—near Byelev. The radio said the Russians broke into German positions at two points, but the Germans closed the breaches. The Berlin radio also stated that military intelligence confirmed ihau the Russians were massing south of Moscow and added that Soviet forces in this area were reported to total a whole army.

The German High Command reports that the Russians made new thrusts against the German positions on the Kuban front. “The enemy,” it states, “repeatedly attacked our lines, with about one regiment at a time. All the attacks were repulsed. Further attacks on high ground north-west of Krymskaya were also beaten off.” The Berlin radio claimed that the Germans repulsed Russian attempts to cross the river Volkhov in barges, and held back three local Russian thrusts before Leningrad. The Moscow radio reported that the Germans, after suffering a heavy defeat in two days’ fighting on the sector west of Rostov, again failed to gain any success. The radio added that a comparative lull has now set in in this sector.

The Germans, for the first time for months, bombed Maikop, the centre of the North-West Caucasian oilfields. The Berlin radio claimed that considerable damage was done.