MEN & MATERIALS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 June 1943, Page 4

MEN & MATERIALS

READY FOR THE INVASION OF EUROPE DECLARATION BY MOSCOW PAPER. GERMANY r’AR OUTCLASSED IN WAR PRODUCTION. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.25 p.m.) LONDON, June 16. ‘‘The Allies now have at their disposal armies totalling between 13,000,000 and 14,000,000. The United Nations have all the necessary manpower and materials to invade Europe,” declared the Moscow newspaper “Trud.” It added: ‘‘The British Empire can- throw in between 2,500,000 and 3,000.000 mon.” The Allies are producing monthly 10,000 guns, 6,000 tanks, and 10,000 to 11,000 planes. Germany is producing 3,000 tanks, 4,000 guns, and 4,000 planes. England and America now possess at least twice as many fighters as Germany and her Allies.

OREL FIGHTING IMPORTANT GAIN MADE BY RUSSIANS. PREDICTIONS OF SUMMER OFFENSIVE. (Received This Dav, 1.10 p.m.) LONDON, June 16. Russian and German sources are giving prominence to fighting between Orel and Kharkov, which each side is suggesting may be the prelude to a summer offensive. Reuter’s Mocow correspondent says the fighting in the Orel bulge, about 200 miles south of Moscow, is more intense. The Russians in the past few days have made a valuable improvement in their positions in the sector which forms the eastern tip of the salient. The Russians, after crossing a river, captured the first line of German trenches on this front. The Germans counter-attacked vigorously several times and suffered heavy losses, but failed to recover the ground. The Russians’ new position straightens their line in the area about 30 miles northeast of Orel and takes in a horse-shoe bend which the Germans had been fortifying for a year. Activity elsewhere on the Russian front is confined to local skirmishes. The Berlin radio stated that Russian troop movements in the Kursk region, between Orel and Kharkov, have considerably increased in the past few days, which suggests that the Russians intend opening a summer offensive in this sector.