Evening star., 1941-11-03
Russians Flee
From Criimea,
Nazis Report
Soviet Army Claims
Recopture Of Part
Of KuIinin
~ the Associated Press.

VI NOluIuuu
~ the Associated Press.
Germany proclaimed triumphantly
today that the Russian Army of the
Crimea, split by the scourge Of
lightning assault by land and air,
was trying to flee the peninsula
through the Black Sea ports Of
Sevastopol and Kerch in a double
Dunkerque.
The Hitler command pictured the
Russian retreat there as near
rout, declaring German forces had
captured 53175 prisoners, 230 tanks,
218 cannon, several armored trains
and vast quantities Of other war
material
Far from the Crimean front, in
the Donets Basin to the north, the
important industrial center of
Kursk, on the railway running north
from Kharkov through Orel and
Tula to Moscow. had been captured.
Kursk is 125 miles north of Khar-
kov.
The German high command de-
clared Italian troops, cooperating
with the Germans, had captured
other industrial centers in the
Donets Basin after hard fighting,
but did not identify them.
Reds Claim Part of Kalinin.
Although the Russians readily ad-
mitted that the siege of Moscow
was becoming most grave, Red Army
dispatches reported recapture of
the northern section of Kalinin, 95
miles from the capital on its north
ern flank. They said thousands Of
Germans were buried under the
flaming debris of houses blasted
by the defenders.
The Crimean fighting was test
for all arms of Russia's forces-land.
sea and air. German occupation of
the Crimea would include the Red
fleets great naval base at Sevasto-
pol as we'll as strategic air fields and
give the Germans new jumping of
places for attacks on the Red fleet
If not actually new approach to
the oil-rich Caucasus.
A German military commentator
said that whoever commands the
Black Sea will have a tremendous
strategic advantage when the fight
for the oil of the Caucacus begins.
Finlands role in the war against
Russia was newly emphasized by
British press reports from Stock
holm which said German and Finn
ish troops were only IA miles from
Murmansk, Russian Arctic seaport.
The Murmansk-Leningrad railway
has been the object OF Finnish-G
man land and air attack almost
since the Firms joined hands with
the Germans in the invasion of
June %.
A Reuters dispatch to London
from Stockholm said q rumble of
heavy gunflre in the Baltic had led
to belief that the Red fleet in that
sea was trying to shoot its way out
to the west from Hango, peninsula
fortress base on the south coast Of
Finland, which has been under siege
since the first days Of the conflict.
Similar to Dunkerque.
From today's German announce
ments, one could draw picture OF
the Russian situation in the Crimea
strikingly similar to the bloody
Withdrawals by sea ahead of other
sweeps of synchronized German
land and air power. the most dra-
matte of which was the British
withdral from Flanders and Artois
through Dunkerque, on the English
Channel, in 1910 before the fall Of
France.
The British called Dunkerque
triumph Of retreat and it remained
to be seen whether the Russians,
benefited by controlling sea power
as were the British, could duplicate
the British feat, assuming that the
Crimean line could not be held.
Under pressure Of hot pursuit by
German and Rumanian units, the
defeated enemy on the Crimea has
been split into two groups, one of
which is trying to escape via Sevas-
topol and the other via Kerch," said
the German high command.
"1n an attack on transports held
ready for the fight of these forces,
the air force sank 10 merchantmen
aggregating $4,000 tons and badly
damaged IA others with bomb hits.
"Other combat planes bombed
Sevastopol and the harbor area of
Yalta as we'll as military objectives
along the Kerch Strait and along
the northeastern coast of the Black
Sea-
Thousands of Mines Sown.
Just as the British and their
Allies mined and dynamited in
their wake to slow the closing OF
the German circle on the 1910
Dunkerque, the Russians were re-
ported to have sown thousands of
mines In the path of their pursuers.
at the same time wreaking all the
havoc they could under Stains
scorched-earth orders.
The Hitler command said that
more than $4,000 mines had been
removed to clear the path Of pursuit
In the Crimea.
Sevastopol and Yalta lie, respec-
lively. on the western and eastern
sides Of the very tip of the peninsula.
Krech, described as the other area
Of Russian exit, is separated from an
arm of the Caucasus by a narrow
(see WAR, Page A-3)