World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF RUSSIA: Ring Around Leningrad

A new crisis for Leningrad was pointed to by Moscow's announcement last week that a Nazi battleship* and a 9,000-ton transport had been sunk by the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. Perhaps all-out R.A.F. attacks on Lübeck and Rostock, German Baltic supply bases, indicated the same thing.

Besieged since Aug. 8, Leningrad is still ringed some 30 miles away by Nazi guns. Capture of Leningrad would 1) isolate the Kronstadt naval base, opening the Baltic as a German supply line to the northern front; 2) clear direct communications to Finland; 3) penetrate the Russian right flank, making the menace to Moscow...

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