Current Events July 2, 1942: AXIS FORCES HOLD UPPER HAND ON CRIMEAN EGYPTIAN FRONTS

The Ogden Standard Examiner

     OGDEN CITY, UTAH, THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 2, 1942
Axis Forces Hold Upper Hand On Crimean, Egyptian Fronts

Berlin Claims Outposts Of Cairo Taken Under Sandstorm Cover NEWS IS EXPECTED;

Russians Refuse Report On Capture of Their.Crimean Fort 

ByROGER D. GREENE

Potential disasters for allied arms in Egypt and Crimea were hinted today as Prime Minister Churchill acknowledged axis triumphs in Libya and Egypt had brought a "recession of hopes and prospects.  unequaled since the fall of France. " The axis armies claimed the capture of El Alamein, only 65 miles west of Alexandria, but the British asserted strong attacks there had been beaten off.

Russia Withholding

Russia had not yet acknowledged the fall of the long-besieged Crimean naval base of Sevastopol, but military sources in London said they saw no reason to doubt German claims that the city fell yesterday. Despite the continued axis claims of success in Egypt, residents of Cairo appeared to have calmed. There was a rush to buy up food stuffs yesterday but grocers were doing only normal business today. Heavy reinforcements, Churchill told parliament, have already reached or are approaching the hard pressed armies of Gen. Sir Claude Auchinleck even as they surged into action in a great show down battle for Egypt, the Suez canal

and perhaps the entire middle east.
Seven A. M. Is Zero Hour For Rommel's Nile Drive

By RICHARD D. McMILAN

(Copyright, 1943, By United Press)

IN THE BRITISH FRONT LINE AT

EL, ALAMEIN,

Egypt, June 30 5 p. m. (UP)—

The big battle

for Alexandria and the Nile opened at seven a. m. The comparative silence along the new British front extending from the coast to the Qattara Depression was broken when the German long range guns opened a bombardment of British positions..I watched the enemy siege cannon putting down their desultory fire across the British main line. They dropped big stuff which sent up great columns of black smoke over in the sultry air. Visibility became bad when a breeze blew in from the sea and threw up a hazy dust veil which spread all the way from El  Alameinto' the Depression.
CHINA AIR MEN CHECK INVADER By The Associated Press China's fledgling air force, pressing its first offensive in five years of war against Japan, was credited today with a big-scale assault on Japanese military targets along the Yangtze river while on the lane front the Invaders were declared checked. New aerial blows were aimed at the Nipponese in the southwest Pacific. Allied bombers attacked six Japanese strongholds on islands north of Australia, inflicting severe damage. The Chinese high command said that Japanese columns trying to complete their occupation of the Chekiang-Kiangsi railway had been "successfully checked.