GUERILLA TACTICS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 238, 21 July 1941, Page 5

GUERILLA TACTICS

SABOTAGE ON ENORMOUS SCALE HEROISM OF TOWNSPEOPLE. > RUSSIANS “SCORCHING EARTH.” (United Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec.-11.40 a.m.) LONDON, July 20. The Russians are organising and applying sabotage and guerilla warfare behind the German lines on an enormous scale. -These activities are concentrated not only against the communications of the advancing German armies, but also extend back to the very sources of Hitler’s supplies. Stalin’s call for “scorching the earth” whereever the Germans appear, has boon put into effect with devastating results. Never before has an aggressor been met with sucffi ruthless fanaticism. Immediately the Germans enter a new town or village they post, up notices threatening to shoot anyone hiding or failing to report the presence of guerillas; but according to the Moscow radio not a single man has yet been betrayed. The inhabitants of a town on the right bank of the river Ovina formed themselves into guerilla bands when the Russian regular troops left to conform with the broader strategy. The townspeople filled thousands of bottles from a local brewery with petrol and hurled them at the German tanks; scores of which were put out of action. The town’s resistance was so strong that the entry of the Germans was delayed two clays and was accomplished only after intensive artillery preparation. It was a city of the dead when eventually the German infantry marched in. Every living soul had evacuated, hut seven men hiding under a bridge across the Dvina, waiting for the first enemy column to cross blew up the bridge and perished with the,, column as it rumbled on to the bridge.