NEARLY A WEEK OF FRENZIED FIGHTING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 124, 28 May 1938, Page 9

NEARLY A WEEK OF FRENZIED FIGHTING.

HEAVY LOSSES.

Meagre Results of Loyalist

Desperate Efforts.

REBEL OBJECTIVE, VALENCIA. United Press Association.—Copyright. / (Received 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, May 2T. A message from Burgos, Spanish rebel headquarters, says that six days of frenzied fighting at Nognera and Pallaresa, in Segre Valley, due to the Loyalists' desperate efforts to recover the sources of Barcelona's electricity supply in western Catalonia, achieved meagre results despite wave after wave of attacks involving enormous quantities of men and material. m

The rebels claim to have inflicted 2:1,000 casualties but must themselves have sustained heavy losses. The rebels' immediate objective is Valencia, whither two army corps, totalling 100,000 men, are working their way from Terttel and Castellon.

General Franco's Aragon armies have been halted on Segre.

Italian divisions have withdrawn from the lower Ebro sector for recuperation after losing 729 killed and 2512 wounded.

ITALIAN OBSERVER.

Allegation of Arrest Denied By Spanish Embassy. NOW AT PERPIGNAN. British Official Wireless. (Received 32..T0 p.m.) RUGBY, May 27. _ In accordance with the Non-Tuterven-tion Committee's request to the British Government. Mr. J. H. Leche, British Charge d'Affaires in Valencia, asked the Spanish Government for an inquiry into the arrest of the Italian non-intervention observer, Signor Mezzo Capa. Signor Capa was an observer on the steamer Greatend which, on its arrival at Valencia, was bombed, and sunk to the water-line, Signor Capa being arrested and imprisoned. Mr. Leche has demanded his immediate release. The Spanish Embassy in London denies that the Italian observer was imprisoned. "After landing at Valencia," they say, "he lodged at a leading hotel uncler the care of the authorities, and then transferred to a Barcelona hotel, from which he was escorted to-day to Perpignan (France) by the police. He was treated throughout with the utmost consideration." AIR RAID HORROR. Alicante Death-roll Expected To Reach 500. BURIALS IN COMMON GRAVE. LONDON, May 27. The death-roll resulting from the bombing by the rebels of Alicante is expected to reach 500. One thousand mourners attended a mass burial of victims in a vast common grave dug by volunteers overnight. All the undertakers in the city were mobilised, but proved insufficient to move the bodies to the graveyard. Many were carried in wreath-covered lorries and cars. The bombing has intensified the bitterness against General Franco.