TITO NOW A FULL ALLIED COMMANDER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 304, 23 December 1943, Page 5

TITO NOW A FULL ALLIED COMMANDER

BRILLIANT SOLDIER First Concrete Tie-Up With Underground Europe N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 10.30 a.m. LONDON, Dec. 22. Marshal Tito, leader of the Yugoslav patriots, has been raised to the status of a full Allied commander as the result of the highly-successful conference in Alexandria, says Heuters correspondent in Cairo. The Allied military commanders in the Middle East are now co-ordinating plans for more intensive operations in Yugoslavia with increased Allied support. Further important strategic discussions with Balkan army leaders are expected. Liaison with Marshal Tito has been placed on the highest level with the Partisan armies being considered as an integral part of the Allied forces operating in Southern Europe. Allied Moves in Balkans It is learned authoritatively that despite the mystery surrounding the personal activities and background of Marshal Tito, veteran commanders in the Middle East regard him as a first-class soldier who is brilliantly carrying out the only possible scheme of military operations in Yugoslavia. While it is too early to envisage a full-scale third Allied front in the Balkans, the Alexandria talks are viewed in the Middle East as a new stepping-stone to the Balkans and the first concrete tie-up With the growing armies in underground Europe. The Moscow newspaper Red Star reports that the Yugoslav People's Army has caused casualties to 40,000 German officers and men. but that it needs arms. The paper said the Germans are using six divisions in Bosnia alone. Holding Uμ German Divisions "Marshal Tito's forces in Yugoslavia are opposing more enemy divisions than are the Fifth and Eighth Armies in Italy," says the New York Times correspondent in Cairo, Cyrus Sultzberger, according to a cable from New York. "The Partisans' fighting front stretches 350 miles across the forests, ravines and snowcovered mountains between the Julian Alps of Slovenia and the border of Montenegro and Albania. The Partisans are openly and boastfully influenced by Communism. "Marshal Tito—a Croatian metal worker, Josip Grog—is a Communist. His army has been in process of formation for two years and a half. It began with the gradual amalgamation of nationalist and patriotic guerilla bands, welded together by an underground political, movement, fomented by a mixture of Communist and democratic leaders and headed by Marshal lito. Supplied by Allies

"Allied aircraft based on Italy are placed at the disposal of Marshal Tito's specific commands and sizeable shipments, including thousands of tons of Allied war material, are being sent to his troops. "The Yugoslav army includes a regular corps of officers, with special insignia from non-commissioned rank to that of marshal. Its. artillery is composed almost exclusively of captured weapons. Officers' training schools, medical corps, an ordnance and adjutant-generals department have been created. "Marshall Tito's Government is a political melange, ranging from oldline Communists to former ngltf wing reactionaries. The Government has its own banking system, prints money, floats interest-bearing loans, operates its own railroads and postal system and agricultural and educational departments." Extermination By Germans Details of German brutality to Yugoslavs who have been carried off to "labour camps in Norway have been given in a cablegram from a British correspondent in Stockholm. The evidence was taken from statements of medical students who escaped to Sweden. They say that of 30,000 Yugoslavs sent to forced labour in Norway only 800 remained alive last February. The students were used as medical attendants at various camps and were thus able to reckon the numbers fairly accurately. Some of the Yugoslavs were captured while fighting in the mountains as partisans, but others were taken away from their homes or arrested in the streets. They were herded like cattle into trucks and given no food for several days. At the camps they had to work 14 hours a day, often dragging heavy loads of stone, the weight of which -'/as doubled when any escaped. Their food was mostly wood shavings.