THE FALL OF A SPANISH TOWN

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1938, Page 27

THE FALL OF A SPANISH TOWN

"The bullets were whistling round me and I had to take cover. The Government artillery was shelling the Seminary where Franco's men were holding out. "Senor Prieto, the War Minister, was near me watching the operations. Officers kept on coming up to shake hands with him. There was a smile on his heavy jowled face." Professor J. B. S. Haldane, just back from Spain, gave this terse dramatic picture of the Spanish Republic's victory at Teruel, reports the "Daily Herald.". Making the journey from Barcelona in an official convoy of cars, he reached a village some miles from Teruel. "Night was falling," he said. "But we heard the roar of aeroplanes and a squadron of Franco bombers came over and dropped several 2001b bombs. "The party I was with scattered for shelter. I dived for a ditch, where I watched the bombs dropping while the bewildered people fled for shelter to the open fields. "I saw old women who should have been bedridden running bewildered for safety." From there Professor Haldane, with a party of journalists, travelled by bus to Teruel. There, from a suburb overlooking the Bull Ring, he watched Republican troops marching victoriously into the town and wiping out centres of Fascist resistance. "Just as we arrived at Teruel tha bus had to stop. A hail of bullets was coming over and we had to scatter for shelter."

Professor Haldane spent Christmas with the British battalion, the International Brigade, some fifty miles behind the lines. "They had managed to find some meat —some of it was mule, but Eome of it also was undoubtedly mutton," he said. "Then'each man had a slice of Christmas pudding and cider to drink. "Later, the officers of the International Brigade spent the evening playing blind man's buff." Professor Haldane, with the M.P. for Teruel, who is also a medical officer of health, watched the evacuation of the civil population. "Old men and old women, young women with babies all looking rather bewildered,' were marched from out of the town about a mile, where they were put in buses and taken to safety behind the lines," he said. "I saw one man who was carrying a bag of silver coins that he had managed to hide from Franco. He was going to change them for Republican notes. "I do not think Franco will take the town again." The special object of Professor Haldan c's journey was to study the measures taken to protect the population from air attack. "In every town there is some kind of shelter," he said. "Some of them are only converted cellars, but in the main they are very effective. "In Valencia there. are shelters along most of the main thoroughfares | holding 500 people each."