GUERRILLAS ACTIVE

Evening Star, Issue 24329, 19 October 1942, Page 4

GUERRILLAS ACTIVE

GERMANS SUFFER HEAVILY IN SERBIA NEW YORK, October 16. The Istanbul correspondent of the ‘ New York Times ’ reports that General Mihailovitch’s forces, aided by Moslem guerrillas, inflicted heavy losses, including 4,000 billed, on a German motorised division with headquarters at Serajevo, and Croat and Ustashi forces garrisoning five towns in southwestern Bosnia, during five weeks of fierce fighting. The story is told by an eye-witness who arrived from Serajevo. In the second week of September Chetniks attacked Bugojuo, 65 kilometres north-west of Serajevo, wiping out the Ustashi garrison of 500 troops. The fighting spread to Livnoduvno and reached a climax at Kupres when a German division speeding from Serajevo clashed in a three-day battle in the Kupres Pass with 5,500 Chetniks. The Germans forced an entry into Kupres, using armoured cars accompanied by dive-bombing, and heavy shelling. The Chetniks clashed in hand-to-hand fighting at Livnoduvno with Germans who were . attacking General Mihailovitch’s positions in a sheer mountain side, where dive-bombing was impossible. Heavy losses were suffered by both sides; but the Germans were beaten off after 12 hours. The Chetnibs last week still held Livnoduvno, the approaches to Bugojno, and the heights above Kupres. According to the eye-witness, who saw truckloads of German dead and wounded transported towards Serajevo, he watched the Germans hauling in badly-battered transport vehicles and armoured cars to the repair shops, LIST OF WAR CRIMINALS LONDON, October 17. The Governments of the United Nations, sa?s tlie diplomatic correspondent of the ‘ Daily Telegraph,’ are taking steps to form* a War Crimes Investigation Commission, whose work will be largely devoted to the establishment of a list of war criminals and the collection of evidence against them by the Governments of occupied'tjrritorics. CIVIL DEFENCE SERVICES CONSTANT VIGIL NECESSARY (British Official Wireless.) (Rec. 10 a.m.) ~RUGBY. Oct. 18. Mr Churchill, in a message to the civil defence services, said; “We cannot know with certainty the total weight of the attack the Germans may be able or may decide to bring to bear on any particular city. It may well be menacing and heavy enough to call for everything the civil defence can produce to defeat it. Our duty is to be prepared every day at all points.”