VALENCIA BOMBED

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 January 1938, Page 7

VALENCIA BOMBED

CROWD’S HEAVY CASUALTIES

WHEN FAREWELLING TROOPS

[by CABLE PRESS ASSN. COPYRIGHT.]

(Received January 20. 8 a.m.) LONDON, January 19.

“The Times’s” Barcelona correspondent states that three insurgent planes bombed a Valencia crowd farewelling soldiers leaving for the front, killing ten and wounding thirty, all civilians, mostly women and children.

'Received January 20, 11.30 a.m.) BARCELONA, January 19. The air raid, which was the worst the city has known, occurred when the streets were crowded with women and children. The 'planes dropped bombs weighing about a thousand pounds. It, is officially announced that one hundred were killed and wounded.

LONDON, January 19.

The British United Press Algiers correspondent says: The local wireless station broadcast a message stated to have been picked up from the British tanker Esturai: “During an intensive air raid at Valencia, five hundred children and a large number of adults were killed. Bombs exploded benzine storage tanks.” LOYALIST NEW STRENGTH LONDON, January 18. The Teruel correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” discussing the Spanish situation, states: — The chief interest does not lie with Teruel, which is a mass of ruins, but with the strategy of the contending forces. The two outstanding Loyalist leaders are General Vincente Rojo, Commander-in-Chief. who directed the Teruel operation, and Lieutenant-Col-onel Enrique Lister, who cut the rebel communications and afterwards parried their violent attempt to relieve the town. He commands 14,000 shock troops, intensively trained in the art of war, who improve immeasurably every month. More will be heard of him.

The Minister for War, Senor Don Indalecio Prieto, and the Chief of Staff have competently organised the Lovalist army, securing adequate petrol" and food supplies. The Government, is short of officers, but by the end of summer there should be a first-rate fighting force. General Franco’s army, on the contrary, has improved little since the outbreak of the struggle. Unless he can produce better infantry than at Teruel, his prospects are not bright. GERMAN WARSHIPS (Recd. Jan. 20, Noon). GIBRALTAR, January 19. The German battleship Deutchland and the destroyers Falke and Grief, which arrived m the Algeciras roadstead on January IS, were joined by the' insurgent cruisers, Canarias and Ba’.eares/ The Falke and Grief left for Gibraltar, after refuelling.

EX-AMBASSADOR'S WALLET.

LONDON, January IS.

There has been an interesting sequel to the theft of his wallet from the hip pocket of Sir Henry Chilton, who recently wSs British Ambassador to Spain, stationed at Hendaye. The theft occurred while Sir Henry was attending a London cinema. The sequel is the disclosure that the Duke of Windsor was instrumental in the freeing of the Spanish diplomat, Senor Xavier de Bermejillo, from gaol in Spain. The “Daily Mail" says that the contents of Sir Henry’s wallet included a letter from the Duke of Windsor, requesting Sir Henry Chilton to agitate for the release of Senor de Bermejillo. The wallet also contained £5O and documents regarding the Communists’ activities in the Pyrenees.