SANTANDER CAMPAIGN

Grey River Argus, 19 August 1937, Page 5

SANTANDER CAMPAIGN

DEFENDERS RETREAT 2000 Prisoners Taken [Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn ] SALAMANCA, August 17. Supported by planes, tanks and heavy artillery, four insurgent columns, including the Italian Black Arrows Brigade and Moorish legions, driving towards Santander, captured twelve villages, and 2,000 prisoners. The Reinosa sector advance covers 300 square miles of difficult mountains. The insurgent casualties were heavy. Several companies of Moorish shock troops were wiped out. In the Valmaseda-Castrourdiales sectors, the Government continues to check the rebel attacks. LONDON, August 17. The Valencia Government admits that it has retreated, following heavy lighting on the Santander front. REMOVAL OF REFUGEES. LONDON, August 17. After the British steamer Thorpe Bay embarked 2,000 women and children refugees from Santander, Junkers and bombers raided the city three times, causing panic. The refugees leaped into the ship’s holds. Some stampeded down the gangways to hide in cellars, and were left behind when the steamer sailed.

At Teruel and Cordoba GOVERNMENT CLAIMS SUCCESSES. MADRID, August 17. - Two companies of carlists were mowed down by machine guns on the Teruel front, while unsuccessfully counter-attacking the Loyalists, who were entrenched in a wood. On the Cordoba front, loyalists occupied Zafrilla mountain and Zafrilla villages. Dynamiters blew up a laden troop-train. TORPEDOEING OF SHIPS. BRITISH WARNING. [British Official Wireless]. -RUGBY, August 17. After a meeting of Ministers at the Foreign Office in London, the following statement was issued: The British Government has been seriously perturbed at the increasing number of attacks upon shipping, which have occurred of late in the Mediterranean, and at the extension of the area in which these incidents are now taking place. The British Government has issued instructions, through the Admiralty, that if any British merenant ship is attacked by a submarine, without warning, His Majesty’s ships are authorised to counter-attack the submarine. ALGIERS, August 17. The captain of the Spanish steamer Conde de Abasolo, upon arrival in the British steamer, City of Wellington, with three of his crew declared that an Italian destroyer torpedoed his ship off the Island of Pantelleria, killing several of the crew. Seventeen are missing. The remainder were picked up the following morning by the City of Wellington. The captain adds that an Italian aeroplane flew over the ship, two days before the attack.

British Fleet Order TO SINK ANY VESSEL. ATTACKING BRITISH SHIPS. LONDON, August 18. Concerning the instructions issued by -the Admiralty that British ships are now authorised to counter attack any submarine that attacks a British merchant ship, the diplomatic correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says: “It is understood that the orders given to the Fleet are couched in such terms that the captains of British warships will, under instructions, shoot to sink any vessel, whether on surface or an underwater vessel, which seeks to attack British ships.