BATTLES FOR MADRID

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 199, 23 July 1937, Page 7

BATTLES FOR MADRID

HEAT AT 104 DEGREES. TANKS LIKE FURNACES. LIGHTNING AIR RAIDS. \ (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received July 23, 11.30 a.m. MADRID, July 22. The attacks and counter-attacks continue west of Madrid. With the thermometer at 104 degrees, the soldiers are fighting stripped to the waist. Tho sun turns tho tanks into furnaces within an hour, forcing tho crews to emerge despite their danger. The crew of a Government tank were captured as they fell gasping from the baking interior.

The area around Bruneto is covered with a white pall of dust due to artillery duels and air bombardments. Tho fronts are so complicated and interwoven that sometimes it is difficult for either side to tell on whom it is firing. The Madrid defenders have large quantities of anti-aircraft guns and machine-guns, but the insurgents maintain their superiority in tho air by more systematic patrolling. The Government supporters make lightning raids with a few machines, whereas the rebels make mass attacks, sometimes with 80 ’planes.

GIBRALTAR DEFENCES

MODERNISATION WORK

LONDON, July 22

The Financial Secretary for War (Sir Victor Warrender) in a written answer to Captain Wedgwood Benn, says the modernising of the Gibraltar! defences has been proceeding since 1934. It was not advisable to disclose the improvements or the cost. SUBMARINE HARBOUR. PARIS, July 22. The Echo de Paris asserts tnat the Germans are preparing naval and air bases, including a submarine Inn hour, at Melilla, Alhncemas, La Roche, Ifni, Roi del Oro and also the Canaries.

NON-INTERVENTION PLAN.

ALTERNATIVE PROCEDURE

BRITAIN’S HOPES,

(British Official Wireless.) Received July 23, 11.55 a.m. RUGBY, July 22. The British Government is known to have under active consideration an alternative procedure which will meet the situation arising ‘ from the non-inter-vention deadlock. Officials are still at work on the final form of the new suggestion. but it is not impossible that it may be submitted to the chairman’s sub-committee before the end of the present week.