GRIM DRAMA OF WAR.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 166, 13 June 1940, Page 7

GRIM DRAMA OF WAR.

STRUGGLE TO SAVE PARIS. ENCIRCLED BY FIRES. Received June 13. 12.40 p.m. PARIS, June 12. Total darkness all night grips Paris-, whose centre is deathly silent, but from the north-western fringes the gunfire is growing louder, and gun flashes burn across the sky as the German legions -thrust, desperately forward to ,the very gates of the city, which is covered with a vast, blanket of heavy smoke drifting from the' battlefields and burning towns and .. forests, which have been set afire by the tornado of bombs and shells. Great fires are raging in the countless towns, villages,! and hamlets which have become the funeral pyre for the many, thousands of Germans and Frenchmen who have died amid the ruins. ' ' . . From the tops of buildings m the Champs Elyseo a circle of fires is visible. It is impossible to sleep—the antiaircraft guns keep up a continuous hammering. The houses are shuttered and deserted. and the restaurants closed. In Paris life is dead! German bombers to-day dropped their deadly cargoes far behind Paris. There is a roar and flash or explosions throughout- the night-, and through this curtain of terror long columns of refugees struggle on. . The Germans at night are attacking the roads and railways. The R.A.F., considerably reinforced and in cooperation with the French, are *°. ar " in" ceaselessly to the attack, taking !' temfic toll. But still the bombers come. Below them the French Army are making a glorious stand.