GROWING STRENGTH

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 39, 14 January 1944, Page 5

GROWING STRENGTH

YUGOSLAV PARTISANS BIG TASIIIFOR • NAZIS (N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright.) (Rec. 12.15 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 13 Thirty-six German and satellite divisions are at present doing their utmost on seven fronts to crush the Partisan armies of Yugoslavia, says Lieut.-Colonel Vladimir ]>edier, who has been attached to General Tito's staff for two and a-half years.

Dedier is now recuperating in Cairo from severe head injuries. In a special article distributed by the Associated Press he asserts that there are more German divisions engaged in Yugoslavia than on any front except Russia, "Although the Partisans are fighting without heavy artillery, antiaircraft guns, and tanks, we have carried out an offensive even against the German main bases," Dedier said, "and this year we broke through the German defences at Banjaluka. The headquarters of the Second German Armoured Corps in this German base have been liquidated. 2000 Germans killed, and several hundred captured. When the task was accomplished the Partisans withdrew as the town could not be defended against the new German tank divisions. This victory was achieved entirely with armaments captured from the enemy. "When the people rose three years ago against Hitler only every tenth man had a shotgun or an outdated rifle.

"There were many fighting women in the front line in the assault against Banjaluka, some of whom are expert with hand grenades. Women also hold certain commands. "Our liberated territory is now more than half of Yugoslavia and our army has increased from 100,000 to 300,000. Our peoples, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins, at the finish of our war of independence will form a free, democratic federal State in accordance with the Atlantic Charter, a-Ilowing all free people the right to choose their own form of Government at free elections. For this principle our people have spilled rivers of b'ood and are still fighting today."