REBEL ADVANCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 29 March 1938, Page 5

REBEL ADVANCE

FIERCE RESISTANCE OVERCOME SUCCESSFUL NIGHT ATTACK (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright! (Received 29th March, 9.0 a.m.) LONDON. 28th March. It. is reported from Saragossa that the loyalists have retreated 20 miles in 48 hours along the Saragossa-Lerida road. The rebels before entering Sarinena fought their way through a miledeep defence system. They launched an attack at nightfall, bombs and handgrenades overcoming a fierce resistance. Their line now stretches unbroken from the Ebro to the Sierra de Guara, thus encircling the former loyalist positions in the so-called granary of Catalonia. The rebels captured the village of Mas al Correig, 22 miles from Lerida and four miles south of Fraga, which they are now investing in the hope of subjugating the crack Government troops defending it.

The invaders from aerial photographs learned the exact position of the loyalist trenches and blockhouses in the defence zone on the Cinca plateau and launched squadrons of bombers which wrecked them. They followed up with fighters which machine-gunned the surThe Alcaniz correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph” says the loyalists and lorries, dead mules and dogs and : abandoned clothes mark the line of j flight of thousands of fugitives, i The pilots of three loyalist aero- | planes landing at Mas De las Matas I were dismayed to find it was in the . hands of the rebels, who took them prisoner. 1 The Saragossa correspondent of the | ‘Daily Telegrapji” says the olyalists were successful in the Talavera sector of the Estramadura front, where they claim to have advanced six miles. FRAGA OCCUPIED j (Received 29th March, 10.0 a.m.) SARAGOSSA, 28th March. The Nationalists occupied Fraga and also captured Barbastro and Mequinenza. “ASTRIDE THE ROAD TO FRANCE” (Received 29th March, 10.25 a.m.) SARAGOSSA, 28th March. The Nationalists are consolidating their recent gains in Castellon. They ! claim the Republicans lost all the j principal communications between j Valencia and Catalonia except the ! coast road and railway. Nationalists claim that they captured in the last 24 hours 13,000 prisoners and a large quantity of guns and ammunition and “we ax-e now astride the road to France.” | INSURGENT PLANES SHOT DOWN (Received 29th March, 10.25 a.m.) BARCELONA, 28th March. A bulletin claims that the loyalists! shot down in flames twelve insurgent i planes raiding Lerida.

of the Liberal Leader, Sir Archibald Sinclair, that the failure of the Government to bring breaches before the Non-Intervention Committee was due to reluctance to have the Italian Government convicted.