EARLIER MESSAGES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 27 January 1939, Page 5

EARLIER MESSAGES

DEFIANT BROADCAST FOOD READY FOR INHABITANTS LONDON, 26th January. General Franco’s latest report claims that at 2 a.m. his troops had almost surrounded Barcelona. "To the north they are six miles away, to the west three-and-a-half miles, to the south they have only a few hundred yards to go.”

Barcelona’s radio station, however, broadcast defiantly at midnight: ‘Taking Barcelona will not be easy. The city will be defended inch by inch, street by street and house by house. Every man and woman is fiercely determined not to yield a step to the foreign invaders."

General Franco hopes that the Government will evacuate the city, leaving authority to a citizens’ committee, who would invite the rebels to occupy the city, thus avoiding street and house

fighting. A large concentration of civil guards and special police is waiting just behind the front lines, together with organised squads of engineers, doctors, nurses and social workers. Lorries loaded with food are also ready to rush into the city, and food

j ships are reported to be waiting to sail ! from Castellon, Tarrrgona and the | Balearic Islands.

j Sabadell, an important textile manui facturing town 15 miles north-west of Barcelona, is already under artillery fire, and it is claimed that the spearhead of the rebel advance is only eight miles away. With the fall of Sabadell the rebels hope to cut the main coast road to France from Barcelona, thus preventing a retreat. It is confirmed that Senor Negrin, loyalist Premier, is now in a town in North Catalonia, where the Ministry of Defence is secretly installed. WARSHIPS CLEARED FOR ACTION The special correspondent of the British United Press aboard the United States cruiser Omaha wirelessed that all foreign warships near Barcelona cleared for action and guns were manned. One ship fired a dozen shells at General Franco’s warplanes. It is believed it was a French destroyer that fired, but this cannot be confirmed.

The raiders destroyed the landing stage fronting the British Embassy. Another bomb blew up a lorry load of ammunition, which blazed for an hour, preventing foreigners from reaching boats which were to convey them to the warships.

Thirty Italian staff officers arrived at Gibraltar by the liner Caturnia and left for Seville.