FRENCH DEFIANCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24535, 18 March 1943, Page 3

FRENCH DEFIANCE

MARTIAL LAW IN SAVOY GERMAN MANHUNT COMMUNICATIONS CUT LONDON, March 17 Martial law has been proclaimed in Haute Savoie, in France, south of Lake Geneva, in a new effort to quell the French guerillas who are resisting the Germans and their Vichy collaborators, says the Algiers radio. Vichy's Gardes Mobiles, under German oflicers, are reported to be refusing to fight. A Fighting French spokesman in London confirmed last night that martial law had been declared in Haute Savoie. The Associated Press correspondent on the French frontier reports that motorised police, led by S.S. troopers, are day and night rolling along the roads into the hills of Haute Savoie in a hunt for guerillas, but so far they have not encountered them. Italians are guarding the northern frontiers, but they are not taking part in the search for inen conscripted to work in Germany. Recruits For Guerillas No reliable news is available concerning the latest developments, because Axis troops have cut all telegraph and telephone communication between Savoy and centres in Switzerland.

The Times correspondent on the French frontier says registers are flocking to Savoy from other parts of France, and guerillas now total between 15,000 and 17,000. The Germans are starting to conscript doctors, chemists, dentists and veterinary surgeons throughout Haute Savoie, although the area is already short of adequate medical services. Ultimatum to Laval Router's correspondent in Geneva, says that Sauckel, director of manpower in Germany, sent an ultimatum to Laval on Monday night that unless ho fulfils his promises to send another 250,000 workers to Germany within the next three days the German Army will be called in to supervise the enrolment of workers throughout France and will be instructed to act with absolute ruthlessness. The Swiss newspaper Gazette de Lausanne says the French police are raiding afternoon performances in cinemas, and any young men who are unable to give plausible reasons for their presence are receiving marching orders for Germany within 24 hours. According to the Vichy radio, the Vichy Government has issued a new order for the mobilisation of all skilled workers in France between the ages of 18 and 30 years. Oidy skilled workers who are no longer working in industrial establishments are required at present to report to local authorities. DAYLIGHT RAID BOMBERS OVER GERMANY (Reed. 10.15 p.m.) LONDON, March 17 Mosquito bombers yesterday afternoon bombed the railway workshops at Paderborn, in Western Germany. The operation entailed a return flight of 800 miles, of which 500 miles were over Germany and German-occupied territory. One of the machines is missing. The Mosquitoes split up into two formations as they approached the town. The first formation bombed from a low level. The other climbed and, as soon as the first attack was over, dived down on the target. Several bombs exploded square on the main workshop, from which smoke billowed up for 3000 or 4000 feet. It is now known that when Essen was attacked on the night of March 12 Krupp's armament and engineering works were again heavily damaged. Thirty-four workshops were affected, 13 of them severely, by concentrated bombing. A great deal of destruction was done in the northern section of tho works. In this part of the factory locomotives and rolling stock are made. Owing to the acute shortage of rolling stock on the Continent the damage will bo a heavy blow to tho enemy's war potential. Outside the works much new damage was done to industrial buildings and houses. A Berlin report says that Munich is still without gas as a result of the Royal Air Force raid a week ago. AMERICAN WAGE DISPUTE LONDON, March 17 A new development has occurred in the American wage policy dispute, says a British correspondent in New York. The president of the United Mine Workers' Union, Mr. John Lewis, has threatened a strike of 500,000 miners if tliey do not get a wage increase of two dollars a day, and the American Federation of Labour lias come out against the administration's basic wage formula which allows only a 15 per cent increase on tho wage rates of January 1, 1941. The American Federation of Labour says, the cost of living has actually risen miich more than 15 per cent, and it wants to substitute a new figure based on the actual increase. It has also asked the War Labour Board to reconsider recent disputes in which wage increases have been refused.