STREET FIGHTING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25426, 6 January 1944, Page 3

STREET FIGHTING

BATTLE FOR BANJALUKA JUGOSLAV SUCCESSES RUGBY, Jan. 4. Heavy street fighting is still raging in the town of Banjaluka, in Bosnia, states a communique issued by the Jugoslav People’s Army of Liberation. The enemy is offering strong resistance and attempting to stem patriot units by the use of tanks and guns. Patriot artillery is successfully fighting enemy tanks and shelling an aerodrome. The last pockets of enemy resistance are now being systematically mopped up. Fighting is now in progress in a north-west part of the town, especially around the Palast Hotel, a secondary school, and the main railway station. Officers of the Royal Jugoslav Army stationed in the Middle East have begun a movement to join Marshal Tito and present a common front against the Germans. Reuter’s Cairo correspondent says that an official spokesman of the Jugoslav Government said that 17 officers and a large number of men have already signed up to join Marshal Tito. The correspondent adds that it is confidently believed in Cairo that the figure Is much higher. Paris radio stated that Axis troops last week stormed a town in which Marshal Tito’s headquarters were situated, and captured all the headquarters personnel and all documents.