POLISH RESISTANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 September 1939, Page 5

POLISH RESISTANCE

CASUALTIES IN CLEAN UP CAMPAIGN

COMPLAINTS IN GERMAN PRESS. RUSSIAN OPERATIONS. LONDON, September 23. There are continued German casualties in the Polish clean-up campaign, states the Berlin correspondent of the "New York Times.” The German Press bitterly complains of “the unfairness of the Poles’ guerrilla tactics.” Small detachments are ambushing the German rearguard and cutting off patrols from their companies. The Polish countryside, though conquered, is not quiet but was alive throughout the night with small bitter skirmishes. The Moscow correspondent of the British Associated Press says a Red army communique announces that the troops are cleaning up the entire Polish front. They have occupied Bialystok and Brest Litovsk and have started mopping up the remnants of the Polish army in the Augustov forests north-west of Grodno. Russian troops are similarly engaged in the western Ukraine. The communique adds that six Polish infantry divisions and two independent regiments surrendered in the Lemberg area. Since September 17 the Russians have taken 120,000 officers and soldiers prisoners, and 380 heavy guns and 1400. machine-guns have been captured. FIGHT TO DEATH DEFENCE OF PENINSULA. BOMBARDMENT FROM LAND & SEA. (Received This Day, 10.45 a.m.) LONDON, September 24. The Poles are fighting to the death on the Hel Peninsula, which is still under heavy bombardment from land and sea. A German communique says: “Our navy joined in a renewed bombardment of Hel.” A message from Warsaw says that German artillery fire destroyed four churches and three hospitals filled with wounded. RUSSIANS OPPOSED DESPERATE RESISTANCE AT SOME POINTS. OCCUPATION METHODS. (Received This Day, 10.45 a.m.) LONDON, September 24. A "Times” correspondent on the Lithuanian frontier says that here and. there the Poles are desperately resisting the Russians, particularly at Grodno. where street fighting has continued. The Russian method of occupying unresisting towns and hamlets consists of sending in motor-cycles or a motor car with a few soldiers who paste up bills giving twenty-four hours notice to quit. Many of the inhabitants steal away and hide, but their ultimate escape is unlikely. The occupation begins next day, with varying degrees of cere • mony. Local Soviets are formed. The new order is functioning almost completely in Vilna. Baranowiczc and other western White Russian towns.