DEATH STRUGGLE IN SPAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 66, 19 March 1938, Page 9

DEATH STRUGGLE IN SPAIN

DEFENCE OF LOYALIST CAUSE

WAR TO CONTINUE AT ALL COSTS

CATALONIAN CABINET REPORTS AN IMPORTANT DECISION

GHASTLY SCENES IN BARCELONA

[By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrtshtl

Received March 18, 5.40 p.m. BARCELONA, March 18. After a Cabinet meeting it was announced that the Ministers had agreed to continue the war at all costs. An official communique added that a most important military and political decision had been reached, but gave no further particulars beyond that Cabinet was taking full measures to forestall a repetition of the air-raid terror. Nevertheless, the air battles on the Aragon front, apart from the unprecedented raids on Barcelona. have increased in size and intensity. At least aOO machines are in action on the north flank of the Aragon arena. The first phase of General Franco’s offensive closed with the capture of Gaspe, which concluded two days of desperate fighting. first in the adjacent olive groves and then m the town itse until the bridge over the Ebro was the only means ot retreat open to the defenders, many of whom were taken prisoner before the withdrawal began. In the air raid on Barcelona six giant bombers, flying in groups of three, launched a thunderstorm of death, crossing the entire city from different directions and covering a wider area than ever before! A bomb demolished a wall of the British United Press Office. A direct hit on a suburban omnibus annihilated 37 passengers, while across the road residential flats spouted flame. Rescue parties eould only reach the fourth floor, and for this reason were compelled to abandon those injured on the top floor. The entire building on the neighbouring corner was blown to fragments. M hole blocks of apartment buildings were turned into a shambles, while trams and buses were hurled about like chaff. The bombers crashed two 1001 b. bombs on the exact intersection of roads on which were two trams, a motorbus. and hundreds of pedestrians. Two hundred casualties were loaded into ambulances and trucks. 100 of whom were dead and the remainder dying. The remains of two trams, each crowded with 80 people, defied description. General Franco never made a greater mistake than believing the raid would strike terror into the civilians, as it has aroused a hatred more deadly than any emotion generated in Catalonia during the war. The eleventh raid since the morning of last Wednesday reached the nadir of diabolism, wrecking a spacious avenue overlooked by blocks of flats, cafes, and the city’s largest cinema. These are now heaps of ruins. The University classrooms have been demolished by bomb after bomb. The work of extricating the dead is expected to take four days, until which time the full deathroll cannot be known. All the hospitals are overflowing. The death list is easily 700. Before the last raid began the subway stations and tunnels were crowded with refugees, and a bomb, crashing near an underground station, killed 100 anil wounded 100.