HELP FOR TITO

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 4, 6 January 1944, Page 5

HELP FOR TITO

YUGOSLAV CONFLICT MOVEMENT IN CAIRO (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) Recd. 6 p.m. London, Jan. 4 Officers of the Royal Yugoslav army stationed in the ivLddle East have begun a movement to join up with General Tito, ths Partisan leader, and present a common front against the Germans. Reuter's Cairo correspondent .says: the official spokesman of the Yugoslav Government said that 17 officers and a large number of men have already signed up to join Tito. The correspondent adds that it is confidently believed in Cairo that the figure is much higher. Paris radio states that Axis troops lest week stormed the town in which Tito's headquarters were situated and captured all the headquarters personnel and all the documents there. A big battle is in progress in the Epirus tegion of Greece, where 7000 Germans, supported by armour, are attacking patriots, says Cairo radio. So far the patriots have routed the Germans, killing 600. BANJALUKA BATTLE HEAVY STREET FIGHTING Recd. 6 p.m. Rugby, Jan .4. Very heavy street fighting is still raging in the town of Banjaluka, in Bosnia, states a communique by the Yugoslav People's Army of Liberation. The enemy is offering strong resistance, attempting to stem the patriot units by using tanks and guns. Patriot artillery is successfully fighting enemy tanks and shelling the aerodrome. The last nockets of enemy resistance arc now being systematically mopped up. Fighting is now in nrogress in the north-western part of the town, especially around the Palast Hotel, the secondary school, and the main railway station. Marshal Stalin, in a reciprocal New Year message to the Yugoslav Prime Minister, Puritch, said he was convinced that 1944 would be a year of new victories for the United Nations, and that the moment was not far distant when the Yugoslav people would achieve liberation from the yoke of Hitler’s tyranny.—B.O.W.