TURKS URGED TO BE READY

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23970, 10 June 1943, Page 5

TURKS URGED TO BE READY

PRESIDENT’S SPEECH TO ASSEMBLY LONDON, June 8 "We expect the Assembly to meet coming events with steadfastness and, if necessity so orders, not to shrink from taking all the necessary measures for the sake of our country,” said the President of Turkey (General Inonu), speaking to the Turkish -Assembly. “We shall go forward with one goal before us—the preservation of our homeland. We have decided to be prepared, and if and when the necessity arises, it will be our duty to make use of all our resources on the land, 6n the sea, and in the air.” GUERRILLAS IN JUGOSLAVIA GERMAN OPERATIONS FAIL (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, June 8. Information received in Turkey from Jugoslavia has confirmed that the German’s fifth offensive against General Mikhailovic’s forces has failed. Guerrillas south of Belgrade dispersed a column of 5000 Germans and killed the commander. General Mikhailovic’s forces have occupied 14 more districts in Slovenia. Dutch patriots, wearing police uniforms, went to the Amsterdam Town Hall and told the guards that they were a special mission to the registration department. There they ransacked the files containing the schedules for the labour call-up, states the Hilversum radio. Before their departure they hid several time-bombs. These bombs exploded, causing a large fire which nearly destroyed the entire town hall. The radio reported similar raids at two other places, at one of which patriots walked off with a register containing the names of the entire population and 1000 identity and registration cards. "SWIT,” the secret Polish radio station, announced that the Germans, during May, shot 550 Poles in Warsaw at, the Pawiak prison. Armed members of the Polish underground movement, in reprisals, killed three Gestapo officers who were instrumental in these executions while they were dining at a night club. The Basle newspaper. “Arbeiter Zeitung,” reports that the Nazi People’s Court at Strasburg sentenced to death four Germans aged from 20 to 40 on charges of being Communist officials and distributing arms to members of underground movements whom they had already executed. Four more were sentenced to death, the charges ranging from drawing a caricature on the city’s walls to founding underground groups and espionage. Many others were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for listening to foreign radios. A meeting of the Free Italy Movement, in London, over which Mr Ivor Thomas. M.P., presided, advocated the formation of a Free Italy Legion under the Garibaldi flag to march into Italy with the Allies. “It would do much to foment an anti-Fascist- uprising, especially in Sicily and Sardinia, where antiFascism is strong,” declared Signor U. Calosso, one of the movement’s

leaders. He added; “There is proof that the underground movement is growing rapidly in Italy, where sabotage and secret propaganda are increasing.’’