FIERCE FIGHTING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20035, 6 September 1939, Page 7

FIERCE FIGHTING

VISTULA BATTLES INVADERS PRESSING POLES BIDS TO CROSS RIVER BOMBING OF RAILWAYS SEVERAL RAIDERS DOWN (Elec. Tol. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Sept. 5, 2.50 p.m.) LONDON. Sept. 4. The first units of the Czechoslovakian Foreign Legion are already under fire on' the Polish side i«n- the war with Germany. The Rotterdam correspondent of The Times says that the German High Command reports that their forces in Silesia as a result of heavy fighting in the Tatra .Mountains are now pursuing the Poles north of Tatra, south of Gracew. The Germans are endeavouring, in the face of fierce Polish opposition, to cross the Vistula cast of Pless, which recently fell into German hands. Pomeranian divisions of the German armies reached the Vistula near Kulm, 23 miles northeast of Bydgoscz (Bromberg), cutting off the Polish forces in the northern part of the Corridor. The German attack at Grudiaz (Graudenz), on the Vistula, 40 miles from Bromberg, reached the first line of the -Polish defences, while another detachment of invaders from East Prussia reached Przasnysz, GO miles north-east of Pluck, on the Vistula, which already is heavily bombed and partly aflame. East Prussian Frontier „ Warsaw reports that heavy fighting on the East Prussian frontier has not materially altered the situation in this sector. German air raids, accompanied by heavy but so far unestimated civilian casualties, were delivered on Warsaw, Hel, Gydr.ia, Radomsko, Torun, Posnan, Cracow, and Deblin, in Moravia. Indicating further the wide scope of the aerial operations, it is stated that railway lines in eastern and southern Poland, namely the Kutnow-Warsaw, the CracowLemberg, the Kielce-Warsaw and the Thorn-Deutscheyiau lines were damaged and the Ilohensalza station was blown to pieces. A Paris message quotes a Polish communique admitting that the Polish forces evacuated the cities of Grudziadz and Bydgoszcz in the Corridor. It is stated that a Polish cavalry brigade advanced into East Prussia. Polish planes bombarded German armed units north of Czestochowa in the south and shot down 17 German planes, the Poles losing eight.