LOYALISTS PRESS ON

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 61, 30 March 1937, Page 6

LOYALISTS PRESS ON

-PresB Assn.

Italians Rushed Up To Halt Advance PRISONERS, STORIES

(By Telegraph—

— Copyright.)

| VALENCIA, March 28. The Loyalists, despite repulses involving heavy loss, claim a continuation of the pressure towards Pozoblanco in order to liberate the garrison hemmed in by the earlier febel advance. They are now within two and a-half miles of Alcaraeejos, whither Italian reinforcements are hastening. Viscountess Hastings, a daughter of the Marchese of Casati, a member of the Italian Royal House'hold, arrived from London and interviewed iu their prison cell the Italian officers, Major Luciano and Lieutenant Sacchi, who were captured at Guadalajara. Major Luciano said that 10,000 regulars of the Littorio division and 30,000 Blackshirts participated in the attack. He and the survivors were captured iu a thick wood after losing 90 of the 120 men of his madhine-gun detachment, which was under two 'hours' crossfire from Littoria riflemen, who mistook them for the enemy, and the Garibaldi battalion, Italian antiFascists defending Madrid, who had no doubt about it. Many other Italians were killed by ftheir own troops owing .to the confusion dv rapid changes of the line. i