A Fighting Inferno

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 159, 23 July 1937, Page 5

A Fighting Inferno

— PresB Assn.

HEAT-WAVE NEAR MADRID Tank Crews Forced To Emerge BATTLE STILL RAGES

(By Teleeraph-

— Copyright.I

(Received 23, 12.0 p.m.). MADRID, July 22. Attaeks and counter-attacks continue to the west of Madrid, With the thermometer at 104 degrees, soldiers are fighting stripped to the waist. The sun turns tanks into furnaees within an hour, forcing the crews to emerge despite danger. The crew of a Government tank were captured as they fell gasping from the baking interior. The area around Brunette is covered with a white pall of dust due to artillery duels and air bombardments. The fronts are so complicated and interwoven that it is sometimes difficult for either side to tell on whom they are flring. The Madrid defenders have large quantities of anti-aircraft and maehineguns but the insurgents maintain air superiority by more systematic patrolling. Government supporters make lightning raids with a few machines whereas the reb8ls make mass attaeks, sometioies with 80 'planes. The loyalists made a freah attack to the north-west of the capital in which they claim important advances. Planes hombed Naval Carnero and other rebel positions. The insurgents dropped mcendiary bpmbs at Colmen Arviejo eighteen miles to the northward, 40 civilians being killed and a hundred injured. The terrified populace fled from the town. Two trains and many motor lorries laden with wounded arrived at Algeciras from the Cordoba front.