Dramatic Assault

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 83, 31 December 1937, Page 5

Dramatic Assault

-PreBa Assu.-

battle for teruel Result May Decide Pate of Spain FURIOUS FIGHTING

(By Telegraph-

■Copyright.)

(Received 31, 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 30. A message from Salamanca says the battle of Teruil has developed along a 24-mile front. Fleets of new tanks, warplanes and heavy guns have been thrown in. The importance of the battle may be judged from an insurgent General Staff statement which said that the result of Teruel may decide the fate of the war. A staff colonel who was a military attache in the Great War said that even . France • in 1918 did not often see a battle of this ferocity. The Teruel correspondent of the British United Press says that the international Column came into action when the insurgents attacked the republicans to the north of Teruel. The Republicans cut off the attackers, inflicting 90 per eent. casualties, and finally got to within ten yards of the seminary walls. To-day the Republicans dynamiters penetrated the buildings but a thousand civilians, including priests, were still inside. The dynamiters crept along the passages into rooms filled with smoke . from many fires and hurled grenades through the doors and windows. Sometimes when they entered the rooms they were mowed down by a hail of insurgent bullets at pointoblank range. The Republicans maysend this dramatic but costiy form of assault by blowing up the seminary with mines. For this move three tunnels are already ^ug, but an attempt will be made to evaeuate the civilians before the mines are fired. Republican guerilla bands behind the lines blew up six bridges across which General Jranco's reinfdrcements were being brought up.