HARD FIGHTING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 126, 27 April 1940, Page 10

HARD FIGHTING

BRITISH PENETRATION. COMMUNICATIONS STILL SAFE. (United Pros.i Association —By Electric Telegraph. —Copyright,.) LONDON, April 25. Hard fighting is occurring in the Trondheim region. The British forces have reached a point 30 miles south of Narnsos, just north of the German defences. The exact position at Nantsos is obscure, but hard lighting is proceeding. The. Germans are reported to have readied Lille and Elvedalen, which are many miles south of Trondheim. British troops are reported to have reached the Otto area about 25 miles south-east of Damaas. The German air force has heavily bombed roads and railways assisting the British troops, but it is believed they succeeded in only partially cutting communications. A German communique claims that the troops, alter the capture of Steinkjer, occupied further important key points north of Trondheim against only minor enemy resistance.

“Our rapid advance in the Oslo area is continuing,” adds the report. “Assisted by the air force it broke all the cnemv forces IS miles north-east ot Narvik, which British warships again shelled heavily. A submarine hunt i.n the Skagerrak resulted in the destruction of two enemy submarines. German patrol vessels attacked a number ol heavy French destroyers at the entrance to the Skagerrak, the French withdrawing after a short battle. The Germaji crews were oper-, ating two modern Norwegian destroy-! ero. German ’planes attacked enemy | naval forces off Norway, hitting and | setting tire to the flagship of onei British cruiser squadron. We brought down four British ’planes over the North Sea and another near Aalborg (Denmark).” It has now been definitely established that German military supply ships had been lying at Bergen for four weeks waiting for the attack on Norway, states the British Official Wireless. Three ships of about 1000 tons each were at anchor in Puddc Fiord- from the second week in March carryingarms and ammunition and with German soldiers on board. Two flew the Finnish flag and one the Swedish. Germans who tried to make friends with the Norwegians are known to have boasted of the care" with which the invasion had been planned. A British Official Wireless message says the Admiralty announces a list of casualties recently in the British ships Eclipse, Hotspur and Rodney. The destroyer Eclipse, which was damaged in the operations off the Norwegian coast, suffered the loss of one officer and three ratings killed and two ratings wounded. In the destroyer Hotspur. which was damaged in the first Battle of Narvik, nineteen ratings were killed and one officer and ten ratings wounded. The bomb from a Nazi aeroplane which hit the Rodney wounded three officers and four ratings, but did no other damage and the ship remained at sea.