HEAVY BOMBARDMENT

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 441, 24 May 1937, Page 5

HEAVY BOMBARDMENT

MADRID SUFFERS ONE HUNDRED KILLED Troops On Leave Prefer Front Line Press Association —Copyright. (Received 11.30 a m.) Madrid. May ■' 23. “We want to return to the comparative peace of the front line,” declared troops on leave after '.heir arrival from several months in Ithe trenches at Jarama, where a stalemate has developed. The troops expected to find amusement and good food in the capital, but they encountered one of the heaviest bombardments for weeks, in which 100 were killed, while the food was greatly inferior to that supplied, to the troops.

The insurgents to-day heavily shelled Madrid for four and a-half hours. The din was terrific. The United States Embassy windows were shat, tered and the Central Hotel, housing foreign journalists, was twice struck, but little damage wa s done. “The Spanish Government once more d-eclares that no peace is pos_ i.ble before the complete crushing of the rebels,” states a message issued after a meeting of the Government. A radio message from Seville claims that aircraft bombed the rebel fleet off Cartagena and set fire to th< battleship Jamie Primero. Germans Sentenced. M. Delbos, French Foreign Minister, has sent a message to the Basque President asking for cleency for the two German airmen, Captain Walter Zeinzle and Lieutenant Gunther Schutz, who have been sentenced to dea h for aiding the rebellion, in order to avoid reprisals and not to pre. judice future exchanges.

' It is reported from Bilbao that Preeident Aguirre has personally sent a message to Herr Hitler offering to set the Germans free if German personnel and aeroplanes are withdrawn from Che Basque front. A Berlin message states that urgent advice has been tendered President Aguirre not to shoot the German airmen. ‘‘Think what their comrades wouldi do in revenge,” said the spokesman, “it would be madness for the Basques to do it.”

It is reported from Bilbao that a theaf of pleas for clemency for the condemned airmen includes one from Mr Porttosegueros, Chilean Ambassador at Berlin, to which President Aguirre replied expressing surprise over the world’s silence at inhuman bombardments such as that aJt Guernica. Only the withdrawal of foreign pilots l would avoid* such flagrant crimes.