BARCELONA RADIO BROADCAST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 January 1939, Page 5

BARCELONA RADIO BROADCAST

Threat to Defend City Inch by Inch FRANCO HOPES FOR PEACEFUL ENTRY By Telegraph.—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, January 26. General Franco’s latest communique claims that at 2 a.m. his troops had almost surrounded Barcelona. "To the north they are six miles away, to the west three-and-a-half miles, to the south they have only a few hundred yards to go."

Barcelona’s radio station, however, broadcast defiantly at midnight: "Taking Barcelona will not be easy. The city will be defended inchiby inch, street by street and house by house. Every man and woman is fiercely determined not to yield a step to the foreign invaders.”

General Franco has arrived at his advance headquarters near Barcelona and has visited the front line units. Deserters report that no serious resistance is < likely and that the city is not prepared foi a seige. It is believed that the defenders consist of a force which is only sufficient to cover the retreat of the main body. General Yague’s Moorish troops impatiently await the order to advance. General Franco hopes that the Government will evacuate the city, leaving authority to a citizens’ committee, who would invite the rebels to occupy the city, thus avoiding street and house fighting. A large concentration of civil guards and special police is waiting just behind the front lines, together with organised squads of engineers, doctors, nurses and social workers.

Lorries loaded with food are also ready to rush into the city, and food ships are reported to be waiting to sail from Castellon, Tarragona and the Balearic Islands. Sabadell, an important textile manufacturing town 15 miles northwest of Barcelona, is already under artillery fire, and it is claimed that the spearhead of the rebel advance is only eight miles away. With the fall of Sabadell the rebels hope to cut the main coast road to France from Barcelona, thus preventing a retreat.