RIVAL CLAIMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 September 1939, Page 5

RIVAL CLAIMS

FIGHTING IN THE KUTNO AREA POLISH REPORT DENIED BY GERMANS. RING ROUND WARSAW TIGHTENED. LONDON. September 16. A Polish night communique declared that their troops besieged in the Kutno area penetrated the German lines and entered Warsaw. The Poles to the south smashed a motorised regiment, took 1200 German prisoners, killed 2000 and captured 43 tanks and 11 cannon. A Warsaw communique says that the troops entering Warsaw smashed through German lines from 'their rear and took more than 1000 prisoners. A German High Command communique, however, declares that the ring around the Polish army encircled at Kutno has been narrowed and strengthened for an attack and that German troops south-east of Warsaw captured 8000 prisoners and 126 guns when the Poles attempted to penetrate the ring around Warsaw.

The longer the end is delayed, the Berlin correspondent of the “New York Times” states, the wider becomes the scene on land, sea. and air. Operations in the west are beginning to compel the shifting of men and materials to the west, minimising the chances of a peace offensive in Poland. For that reason the Germans are becoming increasingly bitter about the “unnecessary bloodshed.” They believe that further Polish resistance is hopeless, because the Poles had only from 30 to 35 fully-equipped divisions of which 20 are counted as annihilated, dispersed, or trapped. The Polish losses are given' as 100 000 dead or wounded, and 100.000 taken prisoner. A “Paris Soir” censored dispatch states that the German casualties in Poland number 300,000.