DUTCH DOING WELL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 May 1940, Page 6

DUTCH DOING WELL

FIRM STAND AGAINST MAIN ATTACKS LITTLE WARS THROUGHOUT COUNTRY. PARACHUTERS MOPPED UP. (Received This Day, 12.50 p.m.) LONDON, May 10. The Dutch Foreign Minister, Dr N. Van Fieffens, broadcasting, said: "Holland is fighting and not without success. She has a vast empire overseas and considerable resources which she now puts at the disposal of our common cause—the destruction of the Germans’ spirit of wanton aggression. As the Dutch High Command has concentrated on defences to block the main German drive from Gelderland towards Arnhem, Dutchmen throughout the country are fiercely engaged in little wars of their own and are reported to have achieved the annihilation of many, if not most, of the German parachuters dotting the country. A communique in the evening announced that the Germans had reached I the Yssel River, only in a sector east I from Arnhem, about nine miles from the German-Netherlands frontier. It added that'parachuters had been surrounded and mopped up. The situation in Rotterdam is most paradoxical. A battle continued in and around the city, while the central streets presented a Sunday evening calm, with citizens sipping apertifs at kerbside cafes. Air-raids alarms continued throughout the day, but no bombs were dropped on the city. The Germans here first seized the Maas and Bourse railway stations, also an imoprtant bridge and established a strategic machine-gun post in the business area on the north bank. They also occupied houses on the south bank but the Dutch now apparently have ousted them from most of their positions, surrounded the remainder and captured at least 40. A Dutch destroyer steamed up the river, backed into the harbour basin and shelled the German machine-gun posts. German planes four times attempted to bomb the destroyer without result.