WELL ORGANISED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 September 1942, Page 4

WELL ORGANISED

YUGOSLAV PATRIOT ARMY UNDER COMMAND OF GENERAL MIHAILOVITCH. HEROTIC EFFORTS AGAINST OPPRESSORS. (By Derek Patmore in the “Christian Science Minoter.”) ISTANBUL, Turkey, July 7. On June 28, 1941, the world press had its first news of so-called Chetnik resistance to the Nazi in Yugoslavia. This week, One year and one week late, reports reached here confirming the success of General Draja Mihailovitch’s new offensive against the Axis oppressors of his country. At the beginning of the Chetnik patriots’ resistance against the Germans and Italians only separate groups spread about Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Slovenia continued to fight and harass Axis troops, but gradually General Mihailovitch built up his organisation into a proper army. Today discipline in the Chetnik Army is of the highest order and contact between various groups is maintained by wireless.

Chetnik forces which now occupy important strips of country, including most of Montenegro, also have their own newspaper and their leaders, General Mihailovotch, as Yugoslav Minister of War, is in continuous touch with London and Cairo.

Latest reports from Chetnik sources emphasise the magnificent work carried out by General Mihailovitch. His ever-increasing resistance against Axis forces and the Serbian Quisling, General Milan Neditch, is already one of the most inspiring and heroic episodes of the present war. General Mihailovitch’s new offensive is causing grave concern to the Italians, who have already announced that they have lost more troops fighting the Chetniks than during the whole Balkan campaign. According to reliable reports fighting has become so violent, during the last few weeks that all railway communications between Zagreb and Split on the Dalmatian coast have been interrupted. Heavy fighting has also broken out in Southern Serbia, especially around the village of Zijovac, and Bulgarians who are now helping the Axis have been compelled to rush reinforcements to the Southern Front. The Italians are also worried about the situation around the town of Loubujana, important railway junction in the north, where the Chetniks have been attacking in force. Chetnik bands are also destroying crops throughout the country and at Mostar an important factory working for the German Army was entirely wrecked by fire by Chetnik saboteurs.

However, gallant Yugoslavs are paying a high price for daring to resist Hitler’s “new order.” Travellers arriving here from Belgrade tell grim stories of Nazi cruelty to the Yugoslav population. These travellers report that machinegunning of the population of villages that dare resist Axis forces or help the Chetniks is a common occurrence. But Axis cruelty fails to check Yugoslav resistance and General Mihailovitch’s patriot army daily grows in strength. Meanwhile as the war gains intensity in the Middle East, tension grows between Rumania and Hungry. On June 25 a serious incident between Rumanian and Hungarian troops occurred at Turda near the frontier between the two countries and seven Hungarians were killed. Raiding parties from each country are now said to be daily affairs. Commenting upon the serious situation, the officially inspired Rumanian Radio, Romania Mare, declared this week “the Vienna pact is openly and regularly flouted by Hungary and consequently Vienna decisions have lost all value for Rumanians.”