OVER THE MOUNTAINS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 June 1943, Page 3

OVER THE MOUNTAINS

ESCAPE OF MANY FRENCHMEN

INTO SPAIN ADMITTED BY GOEBBELS’S PAPER. RECRUITS FOR FIGHTINGFRENCH. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, June 14. The organised smuggling of Frenchmen across the Pyrenees is reported by Goebbels's newspaper “Das Reich,", says “The Times" correspondent on the German frontier. The paper admits that since the summer of 1940 more than 40,000 able-bodied Frenchmen of military age, which is double the strength of the Spanish Eastern front Volunteer Corps, have fled across the mountains into Spain, where, the article alleges, British and American organisations provide them with forged passports and ample funds, enabling them to reach the Fighting French, forces. The article continues: “British and American organisations in Madrid work openly and systematically v A hundred or more fugitives daily present themselves at British and American frontier stations, give a password and receive forged papers and funds. They do not stay long in ■' Spain and usually take the direct route overseas, via Portugal.”