DANUBE TRAFFIC

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 October 1943, Page 3

DANUBE TRAFFIC

THREATENED BY YUGOSLAV GUERILLAS ADVANCE ON IRON GATE RAPIDS GERMAN DIVISIONS SENT TO ALBANIA i By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON, October 18. Yugoslavs operating in Serbia are threatening German traffic along the Danube, says Reuter’s Cairo correspondent. They are advancing on the great Danube loop, which includes the Iron Gate rapids. The Yugoslavs have already captured Brzapalanka, and are now advancing towards Dolni Milanovac, which is above the rapids. Yugoslav partisans have wrecked the main north-south line running through the industrial region of Bosnia. German columns are on the march in Montenegro where there is fierce fighting. They are burning villages and massacring the people. The Germans have taken over administrative buildings and banks in Belgrade, capital of Yugoslavia, which is now the German headquarters. German civilians have been ordered to leave because of the possibility of air raids.

Two German divisions with a combined strength of 35,000 men have been sent to Albania where the patriots are strongly resisting. Discussing the Balkans situation, the Cairo correspondent of the “New York Times,” says: “If the Yugoslav Army is able to hold Milanovac, it will cut traffic on the Danube along which the bulk of Rumanian oil and wheat, Bulgarian grain and Yugoslav minerals is shipped to Germany. It would be foolish to be too optimistic concerning General M.ikhailovitch’s chances of holding this waterway because the Germans are certain to make available sufficient troops to dislodge him. The Nazis now control all the main Adriatic ports and are trying to dislodge the Partisans from the Tulsa region. “It is obvious from the course of these operations that the primary essential in the present German plans is to gain a firm foothold on the Dalmatian coast in order to stave off any Allied attempts to gain a bridgehead across the Adriatic. Obviously, it was for this reason that the two German divisions were sent to Albania from Macedonia.