FIGHTING HARD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 December 1943, Page 4

FIGHTING HARD

YUGOSLAV PATRIOT ARMY OFFENSIVE ACTION IN SEVERAL AREAS REGULAR & GUERILLA FORCES (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) RUGBY, December 21. Continued fierce fighting in Yugoslavia is reported from Marshal Tito’s headquarters. Offensive operations are in progress in eastern and western Bosnia and the Sanjak. In Herzegovinia, Yugoslav forces are in action with the German Prinz Eugen division. Meanwhile, a Yugoslav patriot, mission has been engaged in a council of war with the Allies at Alexandria. The full title of the Yugoslav patriots fighting under Marshal Tito is the National Army of Liberation and Partisans’ Detachment of Yugoslavia. This emphasises that there are two distinct parts of the organisation. The army proper is a regular, mobile field force, organised in corps and divisions, with a staff and a very good intelligence system. The troops have mostly lighter infantry arms, but also some guns. The Partisan detachments, on the other hand, are guerilla bands of local patriots, who operate only in their own district and between “jobs” pursue their ordinary avocations. The jobs comprise sabotage, ambushes, raids, etc., and are co-ordinated with the general strategical and tactical movements of the field army. Their campaign has never ceased since the Germans overran the country in April, 1941. They are now a well-organised guerilla army, about a quarter of a million strong. The Yugoslav war is regarded at Allied Headquarters as part of the general war against Germany and as. an important contribution to the strain being imposed on the German Army on all sides.