Evening Star Newspaper, October 8, 1937, Page 12

A—12 xx= MADRID STILL KEY T0REBEL SUGCESS Government Troop .Tactics Show Growing Mastery of War Technique. The strategy of the government forces and the situation around Madrid, where the decisive battle of the Spanish civil war is expected to be ultimately fought, is described here by the noted American author of “Death in the Afternoon,” “Fare- well to Arms” and other stories. BY ERNE! HEMINGWAY. MADRID, October 8 (N. A. N. A, by Wireless).—In the Fall, the Cas- tilian plateau is the color of a lion and as bare as a clipped dog. Look- ing across the flat yellowness from & hill crest where the old line had run, you saw four villages and a dis- tant town. The town was Navalcar- nero on the Estremadura road, which was the ultimate objective in the great Government offensive of July. It showed blue in the distance, church steeples rising above the yellow plain where 80,000 men fought each other to a deadlock in the fiercest battle of the Spanish War. The Navalcarnero road was defend- ed by the four villages you saw below. ‘They lay almost in the positions of a backfield of an American foot ball team set to receive a kick-off; Villa- nueva del Pardillo, the right halfback; Villanueve de la Canada, the quarter back, and Quijorna, the left halfback. Halfway to Navalcarnero was Bru- nete, the fullback. All the villages were heavily fortified by the rebels and all were captured by the government, but the play was not run off smoothly. The timing was wrong. A dangerous salient was formed, with Brunete its head, and for a time it looked undefendable in the event of & counter-offensive. The capture of the right halfback position of Villanueva del Pardillo and the heights” beyond made it possible to defend the salient, and, when the counter-offensive came, the govern- ment held all its gains during five days of the bloodiest fighting of the war, except the town of Brunete it- self and a narrow slice off the front of its salient. The front line is now Just halfway between Villanueva de la Canada and Brunete itself. Treeless roads and complete ab- sence of cover exposed the troops on both sides to a terrific punishment by artillery fire and incessant attacks by enemy aircraft. How visible any movement is on that bare plain we found out when Herbert Matthews of the New York Times, Sefton Delmer of the London Daily Express and I visited the Brunete front in Delmer’s automobile, flying British and Ameri- can flags from the mudguards. From the heights we could look into the Town of Brunete and see rebel soldiers walking about the streets and noticed with surprise that the church tower is still stand- ing and many houses are moderately intact in a town reported pounded into dust. We walked back to the road, and the Ford followed a gov- ernment staff car that raced over | & shell-pocked, black asphalt road into Villanueva de la Canada. There an officer rushed out to the car and halted us, saying we could not LISTEN TO W. C. FIELDS AND CHARLIE McCARTHY ON THE CHASE & SAN- BORN HOUR, SUNDAYS AT 8 P. M., E.S.T, ON CONTEST 50,000 IN VALUABLE PRIZES See your nearest RCA Victor Dealer at once! For radio tubes it poys 1» First ALL THE WAY! —Finest in Tone. Foremost in Glass EASIER TO TU THE NBC RED NETWORK RCAVictor Electric Tuningis here! This sensational radio development brings you tuning with absolute comfort. Imagine —just push a button. Instantly, any one of your 8 favorite stations—comes in tuned perfectly! Your enjoyment is increased even further —with RCA Victor's thrilling new Straight- Line Dial. Its big, open face lets you easily see the stations you want. Or, tune from your favorite chair—with Armchair Control. Push THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1937. Mme. Chiang Sees Shanghai Morale Raised as Lines Hold BY MME. CHIANG KAI-SHEK, Wife of the Chinese Generalissimo. NANKING, October 8.—The con- centrated wrath of the Japanese against us continued to explode along the Sino lines toward Shanghaj with relentless ferocity. They are using numerous heavy artillery guns, huge tanks and fleets of airplanes. The sixth day of this sixth big offensive ended with the Japanese both startled and shaken in their confidence. The residents of Shanghai are realizing that the Sino troops are still holding their ground against all these onslaughts and it i a com- forting feeling. Our enemies have a main thrust in the direction of Liuhang and Lotian, but all these attacks have been re- pulsed, partly by counter attacks, with very heavy losses of Japanese troops in the Chapei sector. Very heavy artillery fire and bombing at- tacks by shock troops were repulsed. Near Lotian there was much activity between the outposts. In the evening the Sino plants along the River Hoping were raided, the Japanese attempting to destroy Idzumo and the air field. This caused a great display of anti-aircraft activity around Shanghai. The results of this attack are as yet unknown. Just at sundown Wednesday eve- ning six seaplanes were seen heading for Nanking, but anti-aircraft fire from two Sino pursuit planes scared them off. One of our pursuit planes became disabled and this left only one of our planes to chase away these intruders. En route to their base the Japanese planes dropped bombs some distance south of the city of Nanking and three at the Chuyunc Airdrome, the results of these being yet un- known. Wednesday and yesterday the Sino troops around Shansi turned the tables on the invaders near Kwohsien, which is north of Taiyuan, causing them to retreat so rapidly that the 8ino troops soon lost contact with them. 5 After an all-day battle Wednesday near Pingyuan, the Japamese troops were defeated and lost several heavy guns with heavy casualties. A second attack on Pingyuan was made yester- day by about 700 Japanese troops, who were repulsed. Shantung is still being upheld in the direction of Tai- chow, according to reports we are receiving here. (Copyright, 1937.) proceed. “They have seen your car with the flags and are shelling the road,” he said. Mistaken' for Staff Car. There was a crashing thump, a cloud of black smoke shot up a hun- dred yards ahead where a 6-inch high explosive shell landed beside the road. We got out of our car and IT MUST BE MIGHTY SIMPLE, CHARLES, MY 2-BY-4 QUARTER- BACK, IF YOU'VE MASTERED IT!? watched a half-dozen shells land close to a cross-road toward Quijorna while the officer explained that a rebel artillery observation post in the Brunetg church tower had evidently taken the beflagged Ford for some sort of super-staff car. Being sniped at with 6-inch stuff is & compliment journalists rarely re- . A SERVICE OF THE RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA to go “RCA in Metal= EASIER TO BUY AT ceive, but it was actually a relief to hear shells, being fired at a definite objective, atrike the earth and burst With an honest mud-throwing thump after the feeling one gets about the indiscriminate shelling in the stony streets of Madrid. JBrunette was not a last desperate effort by the government to relieve the siege of Madrid, but the first in & series of offensives launched on the realistic basis of regalding the war as of a possible duration of two years. In order to understand the Spanish War, it is necessary to realize the rebels are holding on to a single linked-up line of trenches on an 800- mile front. They are holding forti- fied towns, often unconnected by any defenses, but tRose which dominate the country around them. . The government first began to maneuver in a counter-offensive that beat the Italians at Guadalajara. At Brunete, the government troops were not yet experienced enough to turn and take their objectives on time so that the whole front could advance. But they held and threw back a counter-offensive that cost the rebels more men than they could afford to lose. timated at 15,000. The rebel counter- offensive across that bare terrain, | lacking any element of surprise, must have cost them many more than that. Nibbling Offensive Completed. While Franco's troops have been advancing this week in the Asturias, the government troops have just com- The Loyalist casualties were es- | = pleted- another nibbling offensive in Ime extreme Northern Aragon which | brings them within striking distance | | of Jaca. Just nowthey are in striking | distance of Huesca, Saragossa and | | Teruel. They can fight on in this | way indefinitely, improving their nosi- tions in a series of small offensives, with limited objectives, designed to b LOOKIT, MR. 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Riding home at night without lights toward the blacked-out suburbs of Madrid, watching the Dipper and the North Star with Matthews and talking about old days under the Southern Cross, I thought the most vivid im- pression of the day was not the shell- ing. Shells are all much the same and, if they don't hit you, there's no story, and, if they do, you won’t have to write it. In that yellow waste of plain, carpets of purple flowers like crocuses had come up where the wheat fields had been set afire with incen- diary bullets. In the dark I remem- bered a garden in Key West and thought, if Franco is going to take Repair Parts STOVES FURNACES BOILERS Most Complete Stock in the City Fries, Beall & Sharp 734 10th St. N.W. RCA Vietor Model 811K—11 Tube, with Electric Tuning... Armchair Control (availabl slight extra eost)...Sonic-Are Magic Voice... Straight-Line Dial... Magic Brain ...Magic Eye...RCA Metal Tubes «..Beauty-Tone Cabinet...Other RCA Victor exclusive features. 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