Evening star., 1944-01-04
Nazis Bring Up Tanks
And Artillery in Vain
Effort 10 Smash Tito
BY the Associated Press.

LONDON, Jan. 4.-Nazi defenders
of Banjaluka. headquarters of the
I'd German Tank Army occupying
the Yugoslavian Adriatic coast, have
brought up tanks and field guns in
desperate but so far unsuccessful
effort to smash Partisan forces who
captured half the city in a surprise
New Year eve attack, Marshal Josip
Broz (Tito) declared today.
Bitter street battles are still rag
ing" Tito's broadcast communique
said, "but our guns are successfully
counteracting the enemy's tanks and
the last nests OF resistance are being
Systematically smoked out"
That the position Of the German
garrison is precarious was revealed
when Partisans intercepted a tele-
gram sent to an undisclosed German
base urgently appealing for assist
ance, the bulletin said.
Airfield Shelled.
YugoSlav units adept at street
fighting battled the Germans from
street to street and house to house.
The Yugoslav communique said they
stormed the town prison, the So
called "black house." killing more
than 100 German soldiers, and then
went on to capture the nearby town
hall, where another 12O enemy
troops were slain.
THE battle has spread to the
northwestern districts of the town
around the Palace Hotel, the second
ary school and the railroad sta
tion" Tito's bulletin said. Our
artillery is successfully shelling the
Banjaluka airfield and no enemy
planes have been able to take off,"
Partisan columns operating out
side the city were said to have de-
stroyed four miles of track between
Banjaluka and Prijedor, 80 miles to
the northwest on the Banjaluka-
zagreb military railway, further
hampering enemy supply and COM
munication lines.
A Reuters dispatch from Cairo
quoted statement of the Yugoslav
government-in-eXile as saying that
officers OF the Royal Yugoslav Army
stationed in the Middle East had
begun a movement to join Tito's
Partisan Army and present a COM
mon front to the Germans.
An official Yugoslav spokesman
said II officers already had signed
up, the dispatch added.
CA Budapest dispatch to the
Stockholm newspaper Tidningen
said Allied officers, presumably
American and British, were COM
manding many of Titos divi-
sions. The dispatch added that
rumors were prevalent in Bel
grade regarding an expected i'm
minent Allied invasion of Yugo-
slavia along the Dalmatian
coaSt)
NOvo Mesto Still Besieged.
Yugoslav forces presumably were
still besieging the town of Novo
Mesto, 40 miles east of Zagreb in
Eastern Slovenia and 30 miles from
the Italian border, although the
communique made no mention of
activities there. 1t said, however,
that Partisan units were becoming
increasingly active on all remaining
sectors of the irregular front.
Cairo dispatches said that Amer
ican-trained Yugoslav airmen, in
the two months since they have ar
rived in the Mediterranean theater,
have averaged two operational
flights day in the Liberators pre-
sented to the Yugoslav air force by
President Roosevelt.
They are attached to a squadron
of the United States 18th Air Force
and took part in is combat missions
between November Is, when they
participated in raid on the Elevis
airflelds at Athens, and December
10, when they were on the Augsburg
raid. Two of their planes have been
lost in action.