Current Events December 8, 1943;

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY DECEMBER 8, 1943:

Turkey has mobilized the entire Dardanelles' zone in an intensified program of warlike moves climaxed by a shift into the allied camp as a benevolent nonbelligerent; reports presaging an explosion in the tense Balkan
situation said today.

The most powerful force of Liberators ever assembled in the Central Pacific hit Mili atoll in the Marshalls Saturday, the same day a great fleet of carrier United States aircraft attacked the islands, a front dispatch said today

Dispatches from the Balkans today reported a state of "unbearable tension" in Turkey and said Bulgaria was expected to break with the axis at any time.A new trend in Bulgarian policy away from the axis, described as a direct consequence of the allied conferences in Cairo, was said to have resulted in the recall to Sofia of Bulgaria's ministers to Moscow, Berlin, and Ankara.

                       San Mateo Times
                        SAN MATEO, CALIFORNIA, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER s, 1943

            TURK ARMY MOBILIZING
             U. S. Air Might Hits Marshalls

Italy Mountain Line Won;
Nazis Batter Reds at Kiev
 BALKAN BREAK SEEN; 
ANKARA CALLS MILLION
MEN TO MEET CRISIS
CAIRO, Dec. 8.—(U.P)—
Turkey has mobilized the entire Dardanelles' zone in an intensified program of warlike moves climaxed by a shift into the allied camp as a benevolent nonbelligerent; reports presaging an explosion in the tense Balkan
situation said today.
(A United Press dispatch filed from Ankate last Thursday said Turkey was calling up 1,000,000 more men to double the country's armed strength this month.)
Advices reaching- Cairo is. th? wake of the Anglo-American-Turkish conference here-said the Turks had laid out zones three miles wide on both sides of the Dardanelles- and put them, under strict military rule.
                                                             Many Arrested
The historic Dardanelles gateway between the Mediterranean and Black sea lies below the border of
European Turkey, near which the Germans were reported massing considerable armed strength.
Among the security measures taken by the Turks in recent weeks, according to reports here, was the arrest of many persons suspected of espionage for the Nazis, ties, described as on the upsweep recently.
                                                     Italians Watched
Turkish police also were also were  keeping close watch over Italians with Fascist sympathies, especially in the Istanbul area where there are about 75,000 Italians. All 9f them were under close supervision and
their names were on police registers.
President Ismet Inonu of Turkey, a communique revealed, conferred with President Roosevelt and Prime
Minister Churchill here last Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and joined them in expressing the "closest
unity" of the three countries in their attitude toward the "world situation."

SIX JAP VESSELS SUNK;
72 PLANES DESTROYED
IN BIG CARRIER ATTACK
PEARL HARBOR, Dec. 8— (U.P)—
 —The most powerful force of Liberators ever assembled in the Central Pacific hit Mili atoll in the Marshalls Saturday, the same day a great fleet of carrier United States aircraft attacked the islands, a front dispatch said today.
The dispatch was sent by Lieut. M. M. Jacks of Tucson, Ariz., public relations officer with the United States Seventh airforce in the Central Pacific. He said the strong- fleet of four-motored land-based bombers
roared in at masthead height over the Mili lagoon to batter Japanese shipping at that key defense point.
 Only one of our ships suffered damage, and it was minor. United States aircraft losses were desciibed
as light in the Pacific fleet communique released here and at Pear! Harbor.
 Tons of bombs were dropped on Japanese barracks, warehouses, coastal defense installations, and gun emplacements by the Liberators, Jacks said.
"This raid marks the biggest concentration of heavy bombers so far dispatched by the Seventh air force against a single objective, with their bombs released to obtain a pattern effect," his dispatch said.

 BULGARIA REPORTED
READY TO QUIT NAZIS
STOCKHOLM. Dec. S.—(U.P)—Dispatches from the Balkans today reported a state of "unbearable tension" in Turkey and said Bulgaria was expected to break with the axis at any time.
A new trend in Bulgarian policy away from the axis, described as a direct consequence of the allied conferences in Cairo, was said to have resulted in the recall to Sofia of Bulgaria's ministers to Moscow,
Berlin, and Ankara.
A dispatch to the newspaper Nya Dagligt Allehanda made the forthright prediction that developments
could be expected momentarily in the purported Bulgarian plan to swing away from Nazi domination.
The German minister to Sofia. conferred last night with Premier Dobri Bojilov, the dispatches said, and a Russian military delegation arrived in Sofia with a new military attache.
The German colony at Ankara was described as extremely nervous. Ambassador Franz von Papen
conferred with Turkish Premier Sukru Saracoglu regarding the Cairo talks.
All Turkey was reported in an advanced state of preparedness, with army officers holding sealed orders to be executed in case of eventualities.