Current Events January 7, 1944;

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY JANUARY 7, 1944:

 Several Allied divisions were reported by,Reuters today to have landed in Yugoslavia in a Balkan invasion across the Adriatic sea. The circuitous report from the Croat capital of Zagreb-was printed rn the Stockholm Tidningen and was not confirmed from any official source.

In the bitterest kind of jungle warfare, Japanese defenders of New Britain island have lost another 600 dead in their stiffening resistance to the marines who landed at Cape Gloucester 12 days ago.

Gen. Douglas MacArthu'r reported today that marines pressing eastward toward Borgen bay from the

Cape Gloucester beachhead have encountered fierce opposition and only slight advances have been made.

 Both sides have wheeled up their big guns and American planes are supporting the marines by strafing

Japanese lines and gun positions.

 PORTSMOUTH, NH., FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 1, 1944

 Roundabout Swede Story
Claims Several Divisions
Land, Join Slav Marshal
(By the Associated Press)
Several Allied divisions were reported by,Reuters today to have landed in Yugoslavia in a Balkan invasion across the Adriatic sea. The circuitous report from the Croat capital of Zagreb-was printed rn the Stockholm Tidningen and was not confirmed from any official source.
German and puppet Croat troops were,said to have engaged the invaders in heavy fighting. Only yesterday,
the Croats asserted that the British First army' and the American Seventh army were concentrating in the Italian part of Bari for a Balkan invasion. If true, it appeared probable that the Allied regulars soon would join forces with r-he 250,000 Partisan troops of Marshal Tito who have been engaging the Germans
throughout Yugoslavia in -increasingly bitter combat. Tito controls certain portions of the Dalmatian
coast and many strategic islands offshore. His communique" today said the Partisans attacking Banja
Luka, headquarters of the second German tank army, had abandoned the fight after six days in which 680
Germans were- killed, 720 captured and 700 wounded.
May Abandon Russia
With Russian forces 10 miles inside old Poland at Rakitno. a .German military spokesman told swed'ish correspondents that the Nazi army .might be forced to abandon ;all Russia.before a mammoth Soviet offensive which he said was raging from' Leningrad"-to-the.Black sea.

 600 Japs
Die in Fight
On Islanc
Advanced Allied Headquarters,
New Guinea, Jan. 7 (AP)
In the bitterest kind of jungle warfare, Japanese defenders of New Britain island have lost another 600 dead in their stiffening resistance to the marines who landed at Cape Gloucester 12 days ago.
Gen. Douglas MacArthu'r reported today that marines pressing eastward toward Borgen bay from the
Cape Gloucester beachhead have encountered fierce opposition and only slight advances have been made.
 Both sides have wheeled up their big guns and American planes are supporting the marines by strafing
Japanese lines and gun positions.
The 600 Japanese dead reported in today's communique raised to more than 2,000 the number of enemy fighters killed thus far in the Cape Gloucester action.