February 3, 1940; BALKANS SEEING ESCAPE FROM INVOLVMENT IN WAR:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1940:

SHIPPING ATTACKS

ARE CONTINUED
BY INVADING
FLYERS

Pursuit Ships Rush to Aid

Of Freighters and Send
Three Crashing Down
Nazi Air Forces Reported
To Have Resumed Raids
Off British Coast

LONDON, Feb. 3. (AP) — Deathdealing British pursuit planes today shot down at least two and perhaps three German bombers which had resumed the Nazi air forces' widespread raiding of shipping off Britain's coasts.

THREE REPORTED DOWNED

One Nazi bomber was downed near a Yorkshire farmhouse four miles southwest of Whitby after a battle with three British fighters over a Yorkshire town.

  The air ministry announced that another raider was shot down off the mouth of the River Tyne. It reported that a third enemy plane intercepted by British fighters off the Northumberland coast "was very seriously damaged" and later unofficial reports said it had crashed into the sea.
  It reported that a third enemy plane intercepted by British fighters  theNorthumberland coast "was very seriously damaged" and later unofficial reports said it had crashed into the sea.
  Considerable air activity also was reported In the vicinity of the Firth of Forth between dawn and early afternoon, and residents heard machinegun fire out at sea. A number of British planes were seen circling above the Firth at various times.

   One of the. crew of the. –plane downed in Yorkshire was killed, another died after he and his two surviving comrades, all wounded, had been taken to a hospital.

LANDEDED UNDER CONTROL
  A Royal Air- Force pilot was quoted as saying admiringly of this Nazi plane that the "landing was carried out under control" although the craft had been riddled by bullets.

 

BALKAN SEEKING

WAY TO ESCAPE

INVOLVMENT IN WAR

BELGRADE. Yugoslavia, Feb. 3

(AP)—Fearful of the possibility that war may reach the Balkans by spring, the four powers of the Balkan Entente sought today some makeshift storm cellar in which to pass the next few months.

RESUME DISCUSSIONS

  The foreign ministers of Yugoslavia, Rumania and Turkey and the premier-foreign minister of Greece began the second day of their conference with a two-hour sitting which started at 11 a. m.

   They discussed their conflicting interests which already have led to a conference decision that each country must be left free to fend for itself.

  This precluded any definite plan for cementing the entente into a stronger union and cost Rumania her chance for automatic support in case the rival demands of Germany and the British-French Allies for oil become unbearable.

  The conference representatives still hoped, however, to agree on some common declaration and friendly program to improve their chances of escaping any imminent upheaval

 

Eyes of Europe are on Belgrade (1) where representatives of the four "Balkan Entente" powers—Rumania, Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia—assembled to find a way to keep out of war. Plan for "economic neutrality" was first discussed. Caught In the middle of the conflict, Rumania was faced with the chance of Hungary's striking at Transylvania (2), Russia's marching into Bessarabia (3), and Bulgaria's cry for part of Dobruja (4). German pressure on Rumania for oil, industrial and agricultural products was reported.

 

CLAIMS OF FINN
VICTORIES DENIED
BY SOVIETS

Reports of Big Offensive

Declared Merely Local

Skirmishes
Helsinki Asserts Invader
Suffered Heavy Losses
In Latest Attack
MOSCOW, Feb. 3 (/P)—The headquarters of the Leningrad military area asserted today that Finns, although equipped with "airplanes of the most up-to-date designs from Britain, France, the United States, Sweden and Italy," not only had not attacked Russian warships in Kronstadt and other Soviet objectives but were unable to protect their own headquarters.
NO BIG OFFENSIVE
   It also contended that instead of a big offensive by the Russians on the Karelian Isthmus and north of Lake Ladoga there were "reality only partial clashes" of several companies of "purely local nature."
  The headquarters' announcement, circulated by Tass, official news agency, suggested that only in comparison with "the microscopic scale of operations on the western front "could the clashes of several companies be considered a "big offensive."
   The Finnish army communique of last Tuesday said Finnish planes had bombed "a certain harbor and vessels lying there," Informed sources in Helsinki said they assumed the Russian naval base of Kronstadt near Leningrad was meant.)