:
I
THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 22, 1988,
CZECH FORTS MYSTERY
Germans Amazed To Find Work Unfinished
ANOTHER YEAR'S WORK NECESSARY
Grulich (Sudetenland, Zone 5), Oct. 10. GERMAN sentry, his steel helmet and rifle silhouetted against the evening sky, stood to- night on the topmost gun turret of the Czech north-eastern "Maginot Line," with which they hoped to beat back the Germans who have now "captured" the fortifications without a shot being fired.
While the bored sentry stamped his feet to keep warm, officers, with the red stripe of the Ger- man General Staff down their breeches, explored the newly won fortifications,
The officers, however, could not | Czech car with a large white flag see very much, nor could they go attached to its radiator cap. There very far.
The Czechs, before they was a Czech officer inside. left the forts, destroyed the elec-his car was a German car with a Behind tric station and flooded the under-German officer. The two officer's ground passages. So the Germans of the "opposing armies" had just were exploring cautiously with arranged the evacuation of hurricane lamps.
Czech forces.
the
Czechs have come so near to each up Although the Germans and other not a single shot has been fired by either.
A major who had just come from below, his face still showing surprise, said to me: "Why, the forts are not armed at all. They have no guns. The works have not even been finished." .
Later I learned that although going on, however, between Sude- Fighting last night was still the Czechs have been building this ten Germans and Free Corps troops line of fortifications for nearly and Czech irregulars in the zone three years another year's
Robert Young and Luise Rainer in.
Toy, Wife," showing
at the King's Theatre to-morrow.
RICH SPORTSMEN
A
THREATEN DOYLE
New York, Oct. 9. Mrs. Godde's relatives yesterday group of wealthy American denied that she had sent for him sportsmen threatened to-day to Then came reports that Mrs.
if he returned to New York.
would have been needed to work not yet occupied by German troops.cat up Jack Doyle, crooning boxer, Godde had gone into hiding to
comTM
plete them. No guns had been The Czechs are particularly bit- mounted and only machine-gun ter in the northern part of the fifth fire from the forts' turrets would zone, since here there are have met a German invasion.
Despite this, the German officers, as they stood round the entrance to to the forts, said to each "Kolossal."
other,
ONLY A STREET LENGTH
BETWEEN THEM
com- pletely Czech villages which will now become part of the Nazi Reich. Altogether about 100,000 Czechs living in the Sudeten districts will
come under German rule.
the
Germany, however, will try to I reached the Grulich fortifica-exchange these Czechs for tions after a 250-mile motor drive Sudeten, Germans living in "Ger- through the "international zone" man language" islands which will between the retreating Czechs and remain under Czech rule because the Germans advancing into the they are surrounded by Czech ter- Fifth Zone, I found that the evacua-ritory.
tion. down.
of the Czechs had broken
Instead of a two-mile no-man's- land being maintained between the two armies, in many cases there was only the length of a wavillage, street between them.
As the Czechs left a village at one end the Germans, with, their tanks, heavy artillery and their in- fantry, came in at the other.
dashing to New York by air from At the same time Doyle was
Montreal to see his heiress friend, Mrs. Delphine Dodge-Godde: landed to-night-wearing dark He
glasses.
cape Doyle,
“་ ༦
́es-
cabled ten days ago that she was But Doyle had said: "Mrs. Godde
lonesome for me
that she
see me,” would be a new woman if she could
"Preposterous" was the comment Friday, said he had been called troit.
Doyle, on reaching Montreal on of a relative of Mrs. Godde in De- "I don't believe it. Mrs. from England to Detroit by Mrs. Godde is now living happily with Godde "to make her a new woman."
"her husband."
heard of his return they roared When the sportsmen in New York with rage. They have been den- ouncing him since he had a dispute with them over a contract during a previous American visit.
INNOCENT MAN 22 YEARS IN JAIL
New York, October 11. An innocent man who has. been in jail for 22 years has failed in yet I drove ahead of the
one more attempt to secure German
his forces into the village of Roth- freedom. The Czechs were still in
wasser.
•
He, is Tom Mooney, martyr of possession. Their officer, a sub- the United States Labour Move- lieutenant of the reserves-normal-ment, the "world's most famous ly a tax collector-was in command, prisoner." as his captain had gone with the white flag to negotiate with the Germans concerning the retreat of his forces.
He told me: "We will not be long here now."
The California Supreme Court re- cently refused to order Mooney's re- lease despite the fact that the California Assembly had voted him & State pardon.
Now the United States Supreme Court has rejected a petition for a review of the Californian Court's decision:
"
I asked him if he and his men had been well looked after-and had got on with the German population. He replied: "We got on all right with them, but at the moment it is
Mooney was arrested in 1916 not the food and that sort of thing following a fatal bomb explosion at which matters. It is the question a pro-war parade in San Franciso. of Czech honour.”
While I talked him an advance He was condemned to death-the guard of the German army of oc-sentence was later commuted to cupation waited round the bend life imprisonment-on evidence in the village street.”
since proved to have been perjured. FIGHTING STILL GOES ON
WITH IRREGULARS" Near another village I met
to
The judge and several of the jury who condemned him asked for hia release; a Federal Inquiry
found that his conviction was frame-up.
But still this man, his hair now white but his spirit unbroken, lin- gers behind prison bars.
New York, refused to comment on Doyle, after leaving the plane at
Mrs. Godde's alleged repudiation of him.
Asked about reports that U.S. immigration officials had considered preventing him from entering the country, he replied: not talk about that. have a big story about a suit I'm going to file but I must talk to my solicitors first.
"I'd rather Later I may
Doyle said at Montreal that pro- moter Mike Jacobs had suggested a match between him and Tommy Farr
Nonsense. I wouldn't even have Doyle as a sparring partner." was Farr's c comment yesterday.
Here's Luck!
EWO
BEER