Massacre Denied

General Franco's General Staff has officially contradicted the story of a massacre of defenceless civilians by the Italian divisions at Santa Colome de Queralt. The story circulated was as follows: " In the village were several hundred refugees who had not been able to move on in time They were all rounded Up by the legionaries of the Littirio division and herded into the village square. Then up came a troop of men carrying machine guns. The guns were trained on the mass of refugees. We could see the women raising their hands in entreaty and the children trying to hide behind their mothers' skirts. But all in vain. The machine-guns opened fire, and in a few moments the square was littered with the dead. The number of victims must have been about 250. It was a spectacle Dantesque in its horror, which those of us who saw it will never forget,"