MOST SURPRISED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 120, 23 May 1941, Page 7

MOST SURPRISED

GERMAN PRISONERS

THOUGHT GREEKS THEIR

FRIENDS

(Rec. 1 p.m.) LONDON, May 22. It is learnt that a Greek fishing boat picked up German airmen who were shot down in Crete on May 16. The Germans were most surprised when they were taken prisoner, saying that they were under the impression that all the Greeks were their friends.

The Cairo correspondent of the British United Press says that British soldiers who have arrived from Crete declare that German planes which raided Crete before the parachutist attacks started outnumbered the R.A.F. defenders by 20 to.l. The Germans adopted their usual tactics by raiding aerodromes, but the British pilots fought heroically.

A German communique makes no mention of Crete, but repeats a claim that the Luftwaffe attacked enemy naval units in the Eastern Mediterranean. '

A Berlin spokesman said that the operations in Crete are not regarded as a dress rehearsal for a possible invasion of Britain. He challenged British reports of big German losses, but made no specific refutation.— U.P.A.

A HARD DAY

GEN. FREYBERG'S REPORT

TROOPS FIGHTING SUPERBLY

CRITICAL HOURS

LONDON, May 22,

The Cairo correspondent of the "Daily Mail" says that, from dawn to dusk on the second day in succession wave after wave of German troop-car-riers and gliders, protected by divebombers, spilled out their human cargoes along the whole of Crete's northern coast, and inland among the olive groves, where there has been bitter hand-to-hand fighting. The fighting is guerrilla warfare— man against man, with the Germans and New Zealanders, Britons, and Greeks battling singly, or in small companies. ' The situation last night was described in some messages as obscure, partly because the Germans were reported to be landing men in British uniforms in Greek areas and Greek uniforms in British areas. DEFENDERS PRESSED HARD. "It has been a hard day,'" said Major-General Freyberg in a cable yesterday to the New Zealand Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser), in which he crisply and unemotionally outlined the operations on the second day of the invasion. He added: "Our troops are fighting superbly." A later message states that General Freyberg said: "We are being pressed hard. Much depends on the next few hours." Some of the German parachutists are using a new type of parachute and are dropped from only 200 feet. This means that it is only a matter of seconds before they land, making it difficult to shoot them down. Nevertheless, the British fire has been most effective between the time they have landed and the time they have run up to where their guns and munitions were landed from other parachutes. The parachutes are coloured red, white, or black, according to the wearer's function.

It is perhaps significant that the German High Command has not yet issued any communique. No word about Crete has yet appeared in the German, Italian, or French Press.— U.P.A.