NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 120, 23 May 1941, Page 8

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

ISSUE IN CRETE

STRUGGLE RAGING

SYRIAN APPROACHES

The fiercest battle of the war Is raging in Crete, the last stronghold of Greek freedom, between the airborne German invaders and the Greek ant 1 New Zealand and British defenders. The Germans are being reinforced by wav2s of air-borne troops and attempts are being made on a'large scale to land troops from the sea. The British Navy is in action against enemy flotillas aided by dive-bombers, and the final result is not yet known, though Mr. Churchill, in the House of Commons yesterday, expressed optimism. On land the fighting is hand-to-hand, grim and deadly, between small companies in different parts of the island, a sort of guerrilla warfare in which the defenders should, excel, though they lack air protection, our fighters having been withdrawn because their few aerodromes were subject to continuous air attack. General Frayberg, in supreme command, has sent a message in which he says: "We are hard-pressed. Much depends on the next few hours." The tactical issues are clear: Can an island be successfully invaded from the air? Can warships be prevented from carrying. out their function of the naval defence of an island by the action of enemy aircraft? These issues are at the moment undecided and comment therefore may be deferred. It is clear that in this theatre the war in the Middle East has reached * crucial stage. The Syrian Terrain. On the mainland of the Levant, irv Palestine and Syria, the forces of Britain and Free France face the troops the Vichy Government of Syria has allotted to defend the frontier, should it come to that. The frontier runs across country familiar to many who in the - last war took part in the final Syrian campaign of September and October, 1918, when the Imperial forces, including many Australians and New Zealanders, swept through northern Palestine into Syria and through Damascus as far as Aleppo in the far north. Only a small French detachment took part in these operations under General Allenby, but the frontier France got at Versailles for the Syrian Mandate came down to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, including areas properly belonging to Palestine. Thus part of the Haifa-Damascus railway, as it climbs from Semakh on the south shore of Galilee, 680 ft below sea level, up the Yarmuk Valley to the plateau of Hauraw. some 2000 feet above, falls into French territory. On the other hand. Palestine includes a tongue of the upper Jordan Valley, above the Sea of Galilee, to the Waters of Merom, seven feet below sea level. Mount Hermon. a magnificent snowcapped peak, something like Ruapehu, and about the same height (9200 feet), where the Jordan takes its rise, lies also in French Syria. Campaign of 1918. In the Syrian campaign of 1913 the main advance on Damascus, led by the Australian Light Horse, was by the upper Jordan, crossed by a bridge south of Merom, and then along the plateau, with Hermon on the we?' =md the Syrian Desert to the east, rence's Arab army, wit'- Mne astralian horse and some .tish motor transport, came along the route of the Hedjaz railway on the fringe of the desert and entered Damascus about the same time. British infantry, including the Black Watch, and Indian divisions marched jup the coast and occupied Beirut. The whole country west of the Jordan towards the Mediterranean is wild and rugged, and any advance today is likely to follow the routes taken in 1918. Damascus and Beirut, the chief city and the chief port of Syria respectively, are separated by the two parallel Lebanon mountain ranges, rising to a height of 6000 feet generally, with isolated peaks as high as 10,000 feet. There is no pass through the seaward Lebanons and the railway, with long rack sections, and the main road both climb to nearly 6000 feet between port and capital. Between the two Lebanons lies the great long valley of Coele-Syria (El Bekaa), with road and railway running north to Aleppo from the junction at Rayak. mentioned in the news as having an aerodrome, past Baalbek, with its famous ruins, and the towns of Horns and Hama. At Horns there is a junction for the seaport of Tripoli, where the French pipe-line from the Irak oilfields ends and a large refinery is situated. The road and pipe-line pass round the northern end of the Lebanon range. It was through the Bekaa that the Imperial forces advanced to Aleppo in 1918.