BATTLE IN CORRIDOR.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 156, 1 June 1940, Page 7

BATTLE IN CORRIDOR.

ALLIED RETIREMENT. FLOOD DEFENCES SUCCEED. LONDON, May 31. It is authoritatively stated that the evacuation of the British and French troops from Northern France continues. The figures of the evacuation are not given, but are very large. The Allied troops are now holding a line a certain distance from the coast. The German Air Force is admitted to have great numerical superiority, but - is unable either to prevent the reembarkation of the Allied troops or to inflict more than minor injuries on ehips carrying out the embarkation. A French communique says: “Operations in the north are continuing with the same bitterness around Dunkirk. On the Somme and the Aisne there were several scattered local infantry actions. Between the Meuse and the Moselle we repulsed an attack.” ' GRIM ACTION. While many evacuated troops of the British Expeditionary Force and others from the French forces are -streaming into ports on the south coast of England, the rearguard of the British Expeditionary Force and the French forces are still fighting grimly through an ever-narrowing corridor north-west of Lille to Dunkirk to join the troops that are evacuating. The Germans are reported to have launched 1,000,000 men and entire armoured divisions in a final assault -on a line across the corridor from 12 miles nortli-east of Cassel to Poperinghe. A French military authority said that the vanguard of the French Army under General Prioux, which is fighting the chief of the isolated rearguard actions outside the narrowing perimeter round Dunkirk, has blasted its way from a German trap in a furious tank battle to reach Dunkirk. The remainder are reported to lie following, though it is admitted that the Germans who are advancing in the vicinity of Cassel threaten to isolate this force Midnight reports in Paris from military circles said that the British troops, resisting behind the flooded Yser region and protecting the flank of the French forces in the corridor to Dunkirk, are holding out magnificently in spite of attacks by hundreds of German ’planes. MAN-MADE MABSH.

The Allied action in flooding the regions round Dunkirk is taking efcct and the whole area south-west-ward of Dunkirk from the neighbourhood of Gravelines to St. Orner has reverted to the huge marsh of 20 centuries ago when it held up Caesars legions. , , North - eastward the waterline stretches from Nieuport to Ypres along the Yser Valley to a width of two or three miles. Thousands of tons_ of water have been pouring into this region in each tide tor the last 48 hours, and the countryside is flooded several feet deep, checking the German tanks and infantry and allowing the release of troops to assist the defence of the Flanders bills.