HEAVILY OUTNUMBERED.

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

HEAVILY OUTNUMBERED.

B.E.F. IN FLANDERS. TROOPS’ ARRIVAL HOME. LONDON, May 31. The arrival of men of the British Expeditionary Force at ports on the south coast of England is continuous, and troop trains are carrying soldiers to their homes and to camps throughout the country. The men are battlescarred but still cheerful. They tell tales of horror but are unanimous in praise of the courage and skill of the forces which are protecting the Allies withdrawal. ' , . , They had been without food tor hours and without sleep for three days Many were still wet because they had to swim to the ships. Naval crews, -dropping from exhaustion, have had to be relieved. Immediately a hospital ship arrived at an English port doctors rushed aboard and performed operations before some of the men could be moved. Shopkeepers have cleared their shops to provide food, anc hundreds of volunteers have worked day and night making sandwiches and tea, while the soldiers stationed at.one town over their evening meals. “MASS MURDER.” All members of the B.E.F. told the same story—of their need for more ’planes and more men. One said: it was sheer weight of numbers that did it. The British put up a mile-long barrage, but the Germans advanced right into it, disregarding human life. I was in the last war but 1 never saw anything like the slaughter. We were liea\ ily outnumbered, both on the ground and in the air.” „ , . Another said that refugees hampered the troop movements, but the Germans did not care. They drove thentanks straight through the refugees. “Words fail to describe the brutality, he said “it was mass murder. A German ’plane came .down to 100 ieet and machine-gunned children fleeing alon" a road. Their ’planes,, woreeverywhere. Our airmen were magnificent, but it is numbers wo need. We

were continually bombed and machinegunned.” , ' A soldier described a bombing attack on an ambulance convoy in which ambulances were wrecked and wounded soldiers had to walk 12 miles to the coast. A sailor said that troops waded out neck deep to his ship’s boats. German ’planes swooped down, and the rescue operations were carried out under a rain of bombs.