GRIM CONFLICT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1940, Page 5

GRIM CONFLICT

GERMAN EFFORT TO CUT CORRIDOR MILLION MEN THROWN IN. FRENCH DIVISIONS BLASTING THEIR WAY. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, May 31. 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 north-east of Cassel to Poperinghe. A French military authority said that the vanguard of the French army under General Prioux, which was 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 be following, though it is admitted that 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. The Allied action in flooding the regions round Dunkirk is taking effect, and the whole area south-westward of Dunkirk from the neighbourhood of Gravelines to St Omer has reverted to the huge marsh of 20 centuries ago when it held up Caesar's 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 for the last 48 hours, and the countryside is flooded several feet deep, checking the German tanks and infantry and allowing tfie release of troops to assist the defence of the Flanders hills.

The French spokesman said that every hour the hills are held gave General Prioux’s army a greater chance to escape. His troops are literally cutting their way through the German troops and are often fighting on all sides simultaneously. Their progress is slow, but they are moving and leaving behind little centres of resistance amid the network of canals and towns, which is breaking the German pressure on the main force.