COMMENT ABROAD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1940, Page 5

COMMENT ABROAD

PROFOUND ADMIRATION EXPRESSED

FINE PAGE IN MILITARY HISTORY.

FIGHT TO THE DEATH NOT WASTED.

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Juno 1

Extracts from the foreign Press reaching London reflect the profound admiration aroused abroad by the news of the disciplined withdrawal in large numbers of the Allied troops cut off in Belgium and northern France.. The military correspondent of the “Courrier de Geneve” writes: “General Blanchard and General Lord Gort and General Prioux have been writing for days on the new Yser battlefield one of the finest pages of military history of our times.”

Another Swiss paper, the “Tribune de Lausanne,” says: “We bow before the heroism of the soldiers, before the calmness of the officers who faced so resolutely a tragic situation created in the midst of the battle by the commander- of the Belgian Army.” The military correspondent of the “New' York Times” comments: “The heroic resistance of the Allied troops has given General Weygand time to bolster and strengthen his defensive line on the Somme and the Aisne. The fight to the death in the pocket in Flanders has not been wasted. Britain has been prepared against the threat of invasion, the morale of France has been buttressed, and the old system has been .scrapped, an army reorganised, and a defensive line established, while the Germans have suffered heavy losses.”

This newspaper writes editorially: “So long as the English tongue survives, the work at Dunkirk will be spoken of with reverence. The rags and blemishes which have hidden the soul of democracy fell away there. Beaten but unconquered, in shining triumph, she faced the enemy. It was the common man of the free countries rising in all his glory out of the mill, office, factory, mine, farm and shop. This shining thing is the soul of free men.”

The “New York Herald Tribune” also pays an eloquent tribute to the Allied troops: “There have been terrible retreats, perilous embarkations and heroic rearguard actions in the past, but no combination of all of them on a scale like this. Many will be saved through the courage of all. and every man who may be lost in that blazing coast will only nerve those armies to greater efforts, speed the training of his successors and force the country to the more furious production of planes, tanks and guns. These are the soldiers of civilisation who'will save by their suffering everything which makes civilised life of value.”

RAIDS INTO GERMANY MUCH DAMAGE DONE BY BRITISH BOMBERS. ATTACKS ON ENEMY TROOPS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) RUGBY, June 2. The Air Ministry announced this evening: "Yesterday medium bombers of the R.A.F. continued their operations in support of the rearguard action of the Allied armies in Flanders. Repeated attacks were made on the enemy’s lines of communications, roads and bridges, also ammunition dumps and troops. During the night these operations were continued by the heavy bombers of the R.A.F. Other formations of heavy bombers attacked military objectives in Germany. The marshalling yards at Hamm and Osnabruck were hit. At Rhein a column of motor transport was blown up. A bridge in the same town was severely damaged. All these operations were carried out without loss. “Three Hudson aircraft of the Coastal Command, while engaged in operations over Dunkirk yesterday afternoon, attacked a formation -of forty enemy bombers. Three were shot down, two dived away out of control and two others were damaged. The Hudsons were unharmed and continued their patrol. “At dusk other Hudson aircraft carried out a successful attack on Bergen. The wireless station was attacked and an oil tank set on, fire. Supply vessels in the harbour were bombed and machinegunned. “Another aircraft of the Coastal Command attacked a formation of four Heinkel bombers and shot down one. Two Coastal Command aircraft have failed to return from patrol. Our fight-ers-attacked three enemy dive-bomb-ers on the ground at Ostend and set them on fire.”

"Fighters operating with the R.A.F. accounted for three enemy bombers. “In the Narvik area, on May 30, our fighters shot down nine enemy aircraft and probably destroyed two others.

“Today, over the Dunkirk area, aircraft of the Fighter Command continued their offensive patrols.”