WELL ADVANCED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1940, Page 6

WELL ADVANCED

EVACUATION OF ALLIED TROOPS BUT THOUSANDS STILL AT DUNKIRK. AT LEAST 300.000 MEMBERS OF B.E.F. SAFE. (Received This Day, 1.15 p.m.) LONDON, June 2. Tens of thousands more members of the 8.E.F., including the Grenadrier and Coldstream Guards, arrived at a south-east port’ today, with French troops and a sprinkling of Belgians. The steady influx died away at nightfall to a thin trickle, mostly French troops, but the latest arrivals said thousands of Allied troops were still on the Dunkirk beaches when they left. It was learned in London tonight that at least 300,000 members of the B.E.F. are now safe in England. The evacuation is not yet complete, nor is the fate' of the remainder of General Prioux’s army known, but the arrival of a British infantry brigade which had been engaged in rearguard fighting showed that the operations had entered their closing and most critical stage. This infantry brigade embarked from a beach northward of Dunkirk at 5 a.m. It had been in the midst of the fighting from start to' finish and was among the troops leading the advance to Belgium. It also fought in rearguard actions from the farthest point reached by the B.E.F. back to the gates of Dunkirk. The brigade in one day cov-, ered forty miles in 24 hours.