COLOSSAL DISASTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 June 1940, Page 5

COLOSSAL DISASTER

MR CHURCHILL’S 'STATEMENT ■ IN COMMONS Frank Disclosure of Leading Details OVER THIRTY THOUSAND BRITISH CASUALTIES VAST AMOUNT OF MATERIAL LOST It is officially stated by the War Office and Admiralty, a Daventry broadcast reports, that Dunkirk has been abandoned, the last Allied naval and army units having left. The port was made completely unusable before the Allied forces left. 1 e fall of Dunkirk was also announced in a German High Command communique. Thus comes to‘an end one of the mos historic rearguard actions of all time. Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Winston Chui chill said 335,000 men of the Allied forces had been withdrawn from Dunkirk in the face of a tremendous onslaught of far superioi

forces of the enemy. Although this had been achieved, the Allies had suffered a colossal military disaster, The B.E.F. had lost a tremendous quantity of equipment, including nearly 1,000 guns and all tanks and other mechanised forces, the wellequipped Belgian Army had surrendered, the French Army had been weakened, and the Germans had gained important industrial districts and captured all the Channel ports.. The British casualties exceeded 30,000 killed, wounded or missing’. Only a week ag’o it had been feared that the whole root and core of the British Expeditionary Force was doomed to perish or to be taken into captivity. The enemy had been so roughly handled, however, that he had not dared to molest their departure seriously. The R.A.F. had defeated the utmost strength of the German air forces and inflicted losses four to one compared with its own, Britain, said Mr Churchill, could not be content with a defensive war. The Allies must expect another blow from the enemy, either against England or France, immediately. Britain would fight to the end on land, sea and in the air. The French Admiralty states that seven destroyers and a supply ship were lost during the withdrawal operations. Most of the crews were saved.

The Air Ministry states that It.A.F. fighters maintained an offensive patrol throughout Monday and early yesterday morning there was little enemy air activity. Large forces of bombers, which were in operation throughout the night, attacked troops advancing towards Dunkirk from the south and enemy batteries. In Germany, oil refineries, oil tanks, supplydepots and marshalling yards were among the important military objectives attacked. Enemy aerodromes in north-west Germany and Holland were also bombed; One British bomber is missing.