HEAVY CLASH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 November 1940, Page 5

HEAVY CLASH

BATTLE ON BIG SCALE DEVELOPING GREEKS HOLD POSITIONS IN EPIRUS. STROKE BY BALKAN WAR VETERAN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON. November 4. The Athens correspondent of the British United Press reports that the first heavy clash is occurring between the main bodies of the Italian and Greek armies, and that a large-scale battle is developing. The Belgrade correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that, according to Greek sources on the Yugoslav frontier, the Italians launched a big attack on the Epirus front, but the Greeks held the positions they had taken by counter-attack.

It is reported that a Greek force under a noted guerrilla leader named Varda has cut the communications of the Italian army threatening Janina. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Athens correspondent says that Varda is an 80-year-old Balkan War veteran. The Italian force whose communications his force has cut is reported to number 30,000. Greek circles in Cairo disclose that many Greeks have escaped to Turkey from the Dodecanese Islands by fishing boats to enlist against the Italians. - “The Times” says: “Even if the whole affair were a piece of bluff masking preparations elsewhere —perhaps at the other end of the Mediterranean —interest, as well as honour, compels us to uphold the cause of Greece. Nor would the process of assistance to Greece necessarily weaken us in Egypt. On the contrary, the acquisition of fresh naval bases would extend the power of the Mediterranean Fleet to maintain command of the sea. New air bases on Greek soil would shorten the range for the R.A.F. against Italian targets.” “The Times” adds: “Italian deliberation hitherto must not blind us to the extent of the peril in which Greece finds herself,” and notes that the Italians have already began installing a formidable mass of artillery, while in the air Greece must already have suffered severely. “Here we can aid Greece, as well as on the sea. The task is not easy and will require all the ingenuity, resource and boldness of the R.A.F. and Fleet Air Arm. We can also increase the; general pressure against Italy, remembering that if Albania is an advanced base, Italian soil must provide the main base for the operations.”