NORTHERN FRONT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 December 1940, Page 5

NORTHERN FRONT

BLOODIEST FIGHTING OF WAR GREEKS BREAKING INTO VALLEYS ITALIAN RETREAT TOWARDS VALONA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, December 14 Reports from the Albanian border indicate that the bloodiest fighting of the war has broken out on the northern front. The battlefield north and north-west of Pogradec is strewn with dead. Artillery fire opened on the whole north front early this morning. The Greeks threw their troops forward under cover of a heavy barrage against the fortified Italian positions, attacking particularly violently in the Devoli Valley and Shkumbi Valley. The Greeks are advancing slowly under very heavy fire northwest and north of Pogradec. Big guns, both Italian and Greek, are roaring continuously from Moskopolis to Lake Ochrida. Italian bombers are very active on the whole north front. The Greeks are using tractors and snowploughs in an effort to push on and exploit fully the impetus gained with each local victory.

Italian prisoners bring tales of desperate chaos and an Italian provisioning breakdown. This resulted in large numbers of soldiers being found dead from hunger.

Following the fall of Port Palermo, the Italians are reported to have evacuated Himara and to be falling back toward Valona. A large part of Tepelene is stated to be ablaze. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Tepelene correspondent says the Greeks here have taken the mountain which was a formidable barrier to their advance to Valona. It separates the Tepelene

> area from the coastal region. The Greeks are now confronted with a series of hills sloping to the coast at right angles to this mountain, thus facilitating their advance and further gravely circumscribing the Italians. The Greek military spokesman said that Italian prisoners, not including the most recent captures, total M officers and 7000 other ranks. The booty includes 120 guns, 55 anti-tank guns, 250 motor-cars, 15,000 motorcycles and bicycles, many tanks, thousands of automatic arms, many pack haulage animals and vast quantities of munitions and other 1 materials amounting in value to millions of pounds. A dispatch from the Greek army corps headquarters near the Greek Albanian frontier says that on Friday the Italians, for the first time since the Greeks began to. hurl them back on November 12, counter-attacked in the snow amidst, the mountains northwest of Premet but were repulsed after a five-hour battle with heavy losses.