NAZI RUMOUR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 April 1941, Page 6

NAZI RUMOUR

ALLEGED BREAK-THROUGH IN GREECE IN MOUNT OLYMPUS REGION NO ALLIED CONFIRMATION. HEAVY FIGHTING IN SOME SECTORS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 1.5 p.m.) RUGBY. April 16. The War Office states that there is no confirmation from the Greek or British Commands in Greece of a rumour, derived from German sources, that the allied line has been broken in the Mount Olympus sector, and that the Plain of Lerissa in consequence has been laid open to a German advance. Heavy fighting, however, is taking place in more than one sector of the Allied line.

PRESSURE INCREASING BUT STRONG LINES HELD. TASK FACING THE GERMANS. (Received This Day, 1.10 p.m.) LONDON, April 16. Military circles in London declared that enemy pressure on the Allied lines in Greece is increasing. The Empire forces and the Greeks are holding a line from Mount Olympus, on the right, stretching north-west towards Korea and are facing fierce German attacks. An Ankara report that the Germans have penetrated the Allied lines is emphatically denied. Further there is no truth in a report that the British are withdrawing from Greece. The Athens correspondent of the British United Press says the Greek Army is waiting confidently in its new defence lines, which have been shortened and run across mountains difficult for mechanised forces. Peaks tower to three thousand feet over rocky valleys, strongly held. German motorised units, after battering their way to Kozhani and Siatista are now confronted with what appears to be an almost suicidal path through the Sarandaporo and Kalambaka Passes, the only two that are negotiable.

A Berlin communiue claims the capture of Sarajevo. A report from a Bulgarian source states that Bulgarian troops have begun to occupy part of Thrace and are marching on the area between ,Alexandroupolis and the Struma River.

’• A Budapest communique says Hungarian troops have occupied the southwestern portion of trans-Danubia to the Croat frontier.

The Ankara correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says official quarters categorically denied that Turkey was negotiating a nonaggression pact with Germany. According to a British United Press correspondent, German bombers killed between 2,000 and 3,000 persons when they bombed Belgrade on April 6. Onefifth of the city was destroyed. A R.A.F, officer attached to Yugoslav Hurricane squadrons stated that fighters and anti-aircraft guns destroyed 135 German planes attacking Belgrade and also 22 dive-bombers northwards of Belgrade, and a further eleven at Kotor on April 6 and 7.