TREMENDOUS LOSSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 April 1941, Page 5

TREMENDOUS LOSSES

INFLICTED ON ENEMY lNEW ZEALANDERS HOLDING OLYMPUS PASS. AUSTRALIANS MAINTAINING POSITIONS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, April 17. ~ In spite of almost non-stop attacks on the heights of Mount Olympus by wave after wave of German infantry, the British - line forming the right flank of the Allied armies defending northern Greece is holding firm and inflicting enormous casualties on the German hordes, which are being flung into the fray regardless of the cost. Olympus Pass itself is held by New Zealanders. Hitherto' the enemy has failed even to dent the main British front, but German advances on the left flank, south of Monastic gap, may entail a rectification of the line. An officer of a famous British mechanised regiment declared that not a single British tank was put out of action by gunfire, whereas the British shells went through the German tanks like cheese. He added: “But numerically they have the upper hand, and they are advancing in swarms with rrio-tor-cycle forces and infantry in support.” Backing up the enormous German land army is a powerful air fleet; they fly over in batches of 20 and sometimes 40, unload their bombs and then return for more. The British and Greek line, though under pressure, remains intact. Hard fighting is continuing in the Servia region (west-north-west of Mount Olympus), where Australians are hammering the Germans while maintaining their positions against furious assaults. The fircest fighting has occurred at the entrance of the Sarandaporan Pass, where the Australians are inflicting heavy losses. THRUSTS DEFEATED. While attempting to thrust to the plains of Thessaly (Trikkala area) through the Sarandaporan Valley, the Germans to the east are trying to avoid attacking Mount Olympus by applying pressure on the coast road and railway running down the Gulf of Salonika to Parissa. German tanks are apparently making repeated thrusts in the region of Katerina (north-east of Mount Olympus), so far without result. An observer said that German planes are strafing the roads, but are “catching hell” from the Royal Air Force. One British armoured unit has brought down five Stukas with its Bren guns. The Athens correspondent estimates that the Germans are using at least 10 divisions south of Servia alone and are attempting to crash through regardless of the cost, with the support of hundreds of Stukas and Messerschmitts. These mass attacks are believed to have cost the Germans two divisions of casualties in two days. DEALING WITH ENEMY TANKS. The Athens correspondent of “The Times” describes the enemy tank ac- . tivity in the tremendous battle to the north of the Larissa plain. After long periods of silence along the mountain front, he states, German tanks appear, firstly fast double-enders, which go as quickly in reverse as ahead, and then heavy units, generally of 35 tons. Our men wait til] the tanks are close up and then their antitank guns and rifles open fire at a range at which the thickest armour can be penetrated.

A New Zealander has described how he awaited such an attack. “A tank with its hatches open came right up under a bluff where we were cooking soup,” he said. “The crew fired, and one of us emptied the scalding contents of our cauldron into the open tank.”

These attacks are usually in the nature of reconnaissance and are rarely persisted in when it is discovered that a position is strongly held. The Allied forces in the last few days have beaten off scores of such attacks, but still the tanks come on, seeking weak spots.

The correspondent adds that many small groups of Yugoslav troops arc in the forefront of the fight against the Germans.