LAST BATTLES IN GREECE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 May 1941, Page 6

LAST BATTLES IN GREECE

FROM MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA Imperial Forces Thrust Back by Overwhelming Numbers ENEMY INFANTRY SLAUGHTERED LIKE CATTLE FIERY ORDEAL IN EMBARKATION PORTS (By Telegraph.—Press Association. —Copyright.) (Received This Day, 12.35 p.m.) LONDON, May 1. “Nov/ that we arc back in Egypt, the story of the fight in Greece and evacuation in face of overwhelming German odds can be told,’’ says a British United Press correspondent, Richard McMillan. “It is a story of the Ansae forces, with British gunners after them, holding up the German forces day after day, until sheer numbers and mechanical strength forced them to retreat, it is a story of German infantry being driven like cattle to the slaughter, of Maoris fighting to the last in the Pass of Thermopylae, cf troops hiding throughout the day in Wheatfields to escape the German bombers as they sought to smash British transports offshore. It is a story of English troops marching under fire and singing ‘Tipperary,’ their Scots comrades marching by their side to the lilt of ‘Yon Bonnie Braes.’ “The story begins on Mount Olympus, where the New Zealanders—Maoris and white troops—made names as deathless as the ancient Spartans as they took the full shock of fresh enemy divisions and new tank squadrons. Under a withering fire from the New Zealanders, the pass was soon filled with the bodies of German dead. Grimly hanging on to their lines in a magnificent delaying action, the New Zealanders held up the Germans while the bulk of the British Expeditionary Force hurried to a secret rendezvous on the coast, from which it was evacuated. I embarked on a convoy with 11,500 troops, among whom were scores of Dunkirk veterans, who said the bombing at Dunkirk was nothing compared to that in Greece. In some ways, it was Dunkirk all over again. Transports and warships worked ths inshore beaches despite the German dive-bombers and brought off thousands of men night after night. ANZACS HOLD THE PASSES “While the evacuation was going on, the rearguard action ■was proceeding. The New Zealanders held Thermopylae and Australian units, backed by British artillery, held the Brailo Pass, in the mountains south of Malia. The left flank of the British army spread out right over the Brailo Pass jto the Gulf of Corinth. With the surrender of the Greek army in Epirus, the British High Command had to make a rapid decision to form a shorter line, with the object of covering the retreat. A big German assault came in two prongs against the British line, one directed at Thermopylae and the other at Brailo. The New Zealanders who fought at Thermopylae said the sheer weight of numbers, combined with overwhelming air superiority, won the battle for the enemy. Our platoons were sometimes separated by one-third cf a mile, while, when we sent out patrols, five or six men encountered enemy patrols as strong as four hundred. We smashed plenty of tanks, but still they came on. The infantry was entirely Austrian, of poor quality—just cannon fodder. ’ ’ . : “We had not men to relieve cur troops,’’ an Australian said. The Germans got through,the Servia Pass by close infiltration, climbing over rocks up to and around the British positions.

STAND BY NEW ZEALANDERS For two days and nights, starting on Si. George's Day. the Now Zealanders fought a terrible battle in the pass, but their ordeal had not yet come to an end. They were called on for a supreme effort to hold the Corinth Canal Bridge, to enable the withdrawal cf the British forces to the Peloponnesus. After they had destroyed the bridge, they held off the German hordes and enabled the evacuation to go on in an orderly fashion. “At three different ports, the troops hid. throughout the day in Wheatfields among rocks, while German bombers tried to blast the harbour into a flaming ruin. Our convoy consisted of large merchantmen, cruisers and destroyers, all loaded, almost to their rigging. The R.A.F. and nurses were there too, and a number of Australian nurses. As the B.E.F. moved to the beaches, British I wounded who had been in Greek hospitals hobbled along to join them singing ‘Tipperary,’ and ‘Pack up your Troubles. - The embarkation went on throughout the day and night, while the ship zigzagged to avoid dive bombers. "Ashore, a R.A.F. surgeon operated for 36 hours in a church, with an operating table consisting of a stretcher placed on two chairs., while waves of German planes rained bombs on the town. TERRIFIC NAZI BOMBING “The Germans dropped mines into the harbour, bombed the docks, set fire to a Greek munition ship and strafed every inch of road and every acre of the adjoining fields. By the flickering light of the burning munition ship, the Navy handled the embarkation with its usual efficiency. We poured into ships surrounded by warcraft of all sizes. Fighters and fighter-bombers guarded the skies and drove off the dive-bomb-ers in dogfights. “The armada drew off the shores of Greece a couple of hours before dawn. ' “Nurses had shared with the troops the terrors of front-line bombing and ( bore the ordeal with the same heroism ' as the womenfolk of blitzed areas in ' Britain. “Imagine five thousand officers and ) men jammed into a cargo steamer and you get an idea of our overloaded ship. A brigadier told how Australian gunners, southward of Elbassan, found a dump and then a thousand rounds of 25-pounder ammunition and fired every round, causing a holocaust among the enemy. I “The ■ casualties of the Imperial forces would have been heavier if it had not been for the sappers blowing up bridges and delaying the German advance. The heroism of the rear- : guards was matched by that of the Royal Navy, which carried out the re- I embarkation at many points under the I heaviest bombing. Cruisers and des- S trovers fought, off dive-bombing attacks before the convoy reached its e destination.” J Mr McMillan adds that there are several causes for the failure of the c Balkan campaign—firstly, the curtail- E ment of our effort due to the German diversion in Libya; secondly. the Greeks could not stand the strain of mechanised, and air warfare against an I f( enemy vastly superior to the Italians: I thirdly, the numerical superiority of s i the Germans both on land and in the 11 air was too great. Hitler threw in T

masses of Austrians to bo killed, while Geering used vast numbers of planes as artillery and front-line strafers. Behind the lines, also, the Germans checked the R.A.F.’s counter-offensive by bombing every airfield we used.