PARACHUTE LANDING
BELATED ENEMY ATTEMPT IN GREECE FAILURE TO BAR RETREAT OF NEW ZEALANDERS. SOME INDIVIDUAL DASHES FOR LIBERTY. (From the Official War Correspondent with the N.Z.E.F. in the Middle East.) CAIRO. May 15. Every day has brought more evidence to show how flat fell the last desperate enemy bid to decimate the rearguard of the British evacuation from Greece. This was a mass landing of parachute troops on the Corinth isthmus in an obvious endeavour to cut the retreat in the rear while the main German forces drove toward Athens. It is now clear that the parachutists s landed at a time when they had no • opportunity to disrupt any large re- : tiring column. The bulk of the New ■ Zealanders were already on the water ■or approaching the embarkation beaches in southern Greece. The only other large force was still north of Athens, harassing and delaying the German advance till the moment came ’ to withdraw through the city to the eastern beaches. A small mixed force, including New Zealand cavalry, infantry and engineer detachments which had been posted to protect the isthmus roads, bore the brunt of the parachute troops’ at- - tack and inflicted considerable casualties. One captured cavalry officer told me how the parachutists were marching him in a small party of prisoners along a road through a cutting when a South Island infantry section opened fire over their heads. The prisoners took cover while their rescuers cleaned up the German guards. Another New Zealander in a British party made a successful dash for liberty after their vehicle was held up in a village, and there were many similar escapes. New Zealanders who witnessed the parachute landing at close range said the operation was as smoothly managed as an event at a peace time military demonstration. It began at 6.45 a.m. with an intense air attack over a circle about 550 acres in extent. For more than an hour low-flying planes, never less than 50 in number, assailed every likely spot of cover with bombs, bullets and even hand grenades. Then nine great slow machines appeared over the circle, dropping by parachute containers apparently holding supplies. “More big lumbering planes in formationsc of nine next came over, shedding parachutists like feathers," said an observer. “Each held about 35 men, who dropped from a few hundred feet. Some of the planes were towing' gliders which held the same number of troops. Estimated at over a thousand, the whole force was on the ground in less than an hour.- The troops rallied immediately round their leaders, who were distinguished by reddish-brown parachutes.”
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 May 1941, Page 4
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432PARACHUTE LANDING Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 May 1941, Page 4
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