BRITISH FORCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 June 1941, Page 5

BRITISH FORCE

AUSTRALIANS INCLUDED SOME REPORTS FROM VICHY & ELSEWHERE. ALLIES ADVANCING ON TWO LINES. (Received This Day. 10.55 a.m.) LONDON. June 8. Il is authoritatively stated that Sir H. M. Wilson’s force consists of Australians, Indians, and Free French. General Dentz has 45.000 troops, of whom one-third or one-quarter are white: also tanks and a small air force. A Vichy message says the Allied troops are advancing in a pincer movement, one force driving north from Lake Tiberias and the other from Trans-Jordan. It is officially stated in Vichy that the Allied forces total about 20,000. General Dentz is personally commanding the French troops. There are reports of heavy fighting in the Jebel Druse Mountains, along the frontier south of Suweideh, between Vichy troops and Free French troops. A French communique issued at Beirut states: "British forces attacked the southern frontiers of Syria and Lebanon at 3.45 a.m. and established contact with our advance posts, which continued to fight. British planes bombed an airport near Damascus, causing some damage and casualties.” A Rome radio message reports fierce fighting south of Kuneitirah. The Associated Press of Great Britain Vichy correspondent states that a Government statement refers to "this new act of unjustified aggression against the French Empire," and adds that General de Gaulle’s forces, under General Catroux, are in the van of the attack. There are no German troops in Syria, it is added, and all the German planes have left except four, which were damaged.