VARIOUS REPORTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 June 1941, Page 5

VARIOUS REPORTS

SOME CLAIMS BY VICHY Disputed DEFECTIONS TO THE ALLIES CONTINUE. RESISTANCE BEING REDUCED. LONDON. June 10. The Free French expect that the Allies will enter Damascus tonight or tomorrow. Reports from Beirut indicate a heavy artillery battle not far south of Sidon. Military circles in Vichy claim that the British coastal advance is held on the line of the River Litani. They state that air reinforcements which have been flov/n direct from Tunis, North Africa, give General Dentz an air strength almost equal to the British. A communique from Beirut declares that the British efforts to advance along the coast were defeated, but reports from Cairo say that demolitions on the coastal road have now been overcome and the advance is proceeding. The British and de Gaulleite forces now comprise several divisions, one of which is mechanised. It is authoritatively stated in Ankara that British troops from Iraq have reached the Turkish-Syrian border near Kamechlie, gaining control of the Turkish-Iraq railway. Vichy admits that the defenders of El Kuneitra and Sheikh Miskin, near the southern frontier, have retreated after a brilliant delaying action. French. Syrian and other colonial troops are apparently joining the Allies in considerable numbers, and' others are surrendering after nominal resistance or going over to the Allies on a kind of neutral basis —“neither with you nor against you.” The latest assessment in Cairo is that the attitude of the Arabs and the Druse tribes is generally favourable, but the French are 50-50 for de Gaulle and for Vichy. A senior officer of the Lebanese gendarmerie who joined the Allies, declared: “If the number of French officers and men joining the Allies continues at the rate of the past two days the resistance will be reduced to nothing and Dentz will have no alternative to surrender.” Many of the native troops are returning to their homes.