INDIAN TROOPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 June 1941, Page 5

INDIAN TROOPS

MOVING INTO IRAQ ROYAL AIR FORCE INSTALLED AT MOSUL. VICHY REPORTS CANADIANS IN SYRIA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, June 14. An Ankara report states that the British are moving into Iraq at good speed. The Royal Air Force is installed in force at Mosul. Troops, mostly Indians, are coming up from Basra and Bagdad by boat and train and others are flying to Mosul and Habbania. British motorised troops are stationed at bases throughout the country, including Kirkuk, and form the nucleus of what apparently will grow into a much greater expeditionary force. A Vichy communique states that Canadians are participating in the at- ■ tack in the region of Merj lyun (there is no confirmation from other sources that Canadians are in Syria), also that British and Free French pressure has been accentuated on all fronts. The Beirut radio quoted General Dentz as issuing a communique that “a brilliant counter-attack had dislodged the enemy from the outskirts of Sidon, the Vichy forces reoccupying their former positions.” The “Daily Mail’s” correspondent on the Syrian frontier says the Vichy forces are fighting without a com* mander-in-chief, General de Verdilloc, friend of Marshal Petain, who was appointed to succeed General Fougeres, never having arrived.