RAPID STRIDES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 June 1941, Page 5

RAPID STRIDES

MADE BY ALLIES IN SYRIA THE' DEVELOPING THREAT TO BEIRUT. INDICATIONS OF LAST STAND BY VICHY FORCES. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON. June 27. The Vichy correspondent of the Associated Press says it is .admitted that British forces have penetrated 5(1 miles northward from Damascus to Ennebk, which is halfway between the capital and Homs. British planes bombed the railway at Homs early yesterday morning. An Allied pincers movement threatens Beirut. One column is now approaching Dimas, 12 miles along the road from Damascus. The Australian force has already reached Deirkanon, some distance north-west of Damascus. A correspondent watched Australian gunners send salvos shrieking into Vichy mountain strongholds. The replying shells from French 75's seemed poor, many not exploding. Australian infantry co-operated with a British regiment of the line in the recapture of Merj lyum. The townspeople fled to the hills when nine planes bearing French markings but piloted by Germans raided Merj lyum immediately after its reoccupation. British mechanised units are still skirmishing around the valuable airfield at Palmyra, meeting resistance from planes. Life behind the fronts in Syria and Lebanon is rapidly returning to normal. Food is arriving from Palestine and the cafes are reopening. Women and children have reappeared in the streets to greet the Imperial soldiers. The indications arc that the Vichy commander, General Dentz, is preparing his last major stand in the rugged Damour section in a desperate effort to save Beirut. The battle in the mountains may decide whether the Syrian campaign will end swiftly or drag on till late summer. General Dentz is not well placed strategically, because the Lebanon heights run north and south parallel with the coast, thus enabling the Allies to push up from Merj lyum and also along the coastal plain simultaneously. The bulk of General Dentz's Damascus army is retreating to Damour. He is believed still to possess strong mechanised forces and an army, of 25,000 native troops. He is also receiving fighter and bomber reinforcements flown from France, via Sardinia. Brindisi, Rhodes and Aleppo.

DE GAULLE IN DAMASCUS. The leader of the Free French forces, General de Gaulle, spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Damascus, where he received members of the Syrian Government, the Chamber of Deputies and religious leaders. He told them he would implement his promise of independence and assured them that measures would be taken to improve the economic situation of the country. The British United Press correspondent with the forces in Syria reports that captured documents reveal differences of opinion about the strategy to be adopted among the staff officers of General Dentz. The officers apparently were divided on the extent to which ressitance was able to be maintained in the Beirut area. Most of the bombs dropped in a German raid on Damascus fell on one of the most heavily-populated quarters in which there are no military objectives. All troops had already been evacuated from the city. The raid caused widespread anger among the Arabs. Bombs are reported to have fallen on a mosque and on an historic tomb.

RAID ON DAMASCUS HEAVY CASUALTIES REPORTED. HAIFA. June 27. The casualties in the Damascus air raid on Thursday were sixty dead and a hundred injured. A hundred houses were destroyed. Bombs also fell on the outskirts of Ihe city and directly hit five houses, killing 27 of the 32 tenants. A Reuter message states that 70 were killed in the German raid on Damascus.