CLASH WITH LEGION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 July 1941, Page 6

CLASH WITH LEGION

! STIFF ACTION IN SYRIA I AUSTRALIANS DRIVE FRENCH BACK. AFTER FIERCE ENCOUNTER. • Today, in a desperate attempt to slow up the advance of the Australians • p the coastal road, the French threw J in a battalion of the famous Foreign J (Legion, and a stiff action developed [south of Sidon (Saida) (states the I "Sydney Morning Herald's” war cor- ' respondent in a dispatch from Syria on June 1.1). The legionaries lived up to their reputation as thorough fighting men. and it was only after three hours' hard battling that the Western Australians succeeded in breaking through and driving them back. The legionaries made their stand where a rocky spur running down from the hills narrows the coastal plain to about 400 yards. This spur is honeycombed with deep caves known as the Phoenician Caves. The French had constructed a formidable defensive position. They had linked the caves .with narrow passageways and cut openings in the solid rock face of the cliffs for machine-gun emplacc- , ments. ' When our infantry came within . range they were met with a hail of . mortar and machine-gun fire, and, pin- ! ned down, they sent for artillery to support them. Twenty-five pounders plastered the caves with high explosive, and now the whole face of the cliff is pockmarked with shellbursts. A crater inside the mouth of the lar- ; gest cave shows where a lucky shot ,I burst. ' ADVANCE WITH BAYONETS. ' Under cover of this bombardment J the infantrymen advanced with the bayonet. They lost men. but they cleared the caves and the legionaries | retired, leaving a number of men in , our hands. I The majority of the Legionaries . were Frenchmen, but in one group I : saw a Czech, a German, and a Rus- ; sian. The German had been 12 years , in the Legion. Men I talked to told me that they , did not want to fight the British, and j that many had wanted to join the Free French. However, Vichy officers had taken most drastic measures to prevent this. A few who had tried to I cross the frontier had been caught and “made an example of." ’ This afternoon, ‘lying flat on my stomach in a field of young corn while , French shells burst, around. I watched ’ our infantry pressing forward towards . Sidon. About 3 o’clock, five French light tanks appeared ahead. We proceeded ! to shoot up the forward, company. With their two-pounder guns they made the situation uncomfortable for a while, but a troop of our 25-pound-ers came up and opened fire. Shells burst round the tanks in vicious clouds of dust and smoke. Discharges whirling across the hill-j side completely hid the tanks, and II thought that they had certainly been hit. However, when the smoke cleared I saw them scuttling bock over the crest of a rise as hard as they could go. -Good for the guns!" said a burly infantryman lying near me, and our line moved on again. A brigadier told me that the French now have a mobile detachment as a rearguard, which they are using very well. I examined some of their light tanks which we knocked out, and what I saw seemed to mo to prove the statement that they are “home-made" and badly armoured is unfounded. The tanks I saw were sturdy Renaults, with thick armour, and armed with a two-pound-er gun and a machine-gun. They looked useful fighting units. MAJOR ROUTS TANKS. At 3 o’clock this morning French tanks launched an attack on our line. They came down to the road from the hills which flank the narrow coastal plain on the cast and attacked our positions. An artillery major, who was pulled out of bed, came forward with his greatcoat over his pyjamas and saved the situation. “I was awakened with the news that there were tanks in our lines playing merry hell,” he told me. “I took one gun whose crew were 1 the pick of the battery and brought it : Up through our forward infantry. “We moved along the side of the ■ road, in low gear, making as little noise as possible, and when wo were j about 1000 yards from the French : strongpoints, I fired half a dozen > rounds along the road. “We then quickly moved up another 1 500 yards, on the way cleaning up a < house where the infantry told me a 1 sniper had been causing a number of ] casualties. j GUNS IN NO-MAN’S LAND. U “It was moonlight, but it was im- ( possible to pick out vehicles on the ( road, but I hoard tanks revving and j opened fire at about 300 yards—well j out in no-man’s land, where no gun had any business to be. “We got one tank and two motor \ vehicles, which went up in flames. [

The other tanks revved up hastily and made off. I took m5 r gun back as quickly as I could before they made things too hot for us. “On the way we ran into a French machine-gun nest and cleaned it up. Then I went back to bed. It was not a bad early morning’s work.” The Australian troops late this afternoon were within striking distance of an important road junction which they expected to take before nightfall. It is the junction where a lateral road joins the coastal road with the Damascus highway. When this junction is taken it will mean the linking cf the coastal force with the Australian column which crossed the frontier at Metulla and has been fighting round Merjiyun.