TURKEY IN DANGER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 January 1942, Page 3

TURKEY IN DANGER

GERMANS CONCENTRATING MANY TROOPS IN THRACE. NEW AIRPORTS IN GREECE & ISLANDS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, December 31. An Ankara message states that the Germans are concentrating troops in Western Thrace. Some reports say that between 12 and 15 divisions, including Italians, have been assembled. The Germans are also stated to be increasing their air force personnel at Jambol aerodrome, 50 miles from the Turkish frontier, and also their naval personnel at Varna and other’ Bulgarian Black Sea ports. Other German troops are reported to have arrived in southern Rumania from Russia. The Istanbul correspondent of the Associated Press says a traveller from Greece informed the Allied authorities that the Germans are building new airports in Greece and the Greek islands close to Turkey, and are also practising air invasion tactics similar to those used against Crete. New air bases have been constructed in the occupied Greek islands of Mytilene, Chios, and Samos, all of which are under 15 minutes’ flying time from western Turkey. New airfields with reinforced concrete runways surround these airports. The traveller saw the Germans extensively practising with gliders attached to aeroplanes, each glider being capable of carrying a lorry, a small tank, or twenty soldiers. The German commandant in Athens has requisitioned 3000 rooms for air personnel, which are reported to be expected from Russia.

The Germans are also operating a considerable number of submarines, the parts of which were transported overland for use in the Aegean Sea. Large stores of bombs and torpedoes are reported to have been built up in various coastal districts, and French artillery from the Maginot Line has been installed in Grecian Thrace, where a large number of German troops and marines were also recently quartered. _________