NOT NUMEROUS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 April 1942, Page 4

NOT NUMEROUS

AXIS TROOPS IN LOWER BALKANS INCLUDING BROKEN UNITS FROM RUSSIA. MOVEMENT OF AIR PERSONNEL TO AFRICA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m.) LONDON, April 5. Axis military concentrations in the Lower Balkans and the Aegean Archipelago have nowhere reached invasion strength, says the Associated Press of Great Britain correspondent in Istanbul, quoting a reliable source. There are at present only 10,000 German troops in Bulgaria. They consist largely of broken units removed from Russia. Bulgaria is reported to have fourteen divisions under arms, four of which are in Yugoslavia. The Bulgarian Army has received little mechanised equipment from Germany and therefore is still largely a “small arms and artillery army.” Italians predominate among the small Axis forces in Greece. There has been a considerable movement of German ail’ personnel to Salonika. Most of these have been to Crete and thence to Africa. It is estimated that there are only 10,000 Germans in the Aegean Archipelago. The Italian garrison in the Dodecanese Islands is estimated to number 50,000 men, largely concentrated in Rhodes and Leros.