ESCAPE FROM TRAP.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 200, 1 June 1940, Page 5

ESCAPE FROM TRAP.

FRENCH ARMY VANGUARD.

FLOODED AREAS DELAY NAZIS.

LONDON, May 31

Through an ever-narrowing corridor north-west of Lille to Dunkirk tho rearguard of the British Expeditionary Force and French forces is still fighting grimly to join the*troops already evacuating. The Germans are reported to have launched 1,000,000 men and their entire armoured divisions in a final assault on a line across the corridor of 12 miles from north-east of Cassel to Popeiinghe. A French military authority said the vanguard of General Prioux’s army, which is fighting the chief of the isolated rearguard actions outside the narrowing perimeter round Dunkirk, had blasted its way from a German trap in a furious tank battle and reached Dunkirk.

The remainder are reported to bcfollowing, although it is admitted that the Germans arc advancing near Cassel and threaten to isolate this force.

Midnight reports from French military circles said the British troops resisting behind the flooded Yser region, protecting the flank of the French forces in the corridor of Dunkirk, were holding out magnificently in spite of attacks by hundreds of German aeroplanes. The Allied action in flooding tho regions round Dunkirk is taking effect. Tjho -whole area south-westward of Dunkirk from the neighbourhood of Gravelines to St. Omer has reverted to the huge marsh of 20 centuries ago, v.lien it held up Caesar’s legions.

To the. north-east the water-line stretches from Nicuport to Ypres along the Yser Valley for a width of two to three miles. Thousands of tons of water have been pouring into this region each tide for 48 hours, and the countryside has been flooded to a depth of several feet, checking the German tanks and infantry and allowing the release of troops to assist in the defence of the Flanders hills. A French spokesman said every hour the hills were hold gave General Prioux’s army a greater chance of escape. His troops were literally cutting their way through the German troops, often fighting on all sides simultaneously. Progress was slow but they were moving, leaving behind little centres of resistance amid a network of canals and towns which were breaking the German pressure on the main force.