PARACHUTE TROOPS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 107, 8 May 1941, Page 3

PARACHUTE TROOPS

HOW THEY OPERATE

MAORIS AS EVIvWITNK.SSKS

A party of Maoris that had been , attached to a brigade for special! duties described a landing of para-! chute troops which they witnessed: south of Corinth Canal. I Our tioops had withdrawn across the canal and were resting, when' suddenly clouds of bombers appeared j in the sky. They circled over the! area, bombing it constantly for' nearly three hours. Then came huge' troop-carrying aeroplanes. which' came down to OOOft and dropped parachute troops. Several para-' chutes failed to open, which was: just too bad. However, hundreds did! open, and here and there was a red i parachute, about which Hie others : gathered when they landed. Here j and there shell holes which the! bombers had made were used as' machine-gun-pits. i Guns and ammunition had come j down with the troops and these were used to cover the landing of huge 1 carrier aeroplanes, which disgorged fully equipped troops and small armoured cars. Our small arms fire killed hundreds of the Germans, but with most of our equipment already abandoned, our troops could not cope with the sheer weight of numbers and armament which sudden!v opposed them. They pulled out and continued the withdrawal covered by the withering fire of our fighting rearguards.