PARACHUTE TROOPS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 121, 24 May 1941, Page 10

PARACHUTE TROOPS

ATTACKS IN GREECE NO NOVELTY TO N.Z. FORCES (M.Z.E.F. Official News. Service) CAIRO, May 22. The reaction of the New Zealand Army to the artifice of Germans wearing its uniform in order to make an attack upon positions that it is holding is simply this: "We know they are Germans, and their manner of dress is immaterial. They were treated the same as any other- Germans." Parachutists are not exactly a novelty to New Zealand troops, who have experienced them in Greece, where they attacked by this means at Olympus and the Corinth Canal. On the first occasion several hundred were dropped in the New Zealand lines dressed in shorts and shirts. They were unfortunate, as the New Zealand troops were clad in battle dress. There was no element of surprise, as the Germans arrived at 9.30 o clock on a bright, sunny morning and chose a place where our most seasoned troops were deployed. With the aid of automatic weapons, quite a few were picked off before they landed, and the remainder were rounded up without difficulty. At Corinth the attack was more methodical and carried out in greater force. Our troops were resting and had been dispersed, having just withdrawn across the canal. Suddenly a large number of bombers appeared in the sky and for nearly three hours systematically bombed the area. Huge troop-carrying aeroplanes then came down to within 200 ft and dropped parachute troops, with a red parachute here and there among them. Around the red parachutes the men gathered in small units and they used bomb craters as cover. Guns and ammunition had been dropped at the same time, and, employing these, the Germans provided for the landing of carrier aeroplanes. New Zealand small arms fire killed hundreds, but the men that were there could not cope with the sheer weight of numbers they faced and the armament that suddenly opposed them, so they were forced to retreat. The number of the enemy was estimated at possibly 1000 and they hoped to block the New Zealanders' withdrawal by seizing the bottle-neck at Corinth, but in this they were disappointed. In the fierce guerilla warfare that ensued the New Zealanders were able to retain the advantage for as long as was necessary.