GERMANS IN GREECE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 256, 28 October 1944, Page 1 (Supplement)

GERMANS IN GREECE

Position Daily Becoming More Precarious

HARRIED BY ALLIED FORCES

Rec. 5 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 27. It is officially stated at Allied Headquarters in the Mediterranean that the Germans who left Athens a fortnight ago are desperately attempting to join up with the forces in the Salonika area. If they accomplish this without considerable loss there will be a force of several thousand in Northern Greece, but the position of both forces becomes more precarious daily because Allied bombers and Partisans are cutting the overstrained railways and roads. If the Partisans succeed in cutting the escape routes, considerable German forces will be cut off in the north.

The Germans have almost no prospect of saving their forces on Crete, which are estimated at 14,000, or those on Rhodes, estimated at 4000, or their forces, estimated at 5000, on the other Aegean islands. German aircraft based on Salonika are trying to rescue trapped garrisons on the Dodecanese. islands, but Allied planes hamper their efforts.