FLORAL WELCOME

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 84, 10 April 1945, Page 5

FLORAL WELCOME

R.A.F. IN CRETE Penned-In Germans Sell Arms To Guerillas N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, April 9. Cretans decorated with flowers the first R.A.F. Greece-based Hurricane to land on an airfield there since the Allied evacuation of the island in 1941, says Reuters correspondent at Allied Mediterranean Headauarters. The R.A.F. is now, for the first time since the evacuation, using an airfield which was the scene of vicious fighting during the German airborne landings in 1941. The Cretans, after the 10,000 Germans remaining there were pinned down at the western end of the island, helped to prepare a landing-strip on the liberated part of the island. After the first Hurricane landed a regular service of supplies was maintained by R.A.F. Dakotas. Hundreds of British troops who were left behind after the evacuation in 1941 have already been brought out by the R.A.F. A British officer commanding the Cretan guerillas contacted the penned-in Germans, who agreed to sell their arms, says the Associated Press Rome correspondent. .We bought guns, ammunition, vehicles and stores of every description, the officer said. "Hundreds of Germans came over to us when the bottom fell out of the Balkans for them. One drove up in the Gestapo chief s car. lam now using it myself. The Germans who are bottled up on the western side of the island have told the Cretans that they know Germany is beaten. They have food for several months and reckon to last out the war there.