New Italian Offensive Smashed

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23177, 14 November 1940, Page 7

New Italian Offensive Smashed

ENEMY IN RETREAT ON KORITZA FRONT (CNITKD PRESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT.) (Received November 13, 11.15 p.m.) LONDON, November 13. This morning’s Greek communique states that on the Pindus front the Greeks are holding their positions and continue to mop up Italian stragglers. In one case a whole company of Albanians surrendered to the Greeks without a struggle. Greek military circles consider the escape of 4000 to 5000 Italians from the Pindus pocket not an unmixed evil, because they will return to their bases without weapons, ragged, and semi-starved, with tales of the avalanches of rocks which the Evzones dynamited from the heights above the ravines. Their panic is likely to shake the morale of the Italian Reinforcements, who will be further depressed when the river waters bear through the Albanian valleys the bodies of hundreds of their comrades, who were supposed to be making a triumphant progress through Greece. The Greeks are believed to have smashed a new Italian offensive on the extreme right wing of the Koritza front, causing the retreat of an entire Italian division. The Italians are reported to have lost 12 officers and 630 men, and quantities of equipment.

The Rome correspondent of the Associated Pr66S of America says more than 100 Italian aeroplanes participated in attacks against the Greek strongholds, especially the triangular mountain sector bounded by Fiorina, Kastoria, and Lake Presba. Italian dispatches Claim that enormous losses have been inflicted on marching columns in various sectors.

The Italian radio says the improved weather has resulted in intense strategic air raids against the Greek positions. Italian aeroplanes, in spite of fierce antiaircraft lire, bombed heavy artillery positions from low altitudes in the Epirus sector, and also machine-gunned and bombed columns of troops In Macedonia.