ISLAND OUTPOSTS OF THE ALLIES

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 199, 20 May 1941, Page 6

ISLAND OUTPOSTS OF THE ALLIES

Side by side with the Greek army, Imperial troops are garrisoning the Island of Crete, which has become an Allied outpost of the Eastern Mediterranean. These Imperial troops include a part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, whose G.0.C., General Freyberg, is in supreme command of the defences of Crete.. The island stronghold and temporary centre of Greek government is no longei, to the people of this country, a remote birthplace of ancient history and Athenian legend. Crete today is New Zealand s distant battlefront, just as it is a British bastion of the Near East. Crete is the fourth largest island of the Mediterranean (after Sicily, Sardinia and Cyprus). It is 160 miles in length fiom east to west, vet nowhere is it wider than 3a miles, and in some places as little as 74 miles separates the north and south coasts. . Inis rugged island is a natural fastness. It has been utilized as such down the centuries by fugitives from tyranny. But the io;e which contemporary events are preparing for Crete and its Allied guardians is not merely defensive. If the island is to block a German sea route from captured Greek ports to a pro-Axis Syria, it will do so not only as a fortress but also as a base for air and naval power. Crete and the British island of Cyprus, more than 300 miles to the east toward the Syrian coast, are as two great war vessels anchored across the enemy’s sea route to the Near East. It appeals to be Germany’s intention to attempt operations in Irak involving the maintenance of a more or less substantial military establishment there. Her present aerial sorties are taken to be preliminary to army moves in support of the rebel, Rashid Ali. This being so, the enemy is obliged to organize a regular supply system, in one or more of three possible ways—by air, by land across an acquiescent 7 urkey, or by sea to Tripoli-in-Syria and thence to Irak. Even supposing the Turkish Government were prepared to grant® right-of-way to the enemy, land transportation for supplies to Irak and ■ —what is equally important—for booty in the shape of oil from Irak, would present great difficulty. Air transportation for military supplies has its severe limitations and would be impracticable as a means of tapping the oil tonnage Germany covets. The principal and vital way. therefore, would seem to be the sea‘route from the 1 ripoli end of the Near East’s oil reticulation to Greece, via the eastern corner of the Mediterranean, and the Aegean. That way is guarded first by Cyprus, a strong naval and air base, and then (at the mouth of the Aegean) by Crete. At the moment —assuming that Hitler’s moves to gain a foothold in Irak develop Along the lines indicated by news from our headquarters east of Suez —the two islands are the principal stuinbLng block's of the enemy. The task of the British naval, air and land forces is to hold and employ those stumbling blocks; and in that task New Zealanders have been entrusted with a proud share.