GREEKS' FINE STAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 92, 19 April 1941, Page 10

GREEKS' FINE STAND

AID OF MATERIALS

BOOTt FROM NORTH AFRICA

(British Official Wireless.) (Received April 19, 1 p.m.) RUGBY, April 18. It js now revealed that the magnificent \resistance put up by the Greek forces has to some extent been possible owing to the transfer for ttie use of Greece of a considerable quantity of the immense stores of arms, ammunition, and equipment which were captured from the Italians in General Wavell's victorious sweep in North Africa, when enemy forces numbering 180,000 men were put out of action.

This equipment has also, probably, been put to good use by the patriot forces in Abyssinia.

The rapid liquidation of the East African campaign could not have been achieved so expeditiously but for the fact that Libya had already been swept clear of enemy forces, and in its turn the reduction of the Italian- resistance in East Africa made it possible for President Roosevelt to declare the Red Sea to be outside the combat zone which was forbidden to American shipping.

A further general consideration of which the full significance only now is being realised is that General Wavell's Libyan successes made it necessary for the Germans to support their tottering ally in North Africa and resulted in further dispersal of the German forces—a process the cumulative effects of which have 'become important.