HELL OF SHOT & SHELL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 93, 21 April 1941, Page 8

HELL OF SHOT & SHELL

FIGHTING IN GREECE

TERRIFIC NAZI LOSSES

GRAPHIC STORIES

» NEW ZEALANDERS' DEFENCE

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright.)

(Received April 21, 2.30 p.m.) LONDON, April 20.

"The Britons, New Zealanders, and Australians in Greece are facing mounting attacks with grim determination to which no words of praise do justice," says a "Daily Express" correspondent. "It is a case of fight, fight, fight, night end day. in a hell of shot and shell, and with German dive-bombers constantly over them. "The military situation is regarded as serious. The British, with the Greeks on their left flank, are still withdrawing in orderly fashion, maintaining an unbroken line under heavy German pressure. "According to well-informed, quarters in Cairo, the British evacuated Mount Olympus before the Germans took it. "Stories are continuing" to pour in of ■terrific German losses, A member of the Air Force who watched the battle on the slopes of Mount Olympus, said: 'I was in France, but I saw nothing like it there:' "In every valley graveyard some unit of the German army will be represented. Their losses were incredible. It was not a case of the battlefield being strewn with dead, hut of mountain passes choked with bodies, sometimes to a depth of three or four feet. Yet the Germans still came on, jolting their tanks and armoured cars over their own dead, with infantry surging behind." A former dairy farmer from the Auckland province graphically described to a correspondent of the British United Press in Athens how his small unit of machine-gunners and anti-tank gunners defeated, an attempt by German shock troops to force a passage in the vital sector of Mount Olympus. "We thought we had a cushy job defending a pass flanked by mountains, through which ran a river," he said, "but in the half-light of dawn the Germans launched an attack in boats under cover of a barrage from armoured cars. We sank boat after t boat, and -soon the river was teeming with sunken craft and swimming troops. The men got sick of killing. It was mass slaughter. Seeing that they could not cross the river, the Germans attacked from the west, using parachutists carrying tommy-guns with terrific fire-power. Our positions seemed to be in danger until my captain blasted the leader of the parachutists with an anti-tank gun. whereupon the others withdrew. We continued to hold our position."

The Athens newspaper "Ethnos" declares that the Allies have been reinforced with new troops and supplies and in many instances are not only resisting the enemy but counter-attack-ing, inflicting heavy losses.

As the Greek forces withdraw from Albania, the Italians follow cautiously at a safe distance.