VERITABLE HELL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 102, 2 May 1941, Page 8

VERITABLE HELL

GREEK "DUNKIRK"

THE LAST DAYS IN

ATHENS

LIKE A NIGHTMARE .LONDON, May 1. 1 Further dispatches about the evacuation of the Empire forces from Greece have been received. One correspondent who embarked in a convoy from a port south of Athens said that the last few days in the capital were almost like a nightmare. Airraid sidens screamed continuously as the Nazi bombers dropped their bombs on Piraeus and outlying towns. The correspondent said that-they had expected some hostility, or at least resentment, from the Athenians, but nothing could have been further from the case. Women, with tears streaming from their eyes, shook hands with the troops, wishing them good luck and begging them to come back soon. All the troops foji badly at leaving such gallant people to suffer even temporarily under the yoke of Nazi domination. WELL-PROTECTED CONVOYS. When the first troops reached the shore the first thing they saw was a ship blazing in the harbour from the previous day's dive-bombing. They scattered and hid themselves in the. countryside, which the Nazi bombers turned into a veritable hell. Before they left their positions they destroyed their transport vehicles and joined the long steady columns marching towards the port. When they reached the quayside they found that»their ship had hit a sandbank, and all efforts to get her off failed. But the Royal Navy was equal to the emergency, and the men were crammed on board another ship. Their convoy had the finest possible protection. The correspondent added that the sight of their cruiser's guns ready trained was the most comforting thing he had seen for a long time. : Another correspondent paid a tribute to the heroism of the Royal Navy, which carried out the embarkation at many points under heavy bombing. Troops who had tramped many miles across the mountain?, he said, were taken off at beaches all along the eastern shores of Greece. The ships sailed in to fulfil their task, dead on time and according to plan.