LAST TO LEAVE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 102, 2 May 1941, Page 9

LAST TO LEAVE

RESOURCEFUL GREEKS

MACEDONIAN RETREAT

SEA ROUTE TO SAFETY

The Greek retreat by sea from Macedonia and Thrace was described by the 'London "Daily Telegraph's" special correspondent as one of the least known but most extraordinary feats of the war. His dispatch was written as the operation was being brought to a close.

He explained that most of the Greek army holding the northern frontier were able to withdraw from around Salonika Bay. He could himself have gone with the General Staff's equipment and the majority of the troops but chose to take the chance of embarking with what he calls the "ragamuffin flotilla." To save the heavy equipment of the artillery and to accomplish thoroughly the work of sabotage, relatively small Greek, forces had to hold the beach during the withdrawal. When the surrender of Salonika was imminent these men, having loyally done their job as ' a stop-gap, were given the choice of yielding to the Germans or making their way to the sea, where a motley assortment of vessels of all sizes awaited them. v Some refused both alternatives and went' on fighting. This gallant rearguard action, which was strictly, voluntary, had the effect of slowing the German progress westward into the Fiorina Gap. HUNDREDS GOT AWAY. The withdrawal by sea began 48 hours after the last bridge over, the Cestos had been blown up and mobile retreat westward voluntarily cut off. The first of the boats left Salonika Bay three hours before the Germans arrived, with firing already' audible in the suburbs, and with >an unearthly glare from the oil tanks fired by the British demolition experts reddening the sea. ■ Caiques, as the Greeks call their small fishing boats, were the principal conveyances. There was no shore organisation—only haste. The retreat was organised upon the waves. Majors and colonels upon poops of dozens of craft, most of them less than 40ft long, talked over the situation with old island salts. Meals consisting of soft black bread and oranges, with hard tack as dessert, were served by passengers tossing the food from hand to hand. On the second night the sea grew rough, and the cold was too great for sleep upon the rainswept crowded < decks. Before dawn came the craft upon which he himself was,.had picked her way into the harbour of a landlocked island far to south., Cool, well-managed retreat by scores of invaluable officers and hundreds of valuable men. determined to fight the Germans again, he said, was little; known, but for him it was proof of Greek resourcefulness, co-operation, and capacity to think fast when hard pressed.