'NOT ANOTHER DUNKIRK'

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1941, Page 9

'NOT ANOTHER DUNKIRK'

OFFICIAL EMPHASIS

FINE FEAT BY THE NAVY

LONDON, May 2.

The military spokesman in Cairo stated yesterday that the Imperial forces which withdrew against overwhelming odds from Greece remained almost intact, in spite of the hard /fighting, till they reached Thermopylae Pass. ' . .. •■ / ' ,•..•:"..■■." The spokesman emphasised that the evacuation was not another Dunkirk, ftecause not only were the majority of: the. troops evacuated, But also most of the light equipment was saved, and not a serviceable item of equipment was left for the Germans. The evacuation, he said, was a-fine feat for the Navy, for the Germans at the end were using 860 aeroplanes. The British lost aerodromes as they retreated, and then the Germans began bombing machines on the ground and finally attacking the Athens aerodrome every three minutes. "The withdrawal t to Thermopylae was successfully completed by April 20, thanks largely to the New Zealanders, who held their ground in spite of the fiercest attacks by a German armoured division, but it was obvious that without Greek assistance we could not hold that line with only two divisions against the enemy's five," the. spokesman said. "The final evacuation was carried out under the cover of a New Zealand brigade and an Australian brigade." "•■■":■■ Reliable observers from Greece estimate that the German losses were between 75,000 and 80,000. The Cairo correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that the evacuation of the Imperial forces proceeded with astonishing smoothness. Some reached the beach, on the Euripos Channel, south of Chalcis, where they were picked up by small boats, and qthers were taken off at places along the Aegean coast, but the bulk of the army cut across Attica to the region of Megara. Heavy bombings indicated that /the Germans suspected, the British were there, so instead of embarking, . the British moved-by night across the Isthmus of Corinth to the shores of the Aegean coast of Peloponnesus, mainly on the Gulf of Argos. The biggest embarkation was carried out there on the nights between April 24 and 27. —U.P.A.