NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 114, 16 May 1941, Page 8

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

BRITAIN'S PART

CAMPAIGNS ON LAND

INTERESTING FIGURES

While the fateful part the • Vichy Government of France is j playing in the war was sufh ficiently indicated in yesterday's I • notes, anticipating the develop* ments in the Middle East reported today, the news officially . gives interesting and important figures of the more honourable part Britain took in the two 5 major campaigns in Europe last I year. i The two campaigns were in Norway ; in April and in the Lowlands and France in May and early June. So „ rapid has been the movement ,of r events since that the story of these • campaigns has been temporarily overl shadowed. It is recalled by the figures, - announced today, for the British troops - who landed on the Continent, the I number who returned, and the nura- • ber who were taken prisoner. The balance must be regarded as casualties in the field. The figures given were these:— 5 France. —437,000 sent; 384,000 return--1 ed, 40,000 prisoners. 3 Norway.—24,ooo sent; 22,600 returned. " 950 prisoners. • Figures for France. Behind these bald figures is, of course, the whole heroic, tragic tale ', and toll of war. So far as one can re- ; call, the figures for Norway have never ' been given before, while the figures \ for France differ from those issued ' after Dunkirk, which did not end British help to the French. The ! Canadian Division was part of the reinforcements sent to the French to help : to defend the "Weygand Line" along ' the Somme, Oise, and Aisne in the ! first week of June, 1940.' The evacua--1 tion of Dunkirk took place from May 29 to June 4. The number evacuated was given then as 335,000, but this in- . eluded some French troops. In the • subsequent operations, with the Geri mans advancing swiftly to the Seine, a Scottish division was cut off on the • Channel coast south of the Somme and part of it had to surrender at St. ; Valery. The Canadian division was re-embarked practically intact, and other ti'oops got away from ports of Brittany arid at the mouth of the Loire. The total of 447,000 was far higher i than the number of British troops who took part in operations in France in the first eight months of the last • war. The original British Expedition- . ary Force to France in 1914, the Kaiser's "contemptible little army" at Mons, was 84,000. The Norway Campaign. The first real clash of Allied troops with the Nazis was in Norway. The Germans made a surprise descent on. Norway by seizing the ports on April 9, 1940, and then, with rapid reinforcements by sea and air, endeavoured to occupy the country as. quickly as possible —the forerunner of a plan of campaign which has been used successfully since. Trondheim was thfe key, and it is possible that if the Allies— for France sent a force of Alpine troops—had managed to get there first, or to oust the Germans before they could establish themselves strongly, the result of the whole campaign might have been different and subsequent disasters elsewhere avoided. A direct Allied naval attack on Trondheim was ruled out, and landings were made on both sides of the port, but far away, at Andalsnes to the south and Namsos to the north. Narvik, the iron lore port in the far north, was attacked on April 10 and 13, troops were landed on April 14, 16, and 18, but Narvik was not captured until May 28. By that time the Germans in Franc* had already reached the English Channel and outflanked the Maginot Line, malting practically certain the pos» session of the Lorraine ironfields, and rendering the Allied retention of Narvik useless. So troops were withdrawn, from Narvik on June 10, and a heroic episode in British naval history was over. 1 Andalsnes and Namsos. Meanwhile, the advance of the Allies in Trondheim, the only place where they could have got airfields and a port whereat to land heavy military material, had definitely failed. Little progress had been made south from Namsos, but the Andalsnes contingent —purely British—struck inland, seized. Dombas junction, commanding the main railway from Oslo to Trondheim, and pushed down the Gudbrandsdal to meet overwhelming German forces advancing up, at Lillehammer. Lacking airfields andxa suitable base, the Allied forces, outnumbered also, were withdrawn from both Namsos and Andalsnes on May 2. In both cases the withdrawals were made under bombardment from the air. Heavy equipment had to be left and there were naval losses. The landings had been made only on April 16 to 19, barely a fortnight before. All the circumstances considered, the losses both in Norway and France had been astonishingly small, but the loss of prestige and of friendly territory was much more serious. Libya and Greece. The most successful British cam* paign was that in Libya from December, 1940, to February, 1941, when a force, described by Mr. Churchill as of roughly two divisions—3o,ooo men —took nearly 200,000 prisoners and conquered a colony, with a total loss to themselves of about 1000. British losses were larger when the Italians, reinfox-ced and stiffened by Germans, with armoured units, swept back into Cyrenaica and ousted from the greater part of the province the much-depleted" Imperial force. The exact figures for the abortive j Greek campaign have not yet been pubj lished. It has been stated that the [British Imperial forces did not exceed ' 60.000—one statement gives 58,000—and those who returned safe have been placed as high as 48,000 and as low as 41,000. It is believed that the number is not less than 45,000, There were two Anzac divisions—one New Zealand and I one Australian. Sir Thomas Blarney, the Australian Commander-in-Chief, has stated that the total Australian losses were not more than 3000. The Germans claim to have taken 8000 prisoners. The losses at sea were two destroyers and three transports—two of them empty. Once more, under the circumstances, the losses on all counts are surprisingly low. The dairy committee of the Southern Hawke's Bay Farmers' Union decided to send a remit to Dominion head quarters asking the union to take up with the Government the advisability or otherwise of getting part of the population in Britain not assisting in the war effort sent to New Zealand as a means of assisting in the disposal of the unexportable surplus of food- '

stuffs, states a Dannevirke Press Association message. -