Enemy Made To Pay Very High Price

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 143, 19 June 1941, Page 7

Enemy Made To Pay Very High Price

LUFTWAFFE'S TEETH BLUNTED

LONDON, June lb.

Replying in the House of Lords today to a debate on Grete, Lord Moyne said that in Greece, and in Crete especially, the enemy dead numbered more than four times the British losses in killed, and exceeded the total British losses of killed, wounded, and missing. The British force lost relatively little material, and that had to be put against the tremendous price the Germans had to pay in losing at least 430 of their costliest type of aircraft.

Great numbers of highly specialised German personnel had been killed in these operations, he said, and in spite of the enemy's start in training and material, it was clear that for the moment the teeth of the Luftwaffe had been blunted.

Lord Moyne emphasised that these operations had given four valuable months in which to strengthen the main defences of the Suez Canal and the Nile Valley. In the eastern Mediterranean a great volume of transports from Britain, the Empire, and the United States had poured in material .which far exceeded the British losses.

The future, he said, might show that the fighting in Greece and Crete had not only caused a serious setback to Herr Hitler's eastern plans, but might bring about their final wreck.

Aircraft and ground troops had been working for some time in cooperation, and that co-operation was now being developed with armoured troops.

Every effort would be made to avoid in the future the terrible experience the British armies had had to undergo at the expense of inadequate support in the field.