COASTAL DANGER

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 134, 9 June 1942, Page 5

COASTAL DANGER

ADVICE TO THE FRENCH

LIKELY TO BECOME WAR THEATRE

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copy right.)

(Rec. 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, June 8. The 8.8.C., broadcasting in French, urged all French people immediately to evacuate the coastal districts from the Belgian frontier to the Pyrenees.

"The coastal regions of occupied France are in danger of becoming more and more the theatre of war operations," it was stated. "It is impossible, for obvious reasons, to state in advance either the time or the place of such operations. They will be carried out at the right moment, wherever they are judged to be useful, and inevitably they will entail very great danger for the civilian population. We don't under-estimate the difficulties of such an evacuati6n, nor the obstacles which will be put in your way. If we ask you to surmount them, it is because it is necessary for the success of operations of capital importance in the struggle for the liberation of France. It has been shown time and time again that the presence of civilians on the scene of military operations gravely impedes the activity of troops, especially friendly troops." s

The announcer urged those who were unable to leave to do everything to preserve their lives because they would be needed by the armies of liberation. «. A message from the French frontier reports that the Nazis are planting minefields and constructing forts in the Russian style in a strip of the French coastal area 25 miles deep. A second defence line run£ between the Ailette and the Aisne, and a third line along the Meuse. The Siegfried Line is maintained in readiness. Evacuation plans have been prepared for French people on the coast.