RESISTANCE ENDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 121, 18 November 1943, Page 5

RESISTANCE ENDS

ALLIES ON LEROS

SURRENDER TO GERMANS (B^ Telegraph—Press Assoclation-fCfcpyright.) Rec. 10 a.m. LONDON, Nov. 17.

A\ Middle East communique states that all organised resistance or. the Dodecanese island of .Leros has ceased.

Berlin radio stated that the British and Italian garrison of Leros capitulated, and added that 3000 British and 5000 Italians laid down their arms, and that the war material captured includes 130 guns. A special communique from Hitler's headquarters claimed that 200 British officers and 3000 non-commissioned Officers and men under the British commander of the island, General Tillney, and also 350 Italian officers and 5000 non-commissioned officers and men under the Italian Admiral Masharpa surrendered to the Germans. The communique added that the Germans captured 16 British heavy anti-aircraft guns, 20 light anti-aircraft guns, about 120 other guns, and 80 anti-aircraft machine-guns. German naval forces and the air force destroyed during the preliminary fight nine destroyers and escort vessels, two patrol vessels, two submarines, one gunboat, four merchantmen, and several small supply ships. They also hit one cruiser, one destroyer, and two escort ships. "Once again concentrated air power overwhelmed the ground resistance, as it did in Crete," says the military correspondent of the British United Press, commenting on the fall of Leros. "It was not the attacks from the enemy's ground forces, which mostly were held, but the aerial bombardment that finally smashed the Allied resistance." NAZI TRUMPETING. Reuters military correspondent says that the Leros episode, is of no real military importance, but will give the German propaganda an opportunity for some trumpeting. The position of British troops on Samos becomes more exposed as a result of the loss of Leros. Berlin radio claims that Samos, the only major island in the Aegean Sea which is left in Allied hands, is isolated by the' capture of Leros. "The British had occupied not only the entire Dodecanese but also many of the islands in the Cyclades and Sporades Groups,"- it said. "All these are again in German hands, with the exception of Castelrosso, close to the coast of Asia Minor, although they were stubbornly defended by the British Fleet and air forces." The German news agency declares that Leros strategically was the most important of all the islands in this area. It was a base for control of the eastern entry into the Aegean. Giving details of the surrender of Leros.'the German overseas radio said that British and Italian envoys arriyed at the German headquarters carrying white flags and agreed to the German commander's demand for unconditional surrender. "The surrender followed four days of tremendous warfare," it said. "The German High Command threw in shock troops and parachutists, supported by strong air formations of bombers and stukas. Motor torpedoboats and light naval units were also successfully emplo^'ed. The losses among the British and Italians are reported to have been very heavy."