COMMUNICATIONS SABOTEURS

Evening Star, Issue 25323, 3 November 1944, Page 3

COMMUNICATIONS SABOTEURS

BRITISH OFFICERS AID GREEK GUERRILLAS LONDON, October 31. For two years 10 British officers, some of whom were dropped by parachute, while others landed on lonely beaches in darkness, have been at work ifi the heart of occupied Greece. The Athens correspondent of the*' Daily Express ' says that during the two years they kept in touch with guerrillas in the mountains and led them on a series [of raids against German installations. The guerrilla movements, with the officers' help, grew in strength, and it was soon possible for the officers to go almost anywhere in Greece, and in the last few. months they even "had their x dwn secret air strips under the very eyes of. the German army of occupatipn. ' . .' . The liaison officers' first objective in Greece -was- to do as, much damage as possible, to German communications. While Rommel was in Africa, Greece became one of his greatest supply bases; consequently, on October 1. 1942, three weeks be-fore the battle of El Alamein started, the first British party was dropped in Greece. The grotip was led by a young officer named Myers, •now Brigadier Myers, who was _ a trained sabotage expert. The junior officers with him are now all colonels. One of these officers, a New Zealander, Colonel' Edmunds, told the correspondent how the party blew up theGorgopotemos bridge, south of Lamia, on the ' main Salonika-Athens line. The blowing of this bridge was the group s first major operation. It had a tremendous effect on Greece, and seemed to fan the smouldering embers of resistance .in the country. New bands were formed everywhere in the mountains, and opposition to the Germans increased by leaps and bounds. Brigadier Myers said; "We dropped arms and supplies to those guerrilbv armies, • which cleared most of Central Greece. The Germans every time we destroyed a track .in the mountains destroyed the whole of the nearest village—burned it down and laid waste the crops" • . ■■ -