General Wavell Lands in Crete

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 5, 7 January 1941, Page 2

General Wavell Lands in Crete

GRAPHIC PEN PICTURE HISTORIC FLIGHT MADE LONDON, Dec. 1. Lieutenant - General Sir Archibald Wavell has landed at Crete and, under enemy bombardment from tho air, has made his inspection of the British Expeditionary Force which is holding the island, wrote tho special correspondent of the London Times from Crete recently. I flew across from Egypt with the General. Wo took off from a spot near where but a few hours before the Italians had laid a line of heavy bombs across a moonlit sea. A long line of British warships steaming into their base after weeks of lighting along the Italian and Albanian coasts looked like silver birch logs on a blue lake, and we dipped in salute. As our aircraft made for the open : sea the pilot sent a message down to our cabin, “Unknown ship ahead.” Craning from the windows we could see a small schooner rolling easily in the transparent sea. It was suspect partly because it had no flag and partly because evqry ship is suspect between Egypt and the new front line in Greece. A Royal Air Force officer snapped back the porthole at the General’s elbow and, standing there in the Tush of air with liis camera strapped to ms chest, ho photographed the mystery ship from half a dozen angles. It might easily have been a submarine refuelling vessel, but as we thrice swept round, four seamen on board rushed to the deck waving a frantic dumb-show of friendship, and pointed to their nets and lines to indicate that they' were no more than peaceful fishermen. French Sailors Cheer We had not left the schooner far behind when we burst abruptly on a sight that has not been seen in the Mediterranean for months—a convoy of four French steamers sailing unescorted. Their names, together with the French colours, were painted in 6ft. letters along the ships’ sides; but seeing our rear and side turrets bristling with guns and our bomb-racks full, the French seamen scattered for shelter. Then as we moved in between their mastheads the crews roalised we had no intention of attacking, and stayed on deck and cheered. Carrying safe conduct from tho Royal Navy, the four vessels were eastward bound for Syria to repatriate to Franco part of General Wey'gand’s surrendered army. British Base in Suda Bay

The Dodecanese Islands lay only 20 minutes’ flight away, but it was early yet for Italian raiders. We edged down to Crete’s grey-green coast and slid past Mount Ida and on over the broken highlands. Riding by the island in a sea of matchless blue and silver was still another group of British warships. Suda Bay, as we splashed down along the shipping, might have been Plymouth. Army’, Navy and Royal Air Force colours floated among Greek inscriptions on wharfside buildings, a stream of Army lorries was carrying supplies away to secret British hideouts. Here and there bombs had landed among cottages, but fishermen squatted as usual on the quay mending their nets. This was the first visit of General Wavell to Crete. It was kept so secret that the crew of the aeroplane .had not known previously that ho was on board and here at Suda just a handful of Greek and British Staff officers met tho general. By nightfall General Wavell had lunched at headquarters, toured gun emplacements and camps, and got reports from all senior officers, who carried out this first landing without a loss of a man or a bullet. Naturally Crete, which is 20 miles wide and 150 miles long, has not. been entirely’ occupied, but British forces are disposed in a way that would make an Italian landing a dangerous gamble. Memories of Last War All the villages are up in arms. Without, an effective navy in this zone the Italians are resorting solely to spasmodic air attacks. I saw strange sights as I toured around Kana and neighbouring townships; tanks decked .with flowers by almost frantically loyal Cretans; hundreds of famished cats,

whose owners have evacuated to caves in the hills, wailing over bombed ruins and houses; a restaurant decorated with old photographs of Mr. Lloyd George, Lord Byron, and British warships anchored in Suda Bay in the last war. Tommies and Greek conscripts, unborn when those photographs were taken, were singing Greek and English songs together in a waterfront cellar to the accompaniment of a mandolin played by a mountaineer in his native embroidered jacket and flapping black trousers. A British staff officer went shopping for his mess in a vegetable market with a string bag over his arm. British tanks rumbled into the square and the Orthodox Bishop of Crete in his vestments blessed them passionately and held out a cruciflx for the crews to kiss as they sat rigidly at their posts. I climbed a minaret of a roofless mosque in the centre of a school and residential area where the Italians had been skilfully dropping 5001 b. bombs. As I watched raiders came over again, but were driven too high by the Navy’s guns to aim properly. Chusch bells gave a warning, and as bombs crumped into the mountainside Cretans swarmed pell-mell into shops and cellars, snapping down steel shutters behind them. Food Short in Dodecanese Although the village squares were packed with refugees this morning, and carts piled high with furniture are moving into the interior, it is going to take many more raids really to unsettle Crete. *Lifo is going by just as easily. Fish, fruit, vegetables, cheese, brown bread and eggs abound. In the Dodecanese, from which I had first-hand news this morning, Italian soldiers are getting cooked meals only twice.a week. The daily bread ration is a chunk about the size of your fist. There have been at least two mutinous incidents recently. A convent at Calininos was broken into by Italian soldiers, according to several separate reports, and Italian pilots said to number about 20 are under detention in Rhodes for

•refusing to obey orders. Greek fishrmen in the Dodecanese have been ordered to dismast their boats and stow their sails, but some 70 have nevertheless reached Crete and more have arrived at the Greek mainland. In Crete a wealthy Greek has offered £50,000 for raising an antiFascist army in the Dodecanese. Greek enthusiasm everywhere is unbounded. Many came hurrying to mo with news of the bombing of Taranto. British officers who have just toured eastern Crete were carried shoulder high, and their car was filled with chrysanthemums. Before this message reaches London new plans will go forward for binding Crete more firmly yet to the

chain of our fortresses in the Middle East.