CREDIT SIDE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23954, 2 May 1941, Page 7

CREDIT SIDE

RESULTS OF CAMPAIGN HUGE GERMAN LOSSES ORGANISATION DISLOCATED (Rpcd. f>.s p.m.) LONDON, April '3O Next week's debate in the House of Commons will range over the whole war situation, but particular interest will attach to the discussion of the circumstances in which help was sent in response to the GreekGovernment's appeal, says a British oflicial wireless message. Now that the campaign has reached its end the results are being assessed in London, and the tendency is to view the operation as guerilla warfare in which, in spite of the immensely superior strength of the Germans, they were made to suffer severely. The extent ol this cannot tie entirely measured by 11 to number of casualties inflicted upon them, although the German methods of attack against strongly-held positions inevitably resulted in immense slaughter, and reports reaching official quarters in London indicate that Sofia has become in effect a vast hospital for thousands of German wounded. "Thrown Out of Gear" Apart, however, from the extent of the enemy casualties, the operation is known to have caused great dislocation behind the enemy's lines, and throughout the Balkans the whole machinery of the German occupation has been thrown out of gear.

During their brief period of active co-operation the Yugoslavs contributed to this confusion, and even the German wireless did not disguise the fact that owing to their blocking of the Danube at several points, it will be some months before this important channel is again open. Military Lessons On political and moral grounds, the expediency of sending an expeditionary force to Greece is no longer seriously questioned, and it is increasingly felt that it may be found to have justified itself also by the disturbance of the German arrangements. As to the military lessons of the campaign, the daring of the Anzac and British troops showed that there was an answer to attacks by enemy armoured divisions, and that German divebombers proved much less formidable than was generally expected. The aim of the German airmen was not very accurate, and it was noted with special satisfaction that the dive-bombing failed to disturb the discipline and morale of the British troops. In military circles in Cairo it is stated that as a result of the operations in Greece, possibly the British have gained as much as two months in time.

GERMAN U-BOAT ACE LAST OF TRIO MISSING LONDON, April 30 The Gorman Admiralty is anxious regarding the whereabouts of Kapi-tan-Lcutnanfc Prion, who has not reported since April 13, says the Exchange Telegraph Company's Zurich correspondent. Prion was the last of Germany's three U-boat aces. Mr. Churchill paid a tribute to his skill and daring in sinking the battleship Royal Oak at Sen pa Flow. He is also reputed to have sunk the A random Star.

The first Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. A. V. Alexander, said recently that there were only three German U-boat captains upon whom the highest decoration, the oak leaves, had boon bestowed. Ono, Otto Kretehmer, had boon taken prisoner, and another, Captain Sehofke, had boon killed.