ATHENS BATTLE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25085, 26 December 1944, Page 5

ATHENS BATTLE

BRITISH MAKE PROGRESS HALF OF CITY CLEARED E.L.A.S. HOLD IN EI'IIfUS (Heed. 5.:55 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 2-1 The British have now clearer! almost half of Athens. E.L.A.S. resistance has almost completely ceased in the southern half of the capital, but E.L.A.S. forces are still holding on strongly in the northern districts. Fierce fighting continued on Saturday in the Piraeus area. Pouter's Athens correspondent says that British forces who landed north of Piraeus Harbour captured the shell-wrecked terminus ol tin? Piraeus-Athens electric railway after overcoming stiff resistance.

A Red Gross nurse was killed in the fighting in Athens. She was one of seven casualties suffered by the SwedishSwiss Joint Relief Commission. Other casualties were Greek civilian drivers who were wounded while distributing relief supplies. E.L.A.S. troops, numbering 15,000 to 20.000, in a lightning operation, have over-run all the territory held by the E.D.E.S. in Epirus Province, Western Greece, says the correspondent. The E.D.E.S., after the evacuation of Janina, have withdrawn into the tip ol the Prevesa peninsula. Reports indicate they have stiffercd heavy casualties and have been further weakened by massive desertions. No British help is being sent to the E.D.E.S.

The British United Press correspondent in Athens says that only 4000 to 0000 survivors are loft of the original E.D.E.S. force of 12,000. Janina was the "capital" of General Zcryas, the E.D.E.S. leader. . , , •• " General Scobie. in a Christmas Order to his troops, said: "Military operations preclude Christmas celebrations. I congratulate you on the stand you have made for the cause for which we have been fighting for five years—freedom of peoples from armed tyranny."