DEFENCE OF DUNKIRK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24337, 29 June 1940, Page 12

DEFENCE OF DUNKIRK

CANAL FLOOD GATES OPENED 750,000 GERMANS STOPPED (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, June 4. Two outstanding military achievements and a brilliant naval feat in the great battle of Flanders will be remembered as long as men live on this planet, writes the military correspondent of the News cf the World. The military achievements were (I)'Heroic rearguard action of the French under General Prioux. who held the hills of Mount Cassel. Kernmel and Cats, enabling the forward troops to enter into the defence areas of Dunkirk; and (2) the magnificent throwing back of a B.E.F. flank when the Belgians surrendered and left the way cpen to the Germans to encircle and trap the whole of the B.E.F. and their French comrades. The naval achievement stands to the credit of Admiral Abrial. the French Commander-in-Chief. In conjunction with British naval forces and British Hoyal Engineers and Marines, he opened the flood gates of the canals, thus guarding the right and left shore flanks of Dunkirk and constructed a line of defence along the inundations und across the one open space into Dunkirk, to allow the British and French troops access to Dunkirk. # These actions had to be conceived and carried out at once, under ceaseless pressure of land and air attack and regardless of loss. Fury of German Command It is easy to imagine the fury of the German Command, advancing along the sand dunes east and west of Dunkirk, when they discovered the way blocked by vast masses of water and that the only entrance into Dunkirk was by the narrow bcttle-neck through which the Allied armies were moving. The great mass of German troops--750,000 men in all—was stopped. The enemy could deploy only limited numbers to assail the "Corunna Line." and in doing so came under the heavy fire of the Allied Fleets, which must have ; caused great losses. Meanwhile, the gallant R.A.F. put up a " screen of bombs" by day and night to aid the sorely-tried British and French soldiers in their efforts to gain Dunkirk. I