NEARING BEIRUT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 June 1941, Page 5

NEARING BEIRUT

ALLIED FORCES ONLY TEN MILES AWAY IMPORTANT POINTS TAKEN ALONG COAST. MECHANISED COLUMN REACHES PALMYRA. LONDON. June 24. A British United Press correspondent, quoting a military spokesman in Jerusalem, states that Allied forces have captured three important points along the coast and are only 10 miles from Beirut. Vichy troops are concentrating about 15 miles north of Damascus. A Cairo communique states that British forces advancing south-westward from Damascus have occupied a town 15 miles away. The British forces which have reached Palmyra include a British mechanised column, which struck into Syria from Iraq. ENEMY AIRCRAFT LOSSES. A Middle East communique states that British aircraft machine-gunned an aerodrome in Syria, destroyed eight Vichy aircraft on the ground and 1 damaged a large number of others. In another attack, on a Syrian aerodrome a number of Vichy fighters were intercepted over the aerodrome and two were shot down. In Abyssinia 15 enemy aircraft were found burnt out on the aerodrome when troops entered Jimma. On Sunday night British aircraft bombed the harbour and enemy aircraft at Benghazi and attacked enemy flying boats in Sicily. Two British machines are missing from all operations in the Middle East.

FIRST STEP TOWARDS INDEPENDENCE IN SYRIA. FORMATION OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. LONDON, June 23. Syria has taken the first step toward the independence which the Allies have promised. The Syrian National Government has broken all ties with the Vichy delegates and declared a general amnesty as a prelude to the new freedom. Today, a .fortnight after the Allies entered Syria, the Union Jack, the Free French flag, and the Syrian national tricolour wave over the Damascus Town Hall. There are free men in Damascus today who had been prisoners for 20 years for anti-French activities. The Vichy troops have now retired from the last range of hills overlooking Damascus. Their backs are now exposed to the angry Syrian population, and, with many officers of the Vichy general staff prisoners in Empire hands, the people of Damascus are hoping for a swift conclusion of the campaign.