FALL OF LEROS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 274, 19 November 1943, Page 5

FALL OF LEROS

OVERWHELMED BY AIR BOMBARDMENT FIVE DAYS OF ATTACK Recd. 7 p.m. Rugby, Nov. 17. The fall of Leros is announced in a Middle East communique, which states: “Throughout yesterday the enemy continued his overwhelming aerial bombardment of Leros. After very severe fighting and in spite of the most determined resistance in the fact of fresh enemy reinforcements, organised resistance ceased in the evening."

Leros fell after live days of attack.. Owing to a lack ot air cover it had not been possible for British warships to afford the garrison anything like the support afforded the Sicilian and Italian landings and subsequent operations. Any artillery support had to be short and sharp, because the ships were subjected to attacks night and day from aircraft based on Rhodes, Crete, Kos and Athens. Rhodes is a bare 80 miles away, while the nearest Allied bases in Africa are 100 miles away. Leros is the fourth island in the area to have been recaptured by the Germans since the Italian surrender. Yesterday it was reported that the British and Italian forces on the island had considerably improved their positions and that the Germans had been reduced to a hold on only one bridgehead. "Once again concentrated air power has overwhelmed ground resistance as it did in Crete,” says the British United Press military correspondent, commenting on the loss of Leros. “It was not attacks from the enemy ground forces, which were mostly neld, but the aerial bombardment that finally smashed the Allied resistance."

Reuter's military writer says: “Tlie Leros episode Is of no real military importance, but It will give German propaganda an opportumty for some trumpeting. The position of the British troops on Samos becomes more exposed as a result of the loss of Leros.”

Berlin radio claims that Samos, the only major island in the Aegean left in Allied hands, is isolated by the capture of Leros. “The British had occupied not,€nly the entire Dodecanese group but also many islands in the Cyclades and Sporades groups," added the radio. “All these are again in German hands with the exception of Castelrosso, although they have been stubbornly defended by the British Fleet and air forces.”

The German news agency declares that Leros strategically is the most important of all the islands in this area, as it was a base for control of the eastern entry to the Aegean Sea. Detailing the surrender of Leros, the German overseas radio said: "British and Italian envoys arrived at German headquarters carrying white flags and agreed to the German commander's demand for an unconditional surrender. The surrender followed four days of tremendous warfare. The German high command threw in in shock troops and parachutists, supported by a strong air formation of bombers and stukas. Motor torpedo boats and light naval units were also successfully employed. Losses among the British and Italians are reported to be very heavy.” A special communique from Hitler's headquarters claimed that. 200 British officers and 3000 non-commissioned officers and men under the British commander on the island, General Itllney, also 350 Italian Badoglio officers and 5000 non-commissioned officers and men under the Italian Admiral Masharpa, hud surrendered to the Germans.

The communique added: “The Germans captured 16 British heavy antiaircraft guns. 20 light anti-aircraft guns, about 120 other guns, and 80 anti-aircraft machine guns. German naval forces and the air force destroyed during the preliminary fight nine destroyers and escort vessels, two patrol vessels, two submarines, one gun-boat, four merchantmen and several small supply ships, and also hit one epuiser, one destroyer and two escorts.”—B.O.W.