Evening star., 1940-11-28
Nv LELAND STOWE.


WITH THE GREEK ARMY ON
THE CENTR AL ALBANIAN
FRONT, Nov. 26.- Delayed The
Greek drive for Argirocastro is now
reaching its cresendo. All night and
all day, fighting in several border
villages, in hand-to-hand combat,
the Greek troops, despite bitter Ital-
ian resistance, are still pressing for
ward.
We spent the day riding back and
forth near the fighting zones with a
Greek general and major Artillery
doomed and machine guns cracked
almost necessarily ahead of us at
various places, out the punishment
the italian infantry was taking was
indicated even more clearly by the
Fascist airplanes which came over,
usually in threes, to bomb the rear.
Sometimes we could see the
bombers; sometimes we heard them
plainly. although they were screened
by masses of white clouds above the
valley and mountains. Sometimes
we saw Greek or British fighters
speeding up to protect the attack
ing Hellenic troops. But always
the Italians flew at approximately
10000 feet, their bombs fell miles
behind us, or too far across the
valley to be checked upon from
such heights, and most Of the Fascist
bombs were wasted.
Repiment RadIv Cut TIN
Meanwhile, the Greek infantry
up ahead was dealing numerically
with the Modena division, freshly
arrived from Rome a few days ago.
This divisions And Regiment was
badly cut up in the Greeks night
assault before daybreak. We talked
with the captain who led his men in
the charge which swept the Italians
from the hill His uniform was
burned in several places from a
hand grenade explosion, but he was
not injured.
'The Italians had a very strong
position on the hill for three days."
the captain said. "If they had had
real morale they could have held
it. Our artillery barrage was laid
down in the middle of the night.
Then we charged in the darkness
with bayonets and grenades. 1t was
the hottest hand-to-hand fighting I
have yet seen on this front. The
FascistS broke under it.; many of
their officers were killed trying to
make their men fight. That's how
we captured the hill and other posi-
tions. And our advance is still
going forward"
Here the whole Greek effort is
to maintain unrelaxed pressure of
the severest kind on the retreating
enemy, which is being pushed stead
lily backward into Albania.
Materials Scattered About.
We travelled for nine hours along
valley roads over the lower noun
tain ranges from which the Italians
have been driven in the last three
days (prior to Tuesday,. Strewn
along the roadsides, piled high in
village squares and houses, we found
hundreds on hundreds of boxes of
munitions and shells for heavy guns.
Even though the Greeks already
have cleaned up many truckloads
of booty, the quantity Of war ma
terials still scattered about is ex-
traordinarily great.
AL day long we encountered huge
Italian trucks, countless motor
cycles driven by Greek soldiers,
scores of privates hurrying up and
down on Italian bicycles of which
1900 were seized in this sector. At
the point of the Fascists' farthest
advance in Greek territory, seven
tanks lay disabled on the valley
bottom, in front of Kalpaki Hill.
Miles farther on, we came on an
entire Italian battery of eight 1855,
aligned in splendid position on the
hilltop, but deserted without de-
fenSe in the retreat.
The chief of an infantry divi-
sion informed us that the wooded
heights just to the north were full
OF munitions and rifles and added:
Our only problem is how to COL
lect and move them. 1t will be days
before we can get most of the stuff
out onto the roads"
Even so, scores of italian trucks
were busy transporting war ma