Evening star., 1940-12-27
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which has been around my neck day
and night for about 10 days.
Since leaving Athens we have
never been in a hotel which was
heated We have washed in ice
cold water-or gone unWashed. We
have accumulated itchy boards from
lack of shaving and have gone nine
days without baths.
1t was an exaggeration to describe
our repose as sleeping. Usually we
crawled chattering into bed and
shivered most Of the night; which
accounts for my average of about
four hours sleep for the past 10 days.
In one bombed town it was i'm
possible to get anything hot to drink
in the morning, or anything hot to
eat for more than two days. When,
at last, the colonel invited us to an
ample hot meal in another town, 1t
was more marvellous than Christmas
dinner. Once got f1eas and thought
l was lousy. It's a lousy feeling,
anyhow.
Well, this is the way it has been
from beginning to end and when
you have remained alive by mat
ter of few feet or few yards, on
successive days and under such
conditions, you accumulate an enor-
nous respect for these little noun
tain-eating Greek soldiers and for
the British flyers do 60 out to
joust with death as part of their
daily routine You also understand
quite clearly, I think-what war
is and what it means.
Worse Than Finland.
There was nothing like this Sc
we're and unrelaxed pressure on
nerves and endurance during the
long winter war in Finland or the
shorter one in Norway The AL
banian war imposes much greater
hardships and danger on corre-
spondents. For one thing, you
could almost always count upon
arriving in some warm place at
your journeys end in Finland.
Moreover, you could almost always
count on arriving-getting where
you started to go. Here, you never
can
Transportation and travel diff
culties through the Greek and AL
banian mountains, especially in dia-
bolical weather, are truly stupend-
Gus. A little way out of Athens our
way was blocked by three-foot
mountain torrent They said it was
the only road and impossible for us
to get through
We found donkey track; got our
car into the ditch about 10 times;
lost three hours in fighting against
the trail which frequently wasn't
wide enough for an automobile.
Finally, we got through triumphant
ly, thanks to about 80 Greek peas
ants, who hauled it for more than
a quarter of mile by rope-and
did it with all the zest which is so
Enthusiastically Greek. To cover
the 400 miles from Athens to Argiro-
castro it required three days of in
cessant struggle of this sort for us.
Must Keep Getting Ahead.
This is not war in which to
accept anything as impossible. You
must fight ahead all the time; you
must talk and explain and refuse
to accept a negative reply while
soliciting aid; you must never take
into consideration how tired you
are or when you ate last. None of
these things were true in Finland,
where the roads were always smooth
and rarely dangerous and never
hilly, however packed with ice and
snow.
This is part of the picture OF
covering the Albanian War for the
American press. 1t is an honest
glimpse of the front trip we have
just had, but we are doubtful
whether there will be many more
this winter. Certainly it will be
extremely difficult for even the most
determined newspaperman to make
any more such trips. At any moment
landslides, deluges In the valleys
and heavy snowstorms on the noun
tains may make such expeditions
completely impossible.
When that time comes only the
two or three foreign correspondents
who will resign themselves to spend
ing weeks at time in the noun
tain regions, living in unheated
hotels and risking pneumonia, will
be able to give a first-hand picture
of what will probably be the final
phases of this war.
But all these very hard facts
about newspapermen's front trips
into Albania are entirely secondary
to one further fact. What we have
had to face has been intense and
constitutes the toughest days have
ever gone through. Nevertheless, it
must be counted a tourists excursion
or duck soup IN comparison to all
the accomplishing Greek soldiers
endure, week after week, without
hope of home leave or respite, uu
on those frozen, windswept, ranges
around Tepelini and Klisura and
further north in the heart of AL
bania's most savage mountains.
What these little Greeks endure
is worse than what the Firms had
to put up with physically. because
the Firms were acclimated to 30.