The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-05-02

tionary began today to reorgs
 Its men had fought the massed Rrmored forces of the Germans TOT days, they had fired until their am munition gave out at robot-llke waves of massed German infantry men, who marched endlessly over the bodies of their own dead until the attackers were exhaused. They had fought parachutists who had descended by thousand in an attempt to cut off their final retreat. They had embarked on the beaches or the Peloponnesus, had made the voyage across the eastern Mediter- ranean crowded into overloaded evacuation ships, singing below decks as the gun crews aooVe fought a final furious = and suc- cessful fight with the Stuka bombers.
 Hundreds of soldiers, crowded on the decks because there was no room below, cheered as the gunners of the three anti-aircraft cruisers nearest us blasted at German and Italian planes.
 Just before we reached port, a military funeral was held for one man who had been wounded by a bomb fragment before he embarked and died aboard our ship. The trans port came to a dead stop as his body was lowered into the sea and p2 rifiemen fired a salute.
 Disaster, Heroism
 The British expeditionary force, Rts tank men without tanks, its aviators without planes, it's exhaust cd artillerymen without guns, its anfantrymen and machine gunners, dts nurses and surgeons tirelessly tending the wounded, and with the Greek and Jugoslav stragglers who escaped with us had not only story to tell of disaster but also of hero- asrn.
 With us also were women and children, the youngest child 10 months old, and one American wo- man who had escaped from Jugo- Hlavia and joined the British army at an island she reached with her Canadian husband. A New Yorker, her father is a United States treas- ury representative at Toronto
 The British expeditionary force had fought day and night up to the beaches of the Peloponnesus where the German parachutists machine gunned the small boats which put out from the shore.
 And on the voyage to Egypt, the surgeons and nurses had fought a fight with death in treating and wounded.
 It vas necessary to leave some of the wounded behind, in charge of a base hospital corps which volun. teered to remain with them.
 But as for the expeditionary force proper, an Australian brigadier said aboard our transport:
 "All but the damned fools, the stragglers and the unfortunateS wounded or killed along the roads, by the German planes will be evac- uated."
 A major in command of the con- tingent with which Gorrell reached the beach, told his men:
 we ATe NOt HaltlHk
 Gentlemen, we are marching three abreast. l am instructed to advise you that in the event of an air raid we are not halting. Anyone who steps from the ranks to seek cover will be left behind. In event any of you are wounded we will do our best to see you aboard trans | ask Az hA (y they will be left behind"
 The rescue of the wounded con- tinued until the ships left. Some were hoisted by ropes, in stretchers, to the decks of transport. Some were brought out in row boats by their comrades.
 The Germans tried to cut off-the Imperial force by landing thousands of parachutists along the Gulf of Corinth, principally at the Corinth Canal bridge and the Daphne naval base near Athens, and in the Pelo- ponnesus.
 ~ New zealanders who fought the parachutists at the Corinth bridge said that they came down like a rain.
 The first parachutists who landed blew up the bridge.
 S"The air was filled with them" a New zealander said. Some of the parachutes failed to open. They dropped hundreds at a time. Some were killed as they hit the ground. They would bounce up into the air again. Many were killed when their parachutes caught on the fuselage of their planes or, thrown out in mass few hundred feet above the ground, because their parachutes could not stop their fall. They were frightfully mutilated.
 ParachutiStS Lost
 f'There was sudden change in the wind, and many of the para chutists were blown out to sea to drown.
 We killed many of them. The
 A DREnWO0n DR M