Word: aegean
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Beacon of the German exit was smoking, demolished Salonika (Thessalonike), chief port of Macedonia. It was through Salonika that the Germans had supplied the Aegean islands, through Salonika that they moved back out of the Mediterranean. The "coveted city" that "crouches on the edge of the hill and touches the sea with her feet" is a major Balkan port, served as an Allied base in World War I. Destroyed by a famous two-day fire in 1917, it was rebuilt as a modern city. Last week it was a shambles again; more than 50 ships had been sunk...
...mobilizing all his forces to prevent the enemy from escaping. Coming to help him were the Russians, who had rolled past Sofia across Bulgaria to within 200 miles of the Adriatic. If an Allied landing now followed in the Balkans, the Germans left in Greece and the Aegean would be cut off, like the Germans in southwest France. Then Yugoslavia and the Hungarian plains would offer Allied armies an open invitation to Budapest and Vienna...
...German garrison troops still in Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece and the Aegean might never be able to escape. They had held their own with the aid of 15 Bulgarian divisions. The hapless Bulgar troops did not yet know whether they should still fight-and, if so, on which side. Serbian Chetniks were found to be still aiding the Germans...
Twin-motored R.A.F. Beaufighters with underwing rocket guns have been wreaking Buck Rogerish havoc among enemy convoys in the Aegean during the last six months. R.A.F. flyers say that rocket salvos hit like 6-inch naval guns, are far deadlier than bombs. Said one, of his latest convoy attack: "My salvo blew the whole stern away. I had to weave plenty to get out of the way of chunks of ship that came...
...presumably the U.S. and British leaders knew what they were about. General Wilson's performance in Greece was skillful in a hopeless "operation, dictated by political necessity. The Aegean show also was probably ordered from London for political reasons...