Word: albanians
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...last week. It was clear that Britons had landed at Crete, and some other Greek islands. In London a ?5,000,000 loan to Greece was announced. The R. A. F. was really active. Gloster Gladiator fighters patrolled over Greek cities, and bombers hit at Naples, Brindisi, Taranto and Albanian bases. The first British casualty was announced: an R. A. F. gunner, wounded in the head by what was described as a "stray bullet" from an Italian plane. British naval vessels arrived in Athens from Alexandria, carrying a few troops. Very useful in surprising and checking the Italians...
There were five main spearheads to the Italian attack (see map, p. 26). The most important Italian effort was aimed at Ioannina, in Epirus. Homer located Hell in Epirus, and the Italians saw why last week. It is only about 35 miles as the airplane flies from the Albanian border to Ioannina; but on the ground the miles stand on end. The terrain is violently mountainous. There are no railroads, and most of the roads are little better than shepherd trails. The area is crisscrossed with low valleys, and last week torrential rains made horrible mud ponds of the roads...
Farther north another spearhead drove toward Fiorina, whence another railway leads to vital Salonika on the eastern coast. Greek counter-raids against this northern drive did get to Albanian soil, and did cause the Italians some embarrassment at their rear...
...Albanian Invasion Denied...
Greece has a Metaxas Line, strong along the Bulgarian frontier, more sketchy along the Albanian, where it was not needed until Italy blitzkrieged that little kingdom on Good Friday, 1939. Greece has some 435 pieces of field artillery of all types, including mountain guns. With these, and other ill-assorted German and French rifles and machine guns, she set out to try to stem the advance of at least 200,000 well-equipped, motorized Italians, including one division of specialized Alpini, whose first course would be down rugged mountain troughs. Two main immediate pushes seemed to be on the cards...