Word: crete
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Unless Germany should suddenly throw in some effective air power, Italy's payoff in Albania, now that snow was falling, looked at best like a stalemate for some months, a lasting disgrace and a drain on the entire Italian military establishment. If, operating from their new strongholds in Crete, British naval power could gain mastery of the Adriatic, past minefields and submarines, the entire Italian expedition, including last week's reinforcements, might be annihilated, or forced to execute a sorry withdrawal like the British from Norway...
...then coping with Hitler. This program began to show in sharp outline last fortnight when the British Middle East forces reoccupied Gallabat and took Italian prisoners near Kassala on the eastern Sudan front-when they struck by air at Naples, Brindisi, Durazzo and Valona from new air footholds in Crete (see p. 23), causing consternation in Rome and loud stories about the Pope's new air-raid shelter...
...Italians repair their ships, in dock or by caisson work, as the Russians did after the Japanese opened the war on them with torpedoes in a snowstorm in 1904. The R. A. F. blasted the repair dock, and might be counted on, from its new bases in Crete, to complicate any and all salvage...
...poetry reader Was General Sir Archibald Percival Wavell, Commander in Chief of Britain's Middle East Forces, on his way to Crete to inspect new British establishments there. At Suda Bay he heard reports from the expeditionary officers and toured gun emplacements. One of the huge guns was fired, and Cretans who stood around cheered and clapped as if an Italian ship had been sunk before their eyes. They talked exultingly of Suda Bay as "an eastern Gibraltar." Sir Archibald heard with satisfaction of the raid on Taranto (see p. 20), of R. A. F. cooperation in Greece...
Britain's help began to take on clearer form 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...