Word: levant
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...imminent in days, or possibly even in weeks. But there was another threat. On Crete, held out of the great Rommel circus in the desert, were 250,000 German airborne troops, carefully trained by the parachute-glider expert, Lieut. General Kurt Student, for a swift thrust. Egypt, the Levant, the fat oil fields of Iraq were within their range. The United Nations, recognizing the threat, poured planes and men up from Suez and Basra. The U.S. pulled its crack airman, Major General Lewis Hyde Brereton, out of India, put him in command of its Middle East Air Force. Thus India...
...eastern Mediterranean, the German eyed Cyprus, hoped to make it another Crete, a steppingstone down the Levant to Suez. To the north in Bulgaria, General Wilhelm Student, No. 1 Nazi parachutist, whipped new men into shape, ran a vast training program for glider pilots, reconditioned ground officers to lead air infantry. Perhaps they were being trained for an invasion of Britain, but a better bet was that they were headed for the Mediterranean...
...Admiral Darlan has granted the Germans the use of air bases in the Levant. Please at once advise the Wiesbaden Commission concerning the reaction to such measures...
...second telegram (unsigned) read: "If German or Italian planes fly over Levant, please refrain from any reply. If any of these planes alight on your fields, receive them and ask instructions. British planes must be attacked at any cost...
...sadder than Vichy's eclipse in the Levant might have been the fate of all British Middle East defense had not Syria been taken. Beginning with the Iraq revolt last spring when they used Syrian bases to fly aid to Rashid Ali El-Gailani, the Germans had increasingly filtered into the country. If the Axis had got control of Syria the British Middle East Command might as well have folded its tents and gone home...