snowline.
The absence of news from Jugoslavia was unsettling. Then confirmation of the German capture of Skopje arrived on the afternoon of 8 March. One commanding officer ordered to pull back rapidly to new positions felt tempted to ask, 'Facing which way?' German divisions would soon be advancing from the north and from the east. The heroic Greek defence of the Metaxas line had only slowed the German advance for a few days.
The other formations in W Force also had to adjust their positions. The New Zealand Division received orders to fall back from the coastal strip below the Aliakmon river to defend the Servia Pass, the Olympus Pass and the Vale of Tempe. Meanwhile to their north the Australian 16th Brigade manned the Veria Pass. W Force's weakest link was inevitably its connection with the Greek Central Macedonian Army, the right wing of the Greek forces on the Albanian front. Liaison and communications between British and Greek headquarters were not good enough to keep each other abreast of events. And when the German XL Panzer Corps began its rapid probes from the north, the Greek army's lack of motor transport prevented its divisions from retreating as rapidly as their allies.
Peter Fleming and Yak Mission on the Jugoslav frontier realized there was no time to accomplish their task of forming and training stay-behind groups. Deciding that withdrawal was better than a suicidal gesture on their own, they opted to become a free-lance demolition team at the service of any commander they encountered.
Starting with Mackay Force, the members of Yak Mission tackled a major bridge on the Fiorina road.
This they followed with the marshalling yard at Amynteon, where they destroyed twenty locomotives.
Driving trains and blowing them up — causing what Fleming later called 'havoc of a spectacular and enjoyable kind' — became their speciality on the retreat south from Macedonia.
Dick Hobson, the brigade major of the 1st Armoured Brigade, took little pleasure in such tasks. 'I must say as I sat in front of the wireless about to give the order for the demolitions I remember reflecting what a foul thing I was about to perpetrate. The Greeks had been wonderfully kind to us, and here we were about to lay waste their countryside and ruin their livelihood; and to run away apparently without a fight.' By chance, Hobson saw Fleming arrive at brigade headquarters near Ptolemais three days later: 'Who should turn up but Peter Fleming, immaculately dressed as a Captain in the Grenadier Guards straight out of Wellington Barracks, complete with walking stick and seemingly unmindful of what was going on.' (It should be said that Hobson greatly liked and admired Peter Fleming. One day shooting in England, he asked why Fleming was wearing hunting boots. 'I have to,' he replied. 'I broke my leg yesterday.')
On 11 April, a cold clear day, the first main engagement for the Australians and the 1st Armoured Brigade took place in the area south of Vevi. Gerry de Winton, who commanded the signals squadron, remembered the valley scene in the evening light as 'just like a picture by Lady Butler, with the sun going down on the left, the Germans attacking from the front, and on the right the gunners drawn up in position with their limbers'. However spectacular the scene, the resistance appears to have been effective. Ultra intercept OL 2042 reported, 'Near Vevi Schutzstaffel Adolf Hitler meeting violent resistance.'
In spite of bad communications, a change in the weather to freezing rain and flurries of snow brought in by the north-west wind known as the Vardar, W Force's withdrawal in the face of superior forces managed to evade enemy attempts at encirclement. These successes had little to do with brilliant intuition on the part of Jumbo Wilson, who hardly merited the description of a 'thinking general'.
Hut 3 at Bletchley Park, only established at the beginning of the year, was already providing decrypts of German radio traffic with remarkable
The absence of news from Jugoslavia was unsettling. Then confirmation of the German capture of Skopje arrived on the afternoon of 8 March. One commanding officer ordered to pull back rapidly to new positions felt tempted to ask, 'Facing which way?' German divisions would soon be advancing from the north and from the east. The heroic Greek defence of the Metaxas line had only slowed the German advance for a few days.
The other formations in W Force also had to adjust their positions. The New Zealand Division received orders to fall back from the coastal strip below the Aliakmon river to defend the Servia Pass, the Olympus Pass and the Vale of Tempe. Meanwhile to their north the Australian 16th Brigade manned the Veria Pass. W Force's weakest link was inevitably its connection with the Greek Central Macedonian Army, the right wing of the Greek forces on the Albanian front. Liaison and communications between British and Greek headquarters were not good enough to keep each other abreast of events. And when the German XL Panzer Corps began its rapid probes from the north, the Greek army's lack of motor transport prevented its divisions from retreating as rapidly as their allies.
Peter Fleming and Yak Mission on the Jugoslav frontier realized there was no time to accomplish their task of forming and training stay-behind groups. Deciding that withdrawal was better than a suicidal gesture on their own, they opted to become a free-lance demolition team at the service of any commander they encountered.
Starting with Mackay Force, the members of Yak Mission tackled a major bridge on the Fiorina road.
This they followed with the marshalling yard at Amynteon, where they destroyed twenty locomotives.
Driving trains and blowing them up — causing what Fleming later called 'havoc of a spectacular and enjoyable kind' — became their speciality on the retreat south from Macedonia.
Dick Hobson, the brigade major of the 1st Armoured Brigade, took little pleasure in such tasks. 'I must say as I sat in front of the wireless about to give the order for the demolitions I remember reflecting what a foul thing I was about to perpetrate. The Greeks had been wonderfully kind to us, and here we were about to lay waste their countryside and ruin their livelihood; and to run away apparently without a fight.' By chance, Hobson saw Fleming arrive at brigade headquarters near Ptolemais three days later: 'Who should turn up but Peter Fleming, immaculately dressed as a Captain in the Grenadier Guards straight out of Wellington Barracks, complete with walking stick and seemingly unmindful of what was going on.' (It should be said that Hobson greatly liked and admired Peter Fleming. One day shooting in England, he asked why Fleming was wearing hunting boots. 'I have to,' he replied. 'I broke my leg yesterday.')
On 11 April, a cold clear day, the first main engagement for the Australians and the 1st Armoured Brigade took place in the area south of Vevi. Gerry de Winton, who commanded the signals squadron, remembered the valley scene in the evening light as 'just like a picture by Lady Butler, with the sun going down on the left, the Germans attacking from the front, and on the right the gunners drawn up in position with their limbers'. However spectacular the scene, the resistance appears to have been effective. Ultra intercept OL 2042 reported, 'Near Vevi Schutzstaffel Adolf Hitler meeting violent resistance.'
In spite of bad communications, a change in the weather to freezing rain and flurries of snow brought in by the north-west wind known as the Vardar, W Force's withdrawal in the face of superior forces managed to evade enemy attempts at encirclement. These successes had little to do with brilliant intuition on the part of Jumbo Wilson, who hardly merited the description of a 'thinking general'.
Hut 3 at Bletchley Park, only established at the beginning of the year, was already providing decrypts of German radio traffic with remarkable
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