Britain Begins Beer Rationing; German Blitz Near Athens

[Globalization41]

London, Associated Press, The New York
Times, Wednesday, April 23, 1941: A beer
company that controls 100 pubs in
Leicestershire announced today that they would
be closed two days a week because "enemy
action" had effected supplies. It is the first
beer rationing announced in England. The
weekday closings will assure a plentiful week-
end supply, the company said.

Athens, United Press, The New York Times,
Wednesday, April 23, 1941: British and Greek
troops facing the final all-out fury of the
German Blitzkrieg tonight made their last
desperate stand just north of ancient Athens,
from which King George II and his government
have fled with a pledge to "fight on until final
victory." ... The 51-year-old monarch and his
government fled by ship 60 miles southward to
the British-defended island of Crete after
capitulation of the main Greek Army of Epirus
-- a surrender the King announced as
unauthorized. ... The government fled, after
18 days of crushing Blitzkrieg, as the German
tide swept down through Attica constantly
nearer to Athens and droves of Nazi bombers
heaped havoc upon cities, towns, ports, and
ships leaving Greek coasts. ... Great waves of
German bombers today smashed at Greek ports
and waiting ships in the harbors of Piraeus,
Salamis, and Megara and "caused considerable
damage to ships and harbor installations," it
was stated authoritatively. The Gulf of Corinth
also was heavily bombed. ... The withdrawal
of the rearguard Allied forces back upon
Athens in still-stubborn resistance is
"continuing in good order," it was said. ...
The full power of the German war machine
had been thrown into the knockout blow
against Athens tonight, but the Allied forces
fighting a valiant rearguard covering action in
the mountains were said to be inflicting
"frightful" casualties upon the invaders. ...
With the Greek Army of Epirus knocked out of
the war, caught between the claws of German
Panzer forces slashing down through Yanina
toward the Gulf of Arta, and the Italians
striking down from the north, the Allied
rearguard defenders north of Athens faced the
full strength of the Axis. More than 1,200
tanks, hundreds of dive-bombing Stukas, and
waves of infantry smashed upon the Allied line
around historic Thermopylae Pass, 80 miles
north of Athens. ... Still the British and
Greeks took head-on blows, and British
military headquarters said that the line of
resistance, although hard pressed, remained
unbroken, and that actually British Imperial
forces were consolidating in "new positions."
... "Fierce fighting continues without a moment
of interruption as the enemy attempts a final
breakthrough," it was stated. ... It was
conceded by both the British and Greeks,
however, that this situation could be only
temporary at the best and that the hour of fate
for Athens was rapidly approaching.

London, Wireless to The New York Times,
Wednesday, April 23, 1941: The Rajputana,
a former Peninsula & Oriental liner that has
been serving as an armed merchant cruiser, has
been torpedoed and sunk, the British Admiralty
stated tonight. The locality of the sinking and
the extent of the casualties were not reported.
... The Rajputana's commander, Captain F.H.
Taylor, retired from the British Navy in 1936
after 34 years of service, the greater part of
which he had spent with submarines. He won
the Distinguished Service Cross in 1915 for the
sinking of a U-boat by his submarine. ... The
Rajputana, of 16,644 tons, was a sister ship of
the armed liner Rawaipindi which, while on
convoy duty, engaged the Nazi pocket
battleship Deutschland off Ireland in
November, 1939, and went down in flames
with her guns roaring. ... The Rajputana took
several hundred British and American women
from Shanghai to Hong Kong when the
Japanese began military action at Shanghai and
has carried cargoes of medical supplies to the
Chinese. ... She was one of the most popular
boats in the India-Britain run and had a number
of rescues to her credit. In 1931 her crew took
128 passengers off a Chinese steamer that had
been wrecked on the rocky coast of Shanghai.

London, Special Cable to The New York
Times, Thur., April 24, 1941: [Late Wed.,
U.S. time] Britain's second new 35,000-ton
battleship, the Prince of Wales, sister ship of
the King Gorge V, is now in commission, it
was announced early Thursday.

The New York Times, Late Wednesday, April
23, 1941: The Prince of Wales is one of a
class of five battleships planned by the British
several years prior to the war, designed for 30-
knots speed and to carry ten 14-inch guns in
their main batteries. [The Prince of Wales was
to be sunk in less than eight months by cheap
Japanese planes near Singapore.]

Istanbul, United Press, The New York Times,
Wednesday, April 23, 1941: Official quarters
in Ankara today emphasized that Turkey had
made all her decisions and taken all possible
military precautions. It was stated flatly that
no concessions would be made to any foreign
power regardless of pressure. ... German
troops in Greek Thrace were less than 40 miles
by land from the western approach of the
Dardanelles, and with Nazi control of the sea
approaches, a quick thrust at the strategic sea
lane to the Black Sea was considered possible.
... The first 5,000 voluntary evacuees from
Istanbul were preparing to leave for Samsoun
in a few days at government expense. An
estimated 100,000 persons are expected to
leave Istanbul within a month. ... An official
announcement said one million lire would be
spent to create emergency stores of flour in
the city.

[Stay tuned for late breaking war bulletins.
... Globalization41.]