Berlin, June 2.
The first phase of Chancellor Adolf Hitlers great spring offensive was completed with the "destruction" of France's three crack northern armies and the "defeat of remnants" of the BEF., authorized German military quarters said here last night.
According to these sources the British, without tanks and without any mechanized equipment, were still clinging precariously to Dunkirk and the tall ridges of sand dunes stretching eastwards towards Nieuport, while the embarkation of Allied troops to England continued.
French resistance in the north, however, according to German quarters, is now "virtually nonexistent. Authorized German sources admitted the British, assisted by misty and rainy weather which hindered German bombers, succeeded in transporting a considerable number of troops across the Channel, although they claimed this was carried out with heavy British losses.
Late comers told me the Germans got so near the outskirts of Dunkirk that they were using trench mortars against the town. Among the latest arrivals were an increasing number of French troops.
Around Dunkirk, according to the latest reports, the Allies have drawn up a last defence line. Everything—every car, lorry and piece of demolition work—that can be used was being used to form that last line, soldiers said. Beyond this there w be nothing but men with rifles on the shore and the guns of the fleet at sea.
The men who are now in Dunkirk are nearly all men who have been fighting the rear guard action. Against the encroaching Germans they themselves had little more than rifles, Somewhere behind them, the guns of the navy were their hope of rescue.
During the last few days the United Press correspondent has spoken to scores of men who spent days on the beach subject to air bombing. From what he heard there is little doubt that this heroic band of British and French soldiers faced a situation never before equalled in British history.
The story told by late arrivals indicated the final lines held by the British and French troops in Flanders along the Lys River, later through northern France to Belgium and finally along the canals outside Victory If Allies Hold Out Thirty Days Minneapolis, June 2. "If the Allies can hold out for 30 days, they will win the war," declared Senator Key Pittman, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in an interview here.
"The only thing that could relieve the United States from the present threat," he added, "is the defeat of Hitler. Every action of his Government has indicated that he longs for the great natural resources of South America."—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.