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Germans Massing Troop-carrying Planes for Air Invasion of Turkey, Syria, Palestine

March 4, 1942
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British official circles today revealed that the German military command is massing a considerable fleet of troop-carrying planes in Bulgaria and the Dodecanese islands with a View of using them against Turkey, Syria and Palestine.

The operations of the Nazi air divisions in conjunction with ground attack by tanks end artillery might prove effective, the British officials said. At least one of these divisions is reported to have already flown across the Mediterranean to Libya, they declared.

The officials explained that Hitler would prefer to coerce the Turks into allowing passage of his armies through Turkey to Syria and other sections of the Middle East, but that if unable to secure their consent, he will not hesitate to violate the neutrality of Turkey. “It is reasonable to suppose that the Nazi High Command has planned to include Turkey in the scheme for the spring offensive,” the British official circles stated, adding that weather conditions and the state of the terrain in European Turkey preclude any large scale military operations until late March or early April.

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