Coronet

The Greek army launched its big offensive--"Operation Coronet."* The Greeks threw six divisions and other units (70,000 men) against 8,000 rebels in Communist General Markos' Mount Grammos stronghold, near the Albanian border. One aim: to bang shut Markos' backstairs supply (and escape) route to Albania. Another: to mop up Mount Grammos.

"Ora Kali." U.S. Military Mission Chief Lieut. General James Van Fleet was at the front to see how things were going. As he jeeped down one mountain road, with Greek Chief of Staff Demetrios Yantzis, a wizened peasant crone in a roadside wheatfield called out "Ora kali" (May the hour be with you!).

Not all the peasants on the fringes of Markos' domain were so friendly. Some were Communist supporters. Others just could not believe that the Greek army was there to stay. A peasant woman remarked that the wheatfields had been planted by Markos' men. "They said they'd be back to harvest it." But this time the Greek army was confident.

The Spaghetti Is Cooked." TIME Correspondent Mary Barber watched part of the battle from a brigade command post in Fort Nestorion, overlooking Hill 1291, the day's objective in that sector. Cabled Barber: "Down below, Nestorion's main square was packed with ambulances, trucks and jeeps. In the horse trough near the spring, peasant women were washing out used field dressings and the stained water flowed over the cobblestones. In the church, the village priest was reading the burial service over eight soldiers who had died in the morning's fighting on Hill 1291.

"Down in the river bed, trucks were lumbering through a ford and up a goat path, newly bulldozed, where 25-pounder guns had been hauled up during the morning. Toward 3 in the afternoon, the brigadier announced: 'The spaghetti is cooked and the birds aflying.' He meant that the artillery was ready and the Spitfires were aloft. On the skyline, four miles across the valley, the artillery opened up and the infantry jumped off.

"For ten minutes the shallow, dome-shaped hill was lost in smoke and dust. Spitfires swooped in wide spirals, loosing their rockets. Gradually the quick chatter of the rebels' Breda and Spandau machine guns was subdued and the slower Greek army Brens took over. Twenty-five minutes after the attack began, green Very lights arched over the crest. The position had been taken."

Elusive Souvenir. Another visitor to the front was King Paul. From his observation post, with field glasses, he could see a big sign in the thick pine woods atop Mount Ammouda bearing the letters D.S.E. (Democratikos Stratos Ellados--Democratic Army of Greece). Artillerymen explained that they were trying not to hit the sign, since they hoped to capture it as a souvenir.

At week's end, the Greek army had not yet captured the sign; Mount Ammouda was stubbornly defended. On all fronts Greek troops had found Markos' mountains pocked with strong log emplacements and fortified caves like those the Japanese used in the Pacific war. Moreover, the rebels, instead of melting away under attack to pop up elsewhere, were standing firm. But the Greek army had captured peaks on both sides of Markos' stronghold area, and were beginning to draw the neck strings of the bag in which they hoped to catch him. Said Van Fleet: "We are trying to find a soft spot in the guerrilla lines." The general's unconscious "we" was well-chosen: Coronet was the big test of what the Greeks could do with the help of Harry Truman's Doctrine.

* "Coronet" was also the code name for the invasion of central Japan, which had been scheduled for about March 1946.

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