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In addition to the above, there is a possibility of the following being made available:

1,000 lorries from Syria.

488 trucks lying in America on

Roumanian order..

400 2-seater cars and 18 ambulances

have also been released from

the United Kingdom.

15, The principle suggested in paragraphs 8 and 9, is already in operation for motor lorries, except for supplies of captured Italian lorries and the rather nebulous hope of extracting 1,000 lorries from Syria.

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16.

At present, there are more British lorries available than there are ships to carry them. Lorries are a highly uneconomical cargo unless we can find sufficient additional deadweight cargo to fill up the remainder of the ship. Military stores at the moment, are only available to complete ships at comparatively long intervals, but civilian: cargo when available can be used to complete (See Section VII).

VI CAPTUREO ITALIAN MATERIAL.

17. A certain amount is being done by the Greeks themselves in the use of captured Italian war material to supplement other supplies. They have, however, no organised salvage system as yet, and their transport and repair services are so weak that in all probability, they can only make limited use of this possible source of supply.

18. The Commander-in-Chief, Middle East, is doing his best to collect material to send to Greece, so far as he can spare 16. But a good deal has been smashed up in the fighting, and the communications and repair facilities in Dibya and Egypt are almost entirely required for operational purposes. It is very difficult to combine large-scale salvage with an active offensive campaign by highly mobile forces.

19. At best, salvage of captured war material is only a makeshift by which we may hope in some small degree and very temporarily to supplement Greek resources pending the organisation of a more satisfactory system.

VII. AIR FORCE MATERIAL.

20. The present policy is that proposals for maintaining and re-equipping the Greek Air Force should be made from the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Middle East, since supplies to that end, as well as reinforcements of the Greek Air effort by Royal Air Force units, must come almost entirely from his resources. The difficulty is that in the present state of the Libyan war and of reinforcement, it is impossible for the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief to assess accurately the requirements or the probable wastage of his resources, and to foresee what may be available for Greece, But he has made it clear that he considers that the Greek Air Force should be built up, so far as is possible. Is is hoped that before long, supplies will accumulate in the Middle East sufficiently to permit of firm proposals for Greek requirements being submitted by the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief.

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