World War: Shortcut Cut

The Corinth Canal provides a short cut from the Ionian Sea to the Aegean Sea. Through it, saving 130 miles around the treacherous, blacked-out Peloponnesos, the Axis has recently sent important supplies for the Russian campaign.

The canal is nothing but a narrow ditch cut through high banks of sandy soil and rock. Its sides rise steeply to a height of over 200 feet, are nowhere faced with masonry to more than 50 feet. The British, knowing that peacetime rains used to cause rock slips which blocked the canal, figured that wartime raids could do the same.

Last week the R.A.F. announced that planes had twice descended over the Corinth Canal to 1,000 feet, had blasted the rim of the rocky bank causing slides that had closed the canal “for months to come.”