By JOSEPH W. GRIGG JR., United Press Staff Correspondent
BERLIN, May 31, 1940 (UP) -- Thick fog covered the English Channel and Flanders coast today, the official news agency reported, protecting evacuating Allied troops from German air attacks.
The agency indicated that, because of weather conditions, the Germans air fleet had been forced to discontinue for the time being the terrific rain of bombs and machine gun fire with which it harassed the Allied retirement.
The agency admitted that the British are making a stand around Dunkirk in an apparent effort to protect evacuation operations to the last moment. However, it was said that only a few remnants of the French forces in Flanders remained in action.
The British last line of defense is about six miles from Dunkirk, the agency said, and the French units are isolated some distance from the coast, with no corridor through which to move toward the sea.
The agency asserted that the generals in command of both the First and Ninth French armies have now been taken prisoner and "the list of captured French generals is by no means exhausted." German coast artillery was said to have been mounted along the northern Belgian and French coastal sectors in German hands.
Another Allied warship-described as a destroyer-was reported sunk by a German torpedo boat off the coast of Belgium after the Nazi naval forces moved into the coastal regions of Holland and Belgium up to Ostend.
The British Admiralty yesterday admitted the loss of three destroyers.
"The mass of German divisions in Artois and Flanders are now freed for other tasks," the High Command pointed out, in reference to indications that a powerful blow would soon be launched against England or Paris.
The communiqu
