MAORI DEMONS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 107, 8 May 1941, Page 7

MAORI DEMONS

NAZIS GIVEN SHOCK

BATTLE OF GREECE

SIDELIGHTS ON CAMPAIGN

IK Z.E.F. OSrUI N>»* S*rrH*.> CAIRO. May 6. They had looked the Nazi war machine in the face, and knew they could master it. They were convinced that their battle value against the Germans was tenfold. Despite a fortnight of steady withdrawal before constant dive-bombing by the powerful Luftwaffe and harassing machine-gun fire, the men of the Second N.Z.E.F. who have returned to the Middle East from Greece do not consider they were beaten by the German airmen. In fact, there Is a sense of satisfaction and exhilaration in their bearing. They say the Luftwaffe came over in waves of from 24 to 70 planes at regular intervals of about quarters of an hour. If the troops halted for only ten minutes, they din? them-; selves into the ground. The*? slit trenches were protection against j everything except a direct hit by a lx>mb. An artillery battery, attacked by 27 dive-bombers for nearly an ho\ir. did not suffer one casualty, although a bomb landed about two yards from their trench and showered its occupants with earth. It seemed to be no use firing at these planes with Brcn gunf. If bullets did reach the target they were actually deflected from the fuselage, at once discounting tales of ersatz armour plating. Towards the end ot uie retreat it was found far wiser not to fire on German planes, *and thus betray troop positions. In fact, so unrestricted was the work of the Luftwaffe that there Is at least one instance of three Messerschmitts intently chasing a single dispatch rider along a flat of road. A padre with a Kew Zealand fighting unit conducted a church parade for a few men gathered together in a hollow on Easter Sunday. than ten minutes after the conclusion of the service, artillery members of the congregation rushed back to their guns to open fire on the Germans. On Anzac Day the same padre sat with a unit in an olive grove alongside a bridge which was bombed from dawn to dusk, but they did not lose one man. Dive into Mnd

A humorous situation occurred when the padre, counting nearly 60 bomb craters at the side of a road along which they were travelling, glanced to the rear of a light truck and saw three diving Messersehmitts. His batman, the driver and a Greek j passenger instantly dived to the right of the road, the driver landing in the mud and water of a ditch, and the Greek on top of him. The padre jumped to the right of the road, saw the empty truck coming straight at him. and sprang aside just in time. His two companions emerged from the mud. the Greek still clasping the padre"s jersey to his breast. A New Zealander on point duty at a bridge of particular strategic importance was doing his best to get traffic across before it had to be blown up. He had hurried several brigades across when yet another motor j column loomed on the horizon, and he shouted and gesticulated until the! vehicles were only 200 or 300 yards away, when an officer rushed ug to him and cried: "Come on. you silly fool, thej-'re Germans." In the Battle of Greece the Maoris proved themselves really first-class fighting men. The Greeks called! them the happy warriors, because they displayed so much enthusiasm for their work, but the Germans must have thought them demons from hell. Having first succeeded in getting too close to the enenw to permit of the effective use of their tommy guns, they made a bayonet charge before which not even German shock troops could stand their ground. They turned and ran. and disappeared from sight. Commander's Coolness. Major-General B. C. Freyberg. V.C.. was seen with his men on the beaches of Greece asking after their welfare. He stood in the open by a battery to observe the course of the bailie while the Huns were shelling all round. When traffic on a road became too congested, the general himself dismounted from his car and took up point duty at a cror-sroad for a while. The New Zealand Artillery were in the front line until Infantry units were able to take up fresh positions. The gunners stood by their blistering weapons all day without food or sleep, and moved back to new positions at night, when their guns had to be abandoned. They were worn out and exhausted men. Still they trudged back on foot when there ; was no available transport, some- ! times jolting against passing vehicles. Embarkation was carried out without a hitch. A gunner who reached the beach with only the clothes he stood in. marched straight on to a pontoon which had been run Up to the shore, and was conveyed almost immediately to a cruiser. aboard which he found a cup of cocoa waiting for him. Tli navy was splendid but some New Zealanders had equal praise for the Tommies, whose stubbornness and fighting qualities rivalled those of the best troops of the Empire Had they been tol<] that reinforcements had arrived and they were to ; turn back they would have unhesitatingly faced the German advance. So much and more can be said against the Berlin radio lies that Britain had left the Australians and Xew Zealanders in the lurch, while English regiments were rushed to safety "in another glorious withdrawal." Some Xew Zealand troops came down to the beach in the dark of night, and were lined up. Embarkation officers went along and chopped off groups of fifty at a time, saying 'This party in that barge." Aboard the transport. last to leave from the beach, a commander came into the lounge and said. "It is now three o'clock, gentlemen, and I have to leave on the same boat."" The corcv mander on the bridge watched a plane dive and release a bomb Ho observed where it would fall an<l swung his helm hard over to starboard. The ?hip reeled, and th<* l'omh missel by five yards, shaking the vessel from stem to stern. !