FIRST N.Z. SHOT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 145, 21 June 1941, Page 5

FIRST N.Z. SHOT

IN PRESENT WAR t i ARTILLERY OFFICER'S CLAIM• Writing from Crete at the begin- ( ning of May, Captain T. H. Bevan, Of the New Zealand Artillery, gives a i Vivid account of his experiences from j the time of leaving Egypt until the ' Allied Forces were withdrawing in i Greece. During the course of his i letter, he claims that his was the first unit in the New Zealand Artil- , lery to open fire in this war. Captain Bevan writes:— i " I left Egypt about March 18 in > Charge of the troops on a cargo Steamer which took all our vehicles Wd guns. « "The trip took about two a half days, and wej had a bit of fun half-way. In ■ the evening we were attacked by • five bombing planes, which bombs and a torpedo, but missedj *rtth everything. We kept up a con-| ( tinuous fire at them with our rifles! ®Dd machine guns and had the satis-| faction of bringing one down in the ■ea " The next day we arrived at Rraeue, the main port of Greece, V ®*ar Athens, and started unloading. The rest of the regiment arrived by liner the next day, by which time we had finished unloading. Then we <fr?ve through Athens to a camp, where we stayed a couple of days, i ne Greek people gave us a wonderful fe; Welcome. In the next few days vve %■ drove about 400 miles to the northWard, and everywhere the welcome the same. The people lined the *oads at every town and village and II? loaded us with flowers. The road . took us through several ranges of ; j mountains, and we saw great sceni ; gy. We passed Mount Elyseus and fe Olympus on the way. At _t}roes the road went almost to snow IgpveL It was just springtup* in

Greece and the whole country was < nice and green—a welcome change | from the sand of Egypt! , Greeks Wonld Always Ask | " We found the Greeks friendly,' obliging and honest. If they wanted anything such as empty benzine tins j they would always ask, and it was | quite safe to leave anything lying , .ibout. Coming from Egypt, where ] Jie Gyppos will steal anything, this , [was very noticeable to us. i " We eventually got to our destina- ' tion, which was the Greek main defensive line, and proceeded to get into action. At this time the Ger- • mans hadn't appeared, and we had some time to get ;eady for them. I; We had.no sooner got into position , than 1 was ordered to take my troopn lorward about 10 miles to support . he Divisional Cavalry, who were, i orming an outpost line. My guns , were the only artillery with them. i " Our job was to hold the enemy < up for a short time and then to with- ' draw behind our main defences.. We i were out there about a week before i he enemy appeared, during which| time the main force moved back about 30 miles to another line, leaving us 40 miles in front. We got our nuns into position, and then it was a case of waiting for the war to come along. " On Easter Saturday I was in my observation post on a range of hills when a huge column of vehicles I appeared on 3 road about 10 iriiles 'ahead, moving across my front Latej 1 I in the afternoon about 30 vehicles; left the main column and camel straight towards me, and I got ready to shoot as soon as they got m range! of my guns. ! " At 7 30 p.m. I fired the first round of the New Zealand Artillery in this war It was fired by Wally McCarthy's gun. He has kept the shell case and is trying hard to get ■ ft home with him. My second shot : fell on the road among the enem> I vehicles, which immediately did aj !| hunk into a village and hid them-, ' elves I could have gone on shoot-| > ne at them, but there was a chance. • >f hitting someone in the village, sol ! > left them alone. The Greeks had! ! mostly stayed in their homes, so I I made a habit of not firing at the I enemy while he was among houses. "We Did a Very Good Job" ■ >< rphev stayed hidden until dark t that night and until about 8 a.m. r the next day (Easter Sunday). Then they made an attack with the object

of bridging a river that lay between] us, and I was kept busy. We did a very good job and must have inflic-J ted heavy casualties on them before! we got the order to move back. j " I had one bit of excitement when my vehicle broke down on the skyline in view of the enemy, but we got it going again before his guns had quite got our range. After a couple more rearguard actions of this sort, lasting till the next night, we got back to the main position andl •omparative safety. "We stayed there for two days and fired an enormous amount of ammunition. Then it became obvious that the whole force would have to withdraw, as we were outnumbered many times, and the next 10 days saw us moving back continually, just making a stand here and there long enough to delay the enemy while! the main force moved. It was an exciting time, as the enemy tanks were never really far away and their planes were continually bombing and machine-gunning the roads."