CASUALTY LISTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 169, 19 July 1941, Page 8

CASUALTY LISTS

COMPILATION DIFFICULTY

STAFF-SERGEANT MISSING

Some indication of the difficulties of accurate compilation of casualty lists after military operations similar to those in Greece and Crete is contained in a message advising that Staff-Sergeant William D. Adams, of Onehunga, who left New Zealand with the First Echelon, N.Z.E.F., is missing and is probably a prisoner in Greece. This news is contained in a note to his mother, Mrs. H. Adams, 196, Arthur Street, Onehunga.

Staff-Sergeant Adams was stationed in the staff office at Athens when word to evacuate and attach themselves to the reinforcements at the advanced base camp was received, according to a personal note sent by his lieutenant to Mrs. Adams. The lieutenant relates that, on account of carrying documents, he took Staff-Sergeant Adams and Sergeant Savory with him to join a motor transport convoy for- a beach where a ship was to call and take off 1000 men. When the ship called precedence was given to the walking wounded and convalescents, with the result that about 250 men could not get aboard and were left on the beach, including himself and the two sergeants. All transport was stopped and another convoy formed which was sent off to another beach with the two sergeants, leaving the writer and about 50 men behind, for whom the trucks were to return. The trucks did not return, and nothing official had since been heard of them, but as it was learned later that enemy paratroops were on the route of the convoy it was conjectured that the convoy parties had been captured. There was no notification of the two sergeants being injured, and as they were unarmed the worst that could happen to them was capture by the enemy. By good luck the writer's party got to Crete where he made diligent inquiries for his sergeants, but could get no word that they were on the island, and he presumed that they were prisoners of war in Greece.

Staff-Sergeant Adams was well known as a Rugby football player with the Grafton Club, and was an assistant accountant on the staff of John Chambers, Limited.