BACK FROM CRETE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 62, 14 March 1944, Page 4

BACK FROM CRETE

FOUGHT AS GUERILLA

AUSTRALIAN'S EXPERIENCE (0.C.) SYDNEY, March 10. After two years in Crete as a guerilftv Private Ron Dudley, 38, of the 6th Division, has returned home to his wife and child, in Dundas, Sydney.

Dudley escaped from Greece in a rowing boat in April, 1941, but was captured on an island south of Crete and was taken to a prison camp at Crete. While on a march under German guards he "made a break for it" and reached the mountains, where he was fed and clothed by Greeks until he contacted a guerilla band.

"We were under a guerilla leader— Manole Badouvas —who is well known to the Germans," Dudley said.

"The nights were freezing, with three feet of snow on the ground, and it was pretty hard when you were hungry as well. We lived on the country, eatrng snails, dandelions, and any other edible plants. "We received orders from British authorities. Our chief job was to sabotage airfields, particularly the fuel. In the last scrap with the Germans which I witnessed, the band killed 123 Germans for the loss of one man.

"I was with the guerilla band for seven months, and then escaped from Crete to Egypt."