Story of Greece and Crete

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 138, 6 August 1941, Page 6

Story of Greece and Crete

CLASH WITH HUNS

COLLAPSE OF GREEK DEFENCESj In Fighting Order. | I remember observing the Huns through ni}' binoculars, arriving in Sesvia and debussing there. Of course the Scrvia bridge had already been destroyed by our engineers, and our troops were in fighting position. Then the attack by air star led. i saw no British planes in this scetor. The Greek anti-aircraft guns opened up on the Hun planes, but I saw none brought down. Then the Hun started dive-bombing and machinegunning the anti-aircraft gun positions. They were ultimately driven out and were left without anti-aircraft guns. Our own Bren guns and rifles were next to useless against the Hun plane. They arc heavily armour plated, and I saw tracer bullets from the New Zealand rides hitting the planes and bounding off. Of courso Bde HQ got more than its share of machine-gunning and bombing owing to the fact wc were near those 1 guns, and all day on Easter Monday and Tuesday we got a lot of "hurry up" as the boys call itThe Bns. did marvellous work., and successfully combated several attempts by the Hurrto cross the River Aliakmon, which was our F.D.L. (forward defended line). On one oqcasion one company of one of the Bns. allowed the Huns to creep right up to within 50 yards of the Company's position, and then frightened out of them, opening up on them with machine-guns and capturing all those who were not killed. Spoke So Prisoners I saw 150 of those prisoners marclied into our Bde. area, and chatted with some of them who could speak English. One chap told me he was an Austrian, and he had been well educated in university at Vienna. He wore a decoration which he told me he won in the Bcrman campaign in France last year. He told me thai; only three men were to blame for the War, and I understood, him to mean Hitler, Goering, and .Goebells. I asked him if he had been conscripted to fight for Germany, but he answered " Nobut I would have had to be prepared to. fight anyway. I do not want you to think we were not prepared to help our country l " I said: "Well, you've got yourself in a mess now, but you'll find this out that we don t ill-treat our prisoners, but we look after those of you who are wounded, and feed all of you." His reply to that was: " Our turn will come.': Many Killed

That lot of prisoners were shortly afterwards marched off, and many were killed about two miles further along the road by a bomb and machine-gun bullets from thei-r own planes. The Bde., decided to shift its HQ position about a mile back along the pass on about the 4th or sth day of active, operations. This was done during the hours jof darkness, and necessitated some extension of the telephone lines, and more digging in. It rained during the whole time we were in the 2nd Bde. HQ a fact We were very thankful for, as it reduced enemy air activity almost to nil. Only the shells from the enemy guns. ca,me anywhere near us here. Our own guns were doing marvellously and accounted for a lot of German casualties. I have to write in the highest praise of the work the signals did. The Despatch riders and the linesmen particularly rendering a great service all hours of the day and night, and under terrible conditions. Snow Falfo Gunfire surrounded them at every turn, and weather conditions were far from good. Bn our first Bde. position a,t Ste?v nar Portas it snowed, -heavily one

night. It has to be remember ed that all through the Greek and Cretian campaign everyone slept out—in slit trenches, between rocks, and under trees, and took great care to camouflage their every position. The health of everyone of us was good, and hardly any caught a cold, not even in snow conditions. That fact was interesting, as wc were alii alternatively wet through and cold, and then our Potdies woulH have to dry on us. For days we never took our clothes off,- nor could we wash or shave. Defences Collapse Then came the bad news that the Greek defences on another front had collapsed, and we were in danger of being cut off, andi our Bde. had to exacuate the Pass quickly. We travelled all that night, and arrived in new positions next morning. We travelled over 80 miles that night to what we considered would be a position where we could not be outflanked. Unfortunately the weight of numbers against us counted. On our way down we had been hampered in our progress back by machine-gunning and bombing attacks, and the Germans came through from Olympus by so many routes we had not been able to block and demolish, and their men repaired bridges and roads so quickly that we had no time to prepare our defensive positions' In addition we heard stories of the collapse of all Greek resistance, and the intention of part 1 , at least, of the Greek Government to capitulate. How true all that was I am still not in a position to say, but in two or three days wje ''were on tfh'e. move agap, southwards. Our next position was in Krikouri Pass, about 30 miles from Athens. Hun Contacted What a long way we had come ! Here the Hun actually contacted us before we moved up, and our Bde. was called upon to fight a rearguard action, which they did successfully. There the Hun aircraft failed to find either our Bns. or our transport, or our Bde. HQ., and the forward elements of the advancing enemy were taken completely by surprise suffering great losses and falling baok rjome distance. The whole show was a wonderful tribute to the planning of our Commander. This setback to the Hun enabled us to get out that night as far as the. port Ave were to embark from. When we passed through Athens it was absolutely de'sertedi, or at least the streets were, great care having been taken to clear the way for us. We had originally intended to go to !a point' south of the Corinth Canal, but a parachute landing of several hundred enemy troops there caused us to go to a port south-east of Athens. We arrived there at about 2 a.m., aiid immediately hid our trucks and bikes, and ourselves in the scrub, the trees and the. hills. This could be a story all of its own.

Lying Low As we were about to leave it, a message delaying our departure (zero hour) 24 hours was received. Hence we nicknamed the Pass "24 Hour Pass/' AH next day Ave lay low, but we were not so fortunate as we had been in Krikouri Pass. The Hun planes found our transport hidden in trees about 5 miles ba<?k from the beach, and bombed and machine-gunncd it until much of it was ablaze. That was no loss, however, as it was our intention to destroy it all that evening anyway. What did matter was the casualties we suffered in personnel. The Hun straffed theh hillsides round the port too, and maand bombed the uoats in the little harbour.