TEN MONTHS IN PRISON

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24445, 20 December 1944, Page 4

TEN MONTHS IN PRISON

— -♦ Experiences of Athens Woman HELPED NEW ZEALAND PRISONER (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) ATHENS, December 17. To be sentenced to death by a military tribunal in Athens for harbouring a New Zealand soldier, and then to spend 10 months in an Italian prison before being liberated by the British advance, has been the experience of Mrs Alexander Macaulay, the Greekborn widow of a Scottish officer who was killed in Palestine in the last war. Mrs Macaulay is now back in Athens in service With the Y.W.C.A. v The story begins when four soldiers, Max Derbyshire, of Australia, SecondLieutenant Jack Harrison, of Tauranga, and . two Scotsmen escaped from a German prison camp near Athens on June 28, 1942. Second-Lieutenant Harrison had been wounded by a mortar bomb in Crete, and had 27 partlyhealed wounds in one leg. They tramped for four days, aided by shepherds and small boys who brought them food, but near Kfephisla they became lost. By good fortune the first man they approached turned out to be a disguised British soldier, who took them to a nearby warden's cottage. There they lived for three weeks, aided by friendly Greeks, and even exchanging occasional greetings with unsuspicious Germans billeted in the area. On July 20, Mrs Macaulay; then resident in. Athens, made contact with the Anzacs The two Scotsmen had already made a bid for freedom in a small boat from Piraeus. Tbey were fired on by an Italian torpedo boat, and only one succeeded in making his escape, wounded, to Mytilene.- '■ The New Zealander and the Australian wede nidanwhile Installed in Mrs Macaulay’s flat, Derbyshire was a difficult niah to keep under cover. After two months he left the flat for another house, where he lived with friends of his hostess, and 10 months later made a successful break to Egypt. Plans for Escape Second-Lieutenant Harrison was a very sick man at the time, and dysentery and enteritis, combined with the effects of his wounds, kept him immobilised. Nevertheless, he and Mrs Macaulay plotted ceaslessly for his escape. A map was drawn on silk, using archaeological names as a blind. A friend made a northern journey to ascertain the'-possibility of travel by train via Salonika and Athos to Turkey, and reported back by code. The simple message: “Beans not too good, am not sure, we should take them over,” referred to . the difficulty of getting through the Bulgarian lines on foot. As the grim winter passed into the spring of 1942, the New Zealander’s health improved, and he began to think of active sabotage. Once they visited Kephisia, and it was there they met the; man who subsequently betrayed them. Before dawn on September 15 20 Italian soldiers broke into the house. They failed, % find arms, but confronted Mrs Macaulay with the silken map. Her explanation of. the archaeological names was apparently accepted, but both were taken to prison. Before leaving the flat Mrs Macaulay contrive to leave a note for her mother and niece telling them, to communicate immediately with the Swiss Legation. The legation was handling all prisoner of war matters then. Once in their separate prisons the two found that communication was merely a matter of bribery. Mrs Macaulay even managed to see SecondLieutenant Harrison once, the cost to her being two golden sovereigns. Her note had been successful, and they also received Red Cross parcels and comforts. The skilled medical treatment which she had obtained for SecondLieutenant Harrison when in hiding was not lost, as there was a Greek doctor in the prison. Sentenced to Death But Mrs Macaulay had troubles enough of her own. A military tribunal sentenced her to-death, but frequent applications of' money in the most .influential Italian quarters worked wonders. One often meets similar stories of the Italian administration of Athens; Her penalty was whittled down to 10, and then to five years’ imprisonment with hard labour. Then, on December 20 she was sent by ship to Bari, and thence to a common prison for criminal women at Trani. Conditions there were disgraceful. Forty-five women, convicted of most serious crimes, occupied one small room. The only meal each day consisted of bread, water,- and macaroni. Of the many parcels sent through the Greek and Swiss Red Cross and the Italian Embassy, not one reached her —only a few lire from Rome. She was there for 10 months, and then in October, 1943, the British came and she was free again. Mrs Macaulay flew to Algiers, where she learned the rest of the story. Sec-ond-Lieutenant Harrison was one of a number of British and Greek prisoners and Italian soldiers who lost their lives when a transport, en route to Italy, was torpedoed off the Albanian coast on January 21, 1943. One New Zealander escaped, and subsequently advised Second-Lieutenant Harrison’s people. Mrs-Macaulay volunteered for welfare work, and served for some months in Algiers and Cairo before returning to Athens. The flat Which she had taken over two years ago is now in ELAS territory. Second-Lieu-tenant Harrison was not the only New Zealander assisted by Mrs Macaulay. Offhand, she remembers the names of two others—Tom Smith, of Christchurch, and Bob McLean, also of the South Japanese Admiral Dead.—The Tokyo radio has announced the death of ViceAdmiral Nakagawa, the eighteenth Japanese Admiral to have died since May. —New York, December 18.