War Hero Turns To Religious Teaching

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29246, 2 July 1960, Page 10

War Hero Turns To Religious Teaching

tB« a Special Correspondent) SYDNEY, June 30. ONE of New Zealand’s most dashing war heroes is now a humble teacher at one of Sydney’s most respected religious colleges. < In June, 1944, a New Zealand major leapt from a British bomber over Lozere, in the South of Ftance. and parachuted into occupied territory. His name: W. S. Jordan. Bill Jordan’s mission was, as Usual, to organise sabotage missions, place time-bombs and dynamite bridges and enemy troop-trains as a prelude to the bitter fighting that was to follow the Ailgust invasion Of the Riviera. .••••••

Later, as the battle waged up the Rhdhe valley in the wake of the retreating Germans, Major Bill Jordan vanished. Other agents believed him "missing, believed killed.”

Yesterday I found him. He was teaching at Sydney’s wellknown Riverview College. I scarcely recognised him, remembering as I did the spruce young officer who, an ex-journal-ist from Hamilton end Auckland, joined with me in roaring around the illegally open pubs of Christa church in those gay, mad evenings of 1940. Still less could I see in today’s Bill Jordan the tired, grey-faced man who, fresh from the desert campaign in 1941, told rhe: “I won’t be seeing you much from now on—they’ve pulled me in on some sort of special stunt for Middle East H.Q.”

Some “stunt”! In the next three years Bill was to be a secret agent and saboteur for the British, and was to roam the hills of Greece, Turkey and France. In this work no holds were barred, for it was a merciless business. His special function was to organise and train guerrilla bands in sabotage and special commando tactics. Escape From Greece A price on his head, Jordan escaped from Greece in a tiny fishing-boat. flying the Swastika, and sailed to Turkey. From Turkey he border-hopped to Syria, afterwards making. his way back to Egypt in time to be sent to Britain for further under-cover operations in occupied France. Jordan tells wryly of the time when he and two companions were caught by Communists In a Greek village in October, 1943, and were lined up before a ragtag firing-squad. /

“For some unaccountable reason tbe officer suddenly ordered them to lower their rifles,” he said. “I think h,e realised that if the story reached Cairo he’d have been in trouble later on. “Anyway we managed eventually to get away,” he added. Less well known in this elusive New Zealander’s formidable list of seven decorations, are the Gold Cross of King George

I of Greece and three other high Greek awards. In addition, Jordan was awarded the British M.B.E. and Military Cross, and he was mentioned in dispatches.

Some say that if he had stayed with the 2nd N.Z.EJ*. he would have been in line for even higher decorations—and I don’t doubt this, for Bill Jordan was one of the most efficient and popular officers in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Thousands of ex-Burnham men wiU agree with me. I saw Jordan in 1944, when, invalided back from Europe with a damaged leg which he injured parachuti-ig into occupied France, he visited briefly his mother's home in Hamilton. I happened to be there at the time, on leave from Rotorua Hospital, and we had a happy few days* reunion. Then—again—Jordan unaccountably vanished once again. Return To Australia Reminded yesterday of that occasion, he laughed and told me how, when in Auckland, he had suddenly made up his mind to visit Australia and had immediately fast-talked his way aboard a Sunderland of the Royal New Zealand Air Force—just like that.

In Sydney, he had gone back to his profession of journalist, but after a brief period his health had broken down and he was forced to spend the next six years as a semi-invalid. ‘•Suddenly the whole war seemed to catch ..up with me,” he said. ’ Over recent years Jordan's existence has been a varied one. Hehas been, in turn, a journalist, an inmate of a religious institution. a wharfie, a public relations officer, and press secretary to the leader of the Anti-Communist Labour Party. Then, suddenly, he turned to teaching—a profession which satisfies him ■ deeply. . I left him sitting alone in his small. apartment, “correcting examination papers and apologising that his work didn’t give him enough time off even to travel to Sydney city more than once every two or three months; for seldom have 1 seen a man more wrapped in his chosen career.