ESCAPES FROM GREECE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 197, 17 May 1941, Page 12

ESCAPES FROM GREECE

Astounding Stories NEW ZEALANDERS’ EXPERIENCES Drama Of Evacuation

(From the Official War Correspondent with the N.Z.E.F. in the Middie East.)

CAIRO, May 15

Early in May, while the Navy and merchant service in brilliant cooperation and with skill and daring performed feats of evacuation which took whole brigades at a time to safety from the beaches and harbours of Greece, little unplanned acts of deliverance were taking place at many points along the rugged coastline. Scows and fishingboats carrying strange cargoes of exhausted and hungry men by slow and devious routes to friendly ports, have brought a different and even more dramatic side to the picture of the evacuation. As these troops, many of whom are New Zealanders, rejoined their units, the lists of missing men have been diminishing every day. There will be no end to the stories of astounding escapes, not only from Greece itself, but also from the very hands of the enemy. They are the experiences of as yet countless soldiers who, after being separated on special tasks from their regiment, were cut off by the enemy drive before they could rejoiQ the main withdrawal •movements. Their adventures make those of most of us seem mild by comparison. Voyage in llowboat. From a small dog-tired party of New Zealanders I heard today how they had just reached safety after a forced march across the mountains from the Corinth Canal area and a voyage of 140 miles in an overcrowded, leaky rowboat. They were a dozen cavalrymen and Maoris who had fought their way through parachutists in the canal zone, escaping along the south-east coast road till it petered out. They trekked 35 miles in ten hours over high, stony country to the Argos Gulf in the hope of finding a ship.

As they rested in an olive grove last Monday morning they learned that German troops had been sighted only four miles away. They decided they must find their own way out, so they gathered a little food ami rowed to an island, three miles off, in an 18ft. boat found on the beach. From a high point an officer in the party saw British troops successfully engaging the enemy on the mainland while other small boats left the shore amid mortar tire.

The party set out again that night, calling at another island to replenish their water supply and dine well off wild goat. Then, crossing to the mainland on the other side of the gulf, they reached a hospitable village, where they bought a sheep and made a house-to-house canvas for bread, greens, cheese and olive oil. After again eating as much as they could, they left the mainland for the last time. They sailed along the coast from Tuesday night till Thursday morning, when they reached the southern end of Greece and struck out toward Crete, whose hills were visible on the horizon. Safe at Last.

"That evening we landed on an island 30 miles from Crete and made a glorious stew with mutton bones, eggs and tinned rations. The Greeks there treated us like lung lost brothers. The same night we were aboard a motorvessel on our way lo Crete, cold and exhausted but safe." The feat was extraordinary when it is. considered that the men were so weary that some fell asleep during their hourly shifts on the single pair of oars which the boat possessed. The food was severely rationed, each of the two daily meals consisting only of small portions of meat, bread and water with one spring onion and one lettuce leaf.

That crowded rowboat was only one o£ a veritable flotilla o£ assorted craft which carried hundreds of stragglers to safe lands. Parties and individual soldiers cut oil in the earlier stages of the withdrawal took coastal routes to skirt the enemy lines and used dinghies to cross the gulfs and bays. After the retirement to Thermopylae Pass one battalion commander sent a boat to an island on speculation and thus recovered a mixed party of isolated troops. Travelling by night and hiding by day. another British party which included a New Zealand medical officer, escaped to Crete from the coast near Athens in an auxiliary scow when parachutists were reported to be cluse. Though their only navigational aids were a cheap map and knowledge of the whereabouts of the North Star, they Were so well provided with fuel and food that they were prepared to make for Palestine if necessary.

High Courage

Often linked with the miracle of escape was a demonstration of high Anzae courage in the face of almost impossible odds. During the withdrawal from Servin Pass a Canterbury infantry commander remained till daylight with tt few of his bren'carriers and a detachment of sappers to see the New Zealanders safely out and the last mines exploded. After both tasks were completed his little column had just cleared the pass under bombing attacks when they ran into German medium tanks who had crossed the mountains from another sector. Though tremendously outnumbered and outclassed in arma.ments, the New Zealanders engaged the enemy as a matter of course., even before orders could Ik* given. While they sent a hail of fire at the tierman force from a roadside position, the crew of an Australian carrier also in the column sacrificed their lives in an apparent headlong charge at one tank. The odds were too great, however, tint! the colonel with his surviving men had to withdraw across the foothills.

Captured shortly after the same incident. an Auckland infantryman escaped Io tell how the Germans put him io work with parties repairing bridges demolished by our sappers. After being two days in enemy hands he wandered away casually downstream and reached a village, where be obtained civilian clothes and merged into the tiow of refugees on the main road. In this guise he passed unmolested through the German lines and joined an Australian unit, which was strongly suspicious of his identity till be guaranteed it in rich Digger language.