ESCAPE FROM GREECE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 117, 20 May 1941, Page 7

ESCAPE FROM GREECE

PARTY OF ANZACS

PROGRESS FROM ISLAND TO

ISLAND

ENEMY EVADED

LONDON, May 18. A party of Anzacs who had been posted as missing in Greece landed in Cyprus today with a story that is more hair-raising than any thriller, says a "Daily Express" dispatch from NicoI sia. . For three weeks, dodging across the Aegean from island to island, they kept one jump ahead of the Germans. The narrator of the party, lying in a rest camp in Cyprus, said: — "Our story really started beyond Mount Olympus, when we got an order to retire. The dive-bombers kept driving us further into the hills, where there was no food, and it was each man for himself. Some of us, however, stuck together, including half a dozen who were wounded by shrapnel. We lay doggo for six days, watching the German troop-carriers fly southward, and once we passed within 30 yards of a German patrol. "The food position was terrible. Seven of us had one roasted potato between us one night and then we began to boil two tortoises, but halfway through the cooking the Germans began to show up and we grabbed the half-cpoked tortoises and bolted. "Once we stumbled on three men and prepared for action, but they were all New Zealanders. Our party grew as other refugees joined in. The Greek villagers everywhere helped us; they concealed us and gave us whatever they could. Near a Greek port a peasant led us to the coast, and we arrived on the shore at a spot with enemy positions to the north and south. We waited for boats nearly, a week, hiding near the shore, and we then decided to pool and divide our remaining money so that we could split into ..small groups. TO SAFETY IN STEAM YACHT. "Some of us reached a nearby island and began collecting small boats to take us on the long sea trip to friendly waters. One party of officers and men found a Greek fishing smack, and, using a prismatic compass, set out alone. After four days they reached another island, where they secured a steam yacht with which to set out and find their mates. "On one island they found the main party famished. Calling at islands all the way across, these had got enough to keep going. The men cut down their heavy battle dress to shorts and singlets because of the intense heat. Many were suffering from stomach complaints through eating green fruit, but there was no time to lose, because the Italians and Germans were already occupying the islands. ' One of our parties actually saw an Italian destroyer and two troopships steaming into the harbour of one island just as they left. "Our leaders decided to take the yacht clean through the Dodecanese Islands, resting in bays and inlets at night-time and hugging the coasts in the daytime. We saw Italians ashore, and they saw us, but they were puzzled and did nothing. "Now we are here waiting to rejoin our units, and someone is going to pay for that trip."— U.P.A.