EXPERIENCES IN CRETE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 123, 27 May 1941, Page 8

EXPERIENCES IN CRETE

N.Z. SOLDIERS

FREQUENT NAZI AIR RAIDS

(N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.) (Rec. noon.) CAIRO, May 26. A soldier who is convalescing in a New Zealand hospital in Egypt spent a week in hospital in Crete after being slightly wounded in Greece. He was first in hospital in Athens, and later was taken to one of the embarkation beaches where about 2000 walking wounded sheltered under the. trees near the beach for three days before they were taken off.

Nazi reconnaissance planes were overhead frequently, and the soldiers considered it a miracle that they were not spotted and machine-gunned. They were embarked on a British merchantman and were subjected to enemy bombing all the way to Crete. The trip was described as the hottest few hours the soldiers ever spent.

There were six separate raids in a period of four hours. No direct hits were scored, although many bombs landed very close to the ship, and several soldiers were hit by shrapnel. The ship was machine-gunned, but the soldier said he did not think anyone had been hit. "They even had another pop at us as we were entering harbour at Crete," he added.

While he was in hospital in Crete he was close to Malemi aerodrome, which the Germans later held as their first base in their parachute troop operations. During the week he spent there, he saw Nazi bombers come over every day. In one day he saw five enemy planes brought down by ground fire, and on other occasions he saw R.A.F. fighters dispatch several enemy machines, sending them down into the

The R.A.F. was very active during this period. The highest px-aise was expressed for the men who manned the anti-aircraft guns. They stuck to their posts and kept hammering at enemy planes despite heavy bombing and machine-gunning. The hospital was close to the beach and the troops were inured to air raids and enjoyed swimming in the waters of the Mediterranean. People were very kind to our soldiers, giving them fruit and doing their washing for them.

There. is another young New Zealand soldier in the same hospital in Egypt who has been over the Yugoslav border and who was in one of the first armoured cars to make contact with the Germans. He talked but little of being one of the first New Zealanders to meet the Hun on land. In a divisional cavalry unit, he was with a party who were covering engineers during some operations. Without warning German tanks, armoured cars, and infantry appeared round a bend of the road. "Things were pretty solid for a while," the soldier said, "but we drove him back on that occasion."

This soldier, after being in the fight all the way through Greece, spent some time in Crete, which he described as reminding him of parts of New Zealand. While he was there the Germans had not made any attempt to land parachute troops, although their planes were over with their loads of bombs every day.