REMAINED IN CRETE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 145, 21 June 1941, Page 6

REMAINED IN CRETE

DUTY TO WOUNDED

TWO AUCKLAND DOCTORS AND MINISTER

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, June 20. bHow two Auckland doctors and a well-known city Baptist minister chose to remain with seriously wounded men rather than seek to escape from Crete is told in letters which have been received by Mr. Allan J. Moody, chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board, whose son, Dr. R. j\ Moody, was.one of the doctors, and Mrs. Hiddlestone, Epsom, whose husband, the Rev. J. S. HidcUestone, was chaplain. The second doctor was Dr. Selwyn De:Clive Lowe.

The letter Mr. Moody received was from Colonel Kenneth MacCormick, also of Auckland, who said: "I have not been able to get the full facts from those who have returned except that, in company with Selwyn De Clive Lowe, he found himself with a number of seriously wounded practically cut off and decided that it was his duty to stay with the wounded. The consensus of opinion among those who have returned is that unless medicaL. units got in the way of active operations, the Germans have respected the Red Cross and medical personnel had nothing to fear."

A similar opinion is expressed in the letter Mrs. Hiddlestone received from the Rev. Frank Buck. He says: Men of his unit told me that the enemy were respecting the Red Cross at this point and had refrained from bombing. Mr. Hiddlestone and the patients were in a cave under good shelter when they were left behind. " The Germans would be especially apt to be kind to Mr. Hiddlestone because he had been very good to a number of wounded German prisoners collected in this hospital.

Mr.. Buck says the men of Mr. Hiddlestone's unit said he was well, but worn out by strain of the continuous bombing the forces had undergone. When the evacuation began the officers in the' hospital were faced with more than 40 miles of road which was little better than a goat track. Mr. Hiddlestone and other officers felt that their duty lay with the wounded, who could not be brought away under such conditions.

Both letters paid tribute to the courage of the officers concerned in making the decision to stay with the wounded. Colonel MacCormick adds that Dr. Moody had been promoted from lieutenant to captain and was probably unaware of his advance.