ON WITH THE JOB

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 79, 30 September 1941, Page 6

ON WITH THE JOB

FROM GATES OF HELL

AIRMAN'S TRIALS

ORDEAL IN CRETE

"The fighting between our lads and 'Jerry' is now, of course, history; but what history!" writes an airman in describing, in a letter received in Wellington, some experiences he encountered as one who had to foot it along with the soldiers throughout the ordeal in Crete. It was there, he states, that "the very gates of Hell were opened upon us." While acknowledging the greatness'of the opposition, he views the outcome with confidence,

but urges that "we must take off

the gloves and pull up our socks."

His graphic description of events at Crete tells of how the troops on the ground were bombed and machinegunned mpst unmercifully by flights of great bombers until finally the aircraft began to arrive carrying the parachute troops by the hundreds. "These," he states, "we shot down and mostly all killed shortly after'landing, but hundreds and hundreds never even landed alive but dangled in their parachutes dead. Then came the huge troop carriers,'. . . They crash-landed on the beach, on the sides of the hills, and on the aerodrome itself, only for themselves to be/shot to pieces by our gunners.

"The slaughter was simply too awful to describe to you and the destruction of aircraft beyond imagining; but still that dreadful stream of troop carriers came in. We bombed them, we shot them up, and shot them down, we shelled them with artillery, we destroyed them with A.A. fire, but still they came on, .crashing down one on top of the other, some turning completely upside down before landing, others crashing to pieces on the beach and in the water, but still they came. It seemed that nothing could stop that stream of troop carriers. . . .

"Against all possible odds our lads were able to fight the Jerries and force them back, only to be driven back themselves by the ground strafing and the terrible enemy bombing from formations of hundreds of bombers.

"And so the same old dreadful story revealed itself,' with the same result as Greece. Lack of aircraft, both fighters and bombers, lack of equipment and everything we needed forced us to withdraw, fighting a rearguard action the whole way across the island-"

BREAKING COVEE FOR FOOD

Then came the days and nights of living in holes and caves—"no water, no rations, no opportunity of washing, living and sleeping in the clothes we had come away in, as indeed we had done for the ten days previous to this, with our clothes sticking to our bodies with dirt and sweat." Telling of desperate efforts to secure rations the writer describes how' he ran the gauntlet, climbing a hillside (over 2000 ft) to a road where transports containing rations had been abandoned. "Each tinie," he states, "I was successful in getting there* and back without being hit, but each time took ten years off my life and I simply sweated blood in the attempt. It took me over four hours each time with practically no cover f " -He states'that on one occasion a-lorry he had raided was the mark for a direct hit by ,a bomb four minutes later. The descent to the caves in the valley was as bad as the climb up, the airman writes, as each time he was "lugging about lcwt of bully beef and biscuits and several times despaired of making it." However, he adds, that meant rations for another 24 hours, and that was all that mattered.

"THE NAVY IS HERE."

"Once again 'the Navy is here,' and again we thanked God for that superb branch of the Services," he writes. Suggesting that the arm to which he was attached was "not too popular" at that time, he tells of how he felt at being the only R.A.F. officer on the warship on which he was taken from Crete and of how marvellously he was treated on board. The troubles were not over with the moving out from Crete. The ship was hit once, .the bomb exploding in the galley and causing numerous casualties. "A near miss by a 10001b bomb," he states, "lifted the entire ship three feet out of the war and shaved the edges of the portholes as if they were tissue paper. "Jerry's efficiency, organisation, cooperation, and intelligence are something to marvel at, and," he adds, "the tragedy is that we could do the same if we would only realise that we must take off the gloves and fight him with everything we have; in other words, pull up our socks and get on with the job. "The news has not been good, but we can hope for better things, I think, as the Crete affair seems to have given certain people plenty to think about and makes them realise we are up against a devil from hell. There will be some more dark days, but the tide must turn for us soon." i