AFTER THREE YEARS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 82, 4 October 1944, Page 4

AFTER THREE YEARS

LETTER FROM SON

When the campaign in Greece came to an end in 1941 many of the Allied soldiers who were left in the country sought refuge from the invaders in the hills and small islands around the coast. Some were soon captured, but of others there nas been no word, and doubtless a number are still at liberty. That this is more, than a possibility was proved to one New Zealand family recently when it received word from a son who went missing after the British withdrawal from Greece and who had not been heard of since. Although he was not free at the time he wrote, it is believed that this soldier is now serving with an Allied force. In a letter to his family at Pukehou, Hawke's Bay, Private I. C. Curley describes how he lived as a Greek citizen on an island south of Greece. The letter was apparently smuggled away from the island. "At long last I trust that you will receive this short letter, which is meant for, all the family and friends, as circumstances will not permit me to write separate letters to all as I would wish to do," writes Private Curley. "I'm sure' you must be all waiting patiently for some words of my long silence and absence. But I can assure you this is the first opportunity I have had of making any communication with the outside world. "I was one of the many left behind in Greece, later to be taken prisoner by Jerry when I escaped on my own 24 hours later. I reached this island south of Greece, from' which further escape was impossible, and have remained here since. I have been living and working as a Greek citizen. I'm well and have complete freedom, and all are my friends; they are wonderful people. I even have my own radio —a short-wave, one-valve set which I constructed myself from parts,of German aeroplanes and magnetic mines, and hear London 8.8.C, and also New Zealand news every Tuesday night. So you see I know how New Zealand is getting along if you cannot hear me. "This island has still about 40 to 50 Germans, on one end of it, but they don't trouble us, much less me. When the Italians were here I was a prisoner inside for two and a half years, but that time has passed. Things are very bad here, and we are all waiting for the Army of Liberation to free us day by day. ' "It is a long, bloody war, and cruel, but the day is near. I hope to get this letter away by means of two African airmen who were shot down by Jerry yesterday and escaped with their lives after attacking a small German convoy trying to leave Crete. "My own escape from here is not yet possible, but it is near."