CRETAN ROMANCE

Evening Star, Issue 25672, 21 December 1945, Page 7

CRETAN ROMANCE

MAORI MARRIES GREEK SCHOOLMISTRESS SUCCOURED HIM IN NEED (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 20. Accompanied by his 25-year-old Greek bride, whom he married only two months andi a-half ago, Corporal Edward Nathan, of the Maori Battalion, was a member of the draft which returned to-day in the Mooltan. His romance began in Crete in 1941, when he swam ashore after his hospital ship was bombed following its departure from Suda Bay, arid was given' succour by his future wife, Katina Torakis, the school mistress of a little Cretan village. For months after he and Katina had separated in Crete, because Corporal Nathan was eventually apprehended by the Germans and narrowly escaped l being shot as a spy, neither knew whether the other still lived. ‘

Corporal Nathan now speaks fluent Greek, and on his return to Crete recently, he was attached as interpreter to the Greek party that participated in the dedication of the British cemetery there.

For 14 months Corporal Nathan lived with Katina’s family, but eventually he was caught in the hills by the Germans, and the Gestapo decided that he should

be “ bumped offas a spy. Fortunately, through friendly guards, he was able to have his identity disc smuggled into the civil prison. “ It was then,” he said, “ that they begah to get really nasty, and beat me up with rifles, boots, and fists—not for being a soldier, but for not disclosing how I obtained the disc.’/

Transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp in Athens, Corporal Nathan escaped within a fortnight, but was recaptured and spent the next two years in Ober Silesia, where he' acted as interpreter for Cretan prisoners. He was subsequently repatriated to England, and, after unsuccessfully attempting to communicate with his fiancee, was given leave to go to Crete. Meanwhile, Katina’s family had suffered. Her father had died as the result of German persecution, and Katina herself had been imprisoned. Corporal Nathan’s arrival brought the romance to a happy ending, and they were married on October 3 last. The bride and bridegroom then travelled to England, where they caught the Mooltan for New Zealand.

Prior to the war Corporal Nathan was farming in the Dargaville district, and he and his wife intend to settle there.