GIVEN OR ASKED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20570, 2 June 1941, Page 6

GIVEN OR ASKED

MAORI FIGHTERS SALLIES AT DUSK GERMAN BESTIALITY (Elec. Tel. Copyright-—United Press Assn.) (flood. June 2, 1.30 p.m.) LONDON, June 1. A 19-year-old Maori sergeant who. with a companion, escaped from Crete after being badly wounded, gave a detailed at cry of nightmare battles and brutal German savagery. An Australian destroyer brought the pair to a Middle East port. The sergeant was shot through the chest and had an ankle smashed by shrapnel. His companion was severely wounded in the thigh.

They trekked for three days in the While Mountains without food before the destroyer found them. The rergaant said: “If we had air support victory in Crete would have been achieved in hours. Our bayonets terrified the Germans. We asked no quarter and received none. “We lay all day at the mercy of hundreds of dive-bombers. When night fell we fixed bayonets and charged. Wc fought each night till dawn in the bloodiest and most inhuman battles. “The Maori Battalion and another New Zealand battalion formed a thin line from the sea to tiie hills to check the German thrust on Canea. We lay in open ground, watching until our

eyes ached, shower on shower of parachutists floating down. We lay among rocks and in drains —anything giving shelter from the relentless hail of bombs and bullets. “Wc had to keep our ‘ bayonets heathed and lie motionless while the : un was up in order not to betray our oositions. We shouted a haka as we charged in the dark. “Our main obstacle on the first night was a solid line of machineguns, but we quickly overran it and annihilated practically every German within reach, but in daylight waves of German troop-carriers arrived. Carriers, Fighters anti Bombers

“One hundred and thirty troopcarriers landed under the escort of clouds of fighters. Two hundred dive-bombers attacked us. The Germans established themselves in positions we had cleared during the night.

“With the return of darkness we again fixed bayonets and charged, and again cut the enemy to pieces. This went on for four days and nights. “Parachutists were dropped behind our lines and we had to give ground bit by bit and take up fresh positions. "Eventually during an attack against enemy machine-gun posts just before dusk one evening my company commander was shot dead in front of me. I carried on but was shot by a temmygun and crawled to the base where I underwent an operation on a dining-room table in a shattered Greek house. I had no anaesthetic, since that was being reserved for major operations. When the doctors had finished I had a drink of water and'led a party of marines to positions after dark, but was again wounded in the ankle. “Next day a wounded companion and I made for the hills. We reached the cover of a ravine overlooking Canea and began a painful three days' march to the coast. Area Strewn with Dead “It was impossible to walk more than three yards of the battle area without stepping on dead Germans. Clusters of their dead were even up in the mountains, where the Greeks had killed them. Such slaughter must be seen to be believed.

“Dead parachutists swung from branches of trees, strangled by thenown parachute cords. "The bestiality of the enemy knew no bounds. They butchered the crippled the dying with ‘tommy' guns. I saw it myself. “The Luftwaffe dropped pamphlets in our lines saying that owing to alleged ill-treatment of German prisoners in Greece the German High Command had ordered that every human in Crete, whether man', woman or child, should be killed. “The Germans stopped at nothing to terrorise us. Capturing a hospital on the outskirts of Canea, they dragged all the wounded able to waix from their beds and made thenstumble ahead of their advancing troops as protection. I saw our wounded men approaching. We went forward to greet them, but could not understand why they were shooting at us. Then one wounded officer escaped and revealed the Nazi ruse, whereupon we carried out a flanking movement and killed every German in that detachment.”