MIDNIGHT DRAMA

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20571, 3 June 1941, Page 5

MIDNIGHT DRAMA

NAVY SWEEPS SEA INVASION CRAFT SUNK JUNKYARD OF LUFTWAFFE (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.) ,Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. June 3, 9 a.m.) CAIRO, June 2 As if we had grandstand seats in a huge battle arena, hundreds of New Zealanders watched the gripping midnight drama in which the British navy'sent the best part of the German invasion fleet to the bottom of the sea off the north coast of Crete. The fruits of brilliant intelligence work were used to the full by the warship.' which cruised outside a point where, as landing was known to have been intended, and so for us it was like awaiting the curtain to rise in a theatre. It was near midnight when heavy shellfire awakened me from a doze and I hurried to a hilltop overlooking the shore positions held by a New Zealand force. A red inferno on the horizon showed that the navy had already found its target at what seemed no rhore than 10 miles out. Then suddenly the silver beam of a searchlight was flung across the water. It caught perhaps a dozen small ships in fine, each gleaming in the light as if coated with luminous paint. The naval gunners took the cue from the revelations of the searchlight and a terrific battle raged. Big guns flashed and roared, and incendiary shells chased one another across the sky in strings of glowing red balls. Again the searchlight threw a brilliant beam over the enemy flotilla. Again the big guns boomed until at last when the light,swung through a complete circle, it seemed to us the sea had been "cleared, save for two burning .ships, one of which was convulsed spasmodically by fierce explosions. The calm sea next morning held no signs of life. Tremendous Cost I had another grandstand view last night of the scene which also told its own story of the tremendous cost of the German invasion. In a battlereddened sunset, I looked down across the coastal plain on whose seaward fringe lies Malemi aerodrome, which is now being used by the Germans to land infantry supplies. A checkered quilt of cultivated fields become the Luftwaffe junk-yard since the wrecked hulks of transport planes and gliders lay at odd angles along it as far as the eye could see. Every 200 yards down the shingle beach was broken by the shape of a crashed machine. Many more littered the groves and riverbeds. The wreckage was thick round the aerodrome, where British anti-aircraft guns and our own field artillery made the German landing operations a costly and wasteful affair. Even as I watched big carrier planes were droning in from the sea as they had done almost continuously for two days. Skimming the water, they reached the aerodrome one by one, landed in a flurry of dust and took off again after discharging their loads and possibly embarking fatigued and wounded paratroops, but our guns were still firing, too, and those wreckage heaps must have been growing.

Hints and warnings shouted to shadowing Wellington infantrymen by members of the captured party helped to rescue some hundreds of hospital patients and staff from a band of paratroops after they had been held for a few hours. The Germans seized a general hospital on the coast near Canea, after twice attacking it from the air. I saw this outrage myself. Hospital Attacked

A day or two before the troops landed, an enemy plane dropped a stick of bombs right through the tented portion of the hospital, despite the fact that a large red cross was marked on the ground and another was painted on the roof of the main building. Even so, we were inclined to regard this as a mistake or an indiscretion on the part of some individual pilot until, on the morning of a parachute attack, the same area was raked with machine-gun fire from a low altitude. Then paratroops were dropped nearby and drove all the patients out of the marquees. Two or three Germans were picked off by New Zealanders who crept through a vineyard in a counter-attack, but the risk of wounding the patients was too great to allow for stronger immediate action. The Germans 'showed little sympathy with the patients, many of whom were New Zealanders. One with an injured back said later that a burst of tommy-gun fire was put at his heels to hurry him out of the ward. Possibly in order to use them for protection, the Germans marched the patients and staff ahead of them towards a village in the hills. As tljey passed through the olive groves, the captives saw our infantry patrols shadowing them and kept up a running fire of valuable advice, such “Look out —Jerry can see you there.” The enemy guards became most worried, especially when other parties of paratroops failed to make a rendezvous with them. Finally, as infantry closed in and shot some, the remainder took to their heels.