BITTER ATTACK

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22622, 27 April 1948, Page 5

BITTER ATTACK

OFFICER SYSTEM “DUNTROON CASTE” SYDNEY. April 26. A charge that Empire troops were left “like rats in a trap” when their officers abandoned them during the evacuations of Greece and Crete is made by lan Sabey in his Stalag Scrapbook. which bitterly attacks the officer caste system. Sabey enlisted in the ranks in 1939, was decorated for gallantry in a rearguard action in Greece, and spent 3J years in a German prison camp. He savs it was the officer system that broke down during evacuation and not the rank and file. Sabey claims that before the Dunkirk evacuations many officers had arrived in England and that during the Greek campaign officers arrived back in Alexandria and Crete, some of whom were quite unable to give a coherent account of when or where they last saw their men. He pleads for abolition of the “Duntroon caste system" and advocates that every potential Australian officer should begin as a private and seek promotion through ability rather than by the "old school tie."

His claims are indignantly denied by Australian officers, including Colonel A. W. Sheppard, who commanded the evacuation of Australian, New Zealand and English troops from Porto Rafti, near Athens, after the Germans had captured the city in April, 1941.