SENTENCED TO DEATH

Grey River Argus, 8 January 1944, Page 7

SENTENCED TO DEATH

BUT NOW FREE SYDNEY, Dec. 28. Sentenced to death by the Italians, Sergeant Allan Charles Barker, 33, of Wellington, lived to return home with other New Zealanders who gained freedom when Italy collapsed. “Why the sentence was never carried out beats me,” said Barker in .an interview. Barker, after fighting in Greece, was captured by the Nazis in Crete, but escaped with other New Zealanders. For some months they roamed the island with guerrilla fighters. In September, 1941, Barker and E. C. Kneen, from Sydney, secured a rowing boat and went, to Greece. Barker and Kneen were in Greece for 12 months, fed and befriended by the inhabitants. One day. however, Kneen and Barker were challenged by three Italian secret police on a • mountain track. Shots were exchanged and one Italian was killed. | “From then on we were hunted . from village to village,” said Bar- | ker. “We managed to elude capture i until a Greek, who had previously • befriended us, led us into a trap, and : we Were arrested. This Greek was j one of the very few who were not . staunch to the end.” . Barker and Kneen were tried by the Italians at Tripoli on charges of murder, espionage and sabotage anu sentenced to death on October 2b, 1942. For the next 24 days they were chained hand "-a foot, but _eventually were taken to a prison in Italy, where they were placed in isolation for five months. Barker had his sentence commuted by King Victor Emmanuel to 30 years’ imprisonment. Barker was able to escape from the gaol when a party of Allied prisoners of war came to the prison director and demanded the release of the 12 Britishers in custody. Then he worked through the enemy lines and caught up with the Eighth Army. , He said that Kneen also escaped from the prison, but they then separated and he lost track of him Another New Zealander, Pte. Roy J. Neilsen, told of enemy savagery in Greece, where he lived for two .and a half years, dying his fair hair as a disguise. . • “The Germans used a wire whip to kill a Greek who had stolen two gallons of benzine, obviously for sale 1 in the back market. I saw him be- ! fore he died, death occurring three hours after the whipping. Another returned New Zealand • soldier Pte. Martin Arnold, a ’ Queenslander, told how, when an • Italian troopship carrvino- British ■ prisoners sank in the Mediterranean 1 many lives were lost.