EVACUATION DRAMA

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 142, 17 May 1941, Page 7

EVACUATION DRAMA

ESCAPES FROM GREECE. ASTOUNDING STORIES. (From the Official War Correspondent with tho N.Z.E.F. in the Middle East.) CAIRO, May 15. Early in May, while the Navy and I merchant service in brilliant co-opera-tion. and with skill and daring perlormed teats ol" evacuation which took whole brigades at a time to' safety from the beaches and harbours of Greece, little unplanned acts of deliverance were taking place at many points along the rugged coastline. Scow'S and fishing-boats, carrying strange cargoes ol exhausted 'anil hungry men by slow and devious routes to friendiy ports, have brought a different and even more dramatic \ side to the picture of tho evacuation, j As these troops, many of whom arc] New Zealanders, rejo.ned their units, • l lie J ists of missing men have been j diminishing every day. There will be no end to the stories ; of astounding escapes', not only from Greece itself, but also from the very ! hands of the enemy. They are the ex- I periencos of as yet countless soldiers ! who, after being separated on special tasks trom their regiment, were cut off by the enemy drive before they! could rejoin the main withdrawal | movements. Their adventures make those of most of us seem mild by com- I parison. Front’a small dog-tired party New Zealanders 1 heard to-day how they had just reached safety after a ! iorced march across the mountains from the Corinth Canal area and a

voyage ol 1-10 miles in an overcrowded, leaky rowboat. They were a dozen cavalrymen anti Maoris who had

fought their way through parachutists in the canal zone, escaping along the south-east coast road till it petered out. They trekked 35 miles in ten hours over high, stony country to the Argos Gulf in the hope of finding a ship.

As they rested in an olive grove on the last Monday morning they learned 1 that German troops had been sighted j only four miles away. They decided ; they must find their own way out, so; they gathered a little food and rowed! to an island, three miles off", in an j ISft boat found on the beach. From j a high point an officer in the party saw British troops successfully engag- ] ing the enemy on the mainland while other small boats left the shore amid 1 mortar fire. i

| The party set out again that night,! calling at another islandGo replenish; their water supply and dine well off! wild goat. Then, crossing to the main-j land oil the other side of the gulf, they i reached a hospitable village, where; they bought a sheep and made a house- i to-house canvass for bread, greens, cheese and olive oil. Alter again eat-j ing as much as they could, they left; the mainland lor the last time. They j sailed along the coast from the Tuesday night till tho Thursday morning, j when they reached the southern end j of Greece and struck out tow ard Crete, J whose hills were visible on the horizon. '‘That evening we landed on an j island 30 miles from Crete and, made :t ; glorious stew with mutton bones, eggs j and tinned rations. The Greeks there treated us like long lost brothers. The , same night we were aboard a motor-, vessel on our way to Crete, cold and exhausted but safe.” FOOD RATIONED.

• The feat was extraordinary when it ■ is considered that the men were so I weary that some fell asleep during I their hourly shifts on the single pair jof oars which the boat possessed. The | lood was severely rationed, each of the | two daily meals consisting only of 'small portions of meat, bread and 1 water with one spring onion and one | lettuce leaf. That crowded rowboat was only one of a veritable flotilla of assorted erait which carried hundreds of stragglers to safe lands. Parties and individual j soldiers cut off in the earlier stages oi ' | the withdrawal took coastal routes to ”skirt the enemy lines and used ’ dinghies to cross the gulf and bays. ' After the retirement to Thermopyiae 1 Pass one battalion commander sent a ’ boat to an island on speculation and thus recovered a mixed party of iso- , I a ted troops. Travelling b.v night and hiding by day. another British party, which included a New Zealand medical officer, escaped to Crete from the coast near Athens in an auxiliary scow when parachutists were reported to be close. Though their only navigational aids . were a cheap map and knowledge of , the whereabouts of the North Star, they were so well provided with fuel i and food, that they were prepared to ; make for Palestine if .necessary. Often linked with the miracle of escape wa6 a demonstration of high Anzac courage in the face of almost impossible odds. During the with-: drawal from Servia Pass a Canterbury j infantry commander remained till day-! light with a few of his Bren carriers j and a detachment of sappers to see the | New Zealanders safely out and the , last mines exploded. After both tasks 'were completed his little column had 1 just cleared the pass under bombing attacks when they ran into German medium tanks who had crossed the mountains from another sector. Though tremendously outnumbered and outclassed in armaments, the New Zealanders engaged the enemy as a! matter of course, even before orders 1 could be given. "While they sent a hail j of fire at the German force from a roadside position, the crew of an j Australian carrier also in the column I sacrificed their lives in an apparent headlong charge at one tank. The odds.! were too great, however, and the colonel with his surviving men had to withdraw across the foothills. Captured shortly after the same incident, an Auckland infantryman escaped to tell how the Germans put him to work with parties repairing bridges demolished by our tappers. After being two days in enemv hands he wandered away casually downstream and reached a village, where he obtained civilian clothes and merged into the flow’ of refugees on the main road. In this guise he passed unmolested through the German lines and joined an Australian unit, which was strongly suspicious of his identity tdl he guaranteed it in rich “digger” . language.