V.C. WINNER FREED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 119, 19 April 1945, Page 4

V.C. WINNER FREED

FOUR YEARS AS PRISONER SERGT. HINTON'S STOBY (N'Z Press Association.— Copyright.) ' (Special Correspondent ) LONDON, April 18. After spending four years as; a nrisotier of war and 18 months under the care of British doctors who treated his wound which he suffered when he won the Victoria Cross- at Kalamata, Sergeant Jack Son, of Colac Bay near Inver earrrill managed to get some of his own back on the Germans hefore he was flown to England. Liberated when the Americans captured Mulhausen, he "borrowed an American uniform and went forward with the 44th Infantry Dmsion, taking part in brief actions while they capped three more villages. Then an American colonel discovered *hat.Sergt, Hintoii was a New Zealander, and sent f message saving that he was to go back! Sefgt Hinton went back, he ping the Americans to march 400 German prisoners for 60 kilometres.. Thenhe ciu<rht a train to Namur, in Belgium, and travefled with 2000 Germans. Eventually he reached Brussels, and was flown to England. . . Serct Hintom is now staying .in the Norfolk'Hotel, Cliftonvillo. He ivthi... but in good health, and. like most liberated men, "just happy to sit in the sun and realise that it is that he is no longer a prisoner. ACTION IN GREECE.

This is his story. It incudes one attempted escape, which so nearly sueCGGQ6(I * ' In April, 1941, when the Germans had possession of Kalamata in Greece they were defending the waterfront with field guns, anti-tank guns and heavv machine-guns. They had to be cleaned up hefore the New Zealanders could evacuate by sea. .About 4 p.m. small groups of New Zealanders began to move through the streets to attack the guns, and Sergt. Hinton .went foiward with 12 men. They were armed with rifles, bayonets, a.nd_ a Bren gun. First they put the held oun out of action, then the anti-tank gun. The fighting went on all evening and past midnight. : It was about 2 a.m. that Sergt. Hintoii was wounded. A machine-gun bullet hit him in the abdomen and went right through his buttock. The amazino- thing was that it did not put him out of action for about 10 minutes. "1 was a bit worked up, and thought it was the finish for me, and I went a bit mad for about 10 minutes, and really do not. remember much of what happened," he said. Then he "blacked o,lt -" -, -, XI. When he came round he was on the waterfront," His "cobbers" bandaged him up. and he remembers being put on a stretcher and taken to a Greek cottage, where there were New Zealand and German wounded. It was there that he was taken prisoner later that morning. HELPED.BY GREEKS.

A few hours later Sergt. Hinton was taken to a; hospital and attended by British doctors. Three weeks later he was moved by ambulance to Athens, where iie was cared for by the Greek Bed Cross and Greek nuns. Food Was very short. "The Germans allowed us to live," said Sergt. Hinton. "But had it not been for the Greeks we might not have survived." It was while there that Sergt. Hinton learned he had won the Victoria Cross. The letter was brought by a Greek woman, and read to him by an Australian major. He' remained in hospital until the end of ""Wtober, when he was transferred to Salonika. Eventually he left for hospital train, and went .to-: :the ! Badsulza transit camp. It was while he was there that Sergt. Hinton received the* Victoria Cross ribbon sent him by Mr C D. Burdekin, of the New Zealand Prisoner-of-War Department, London. A parade was summoned, and Sergt. Hinton was asked his name and number by the camp commandant, which made him wonder what he had done wrong. But the men were called to attention, and the commandant read out the citation in German, which was read subsequently in English by a Scottish regimental sergeant-major, who was the camp leader. In the celebration that followed. Sergt. Hinton was carried shoulder high round the parade ground. ESCAPE ATTEMPT. His next move was to Molsdorf where he became so fit that he decided to attempt to escape. On March 6, 1943, with an 'English sergeant named Denis Gallacher, of Leicester, he climbed over a 14-foot barbed-wire fence while friends kept a lookout for sentries. They had 60 seconds to get over that fence, and they made it, although Sergt. Gallacher's trousers got caught upon the wire, and, as Sergt. Hinton says, "We made a terrific row." They got away, wvilked nine kilometres, and jumped into a train wagon, hiding in the corners. The train was going south, part of it for France and the rest for Spain, and their prospects seemed good. But about 9 p.m. on the second day the train collided with another. RETURNED TO. CAMP.

It meant the end of their escape, for they were quickly rounded up. The civil police charged them with sabotage, and they were sent back to Molsdorf just when they were in reach of the Rhine on the French border. -

It was Sergt. Hinton's only attempt to escape, but ho assisted in digging tunnels in Molsdorf until the camp was moved to Mulhausen in September, 1943, and became Stalag 9C. '■■".'•■ Eventually came the news that, the Americans had crossed the' Rhine at Remagen, and then one day they heard gunfire. Sergt. Hinton, with some others, climbed a look-out tower in the camp, and saw the battle as American armour and infantry attacked from the west and east. "It was a very good scrap," said Sergt. Hinton. "We saw the Germans bowled over and'houses set on fire, and we onjoyed every inch of it. We "did- not mind the anti-tank shells that whizzed about here and there."

It was April 2, and it was late that night when two American infantrymen walked in, and said, "Well, boys, you are frch."

There was almost a wild celebration, which was enjoyed by all except the Gorman guards, who were mostly old men. Unfortunately, four days previously 400 prisoners had been marched eastwards at the approach of the Americans, As a result only 225 men were liberated. But Sergt. Hinton was one, for the doctor had declartd that he was unable to march. Then it was that'he donned the American uniform and "Got some of his own back."