DEATH CHOSEN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24634, 16 June 1941, Page 4

DEATH CHOSEN

THREE NEW ZEALANDER3 BLOWN UP WITH BRIDGE HEROISM IN GREECE How two New Zealand officers in an engineers' unit held up a German advance with their revolvers at a bridgehead in Greece while a sergeant blew up the bridge and the two officers and himself with it, is told by a sergeant in the New Zealand artillery overseas in a letter written to his brother in Wellington. He praised the accuracy of the New Zealand artillery fire, and said that, having once come in contact with the infantry, the Germans were very shy of a second helping. "The stories are trickling in now of some of the things our boys did ' over the way.' One I heard this morning is just about the grandest thing I have ever heard. In one position we were in we were camped next to a section of engineers, who were very hospitable and friendly to us, and we got to know them pretty well. German Advance Held " Subsequently we were all separated and I had no way of finding out how they got on till this morning, when I met one of them in hospital, and he told me that to the best of his knowledge, he is the only one out of five left. They had a dreadful time, as they were the last away, having to blow up bridges and so on, and time and again they were nearly trapped. "At one position they - were cut off by some tanks and hacked their way out and incidentally helped some Aussies to escape by throwing land mines and anything that would explode at the Jerries. At one of the last bridges, however, the Jerries caught up with them before they could blow up the bridge. "The two officers went across and tried to hold them up with their revolvers, while the sergeant held the two bared wires together and blew the three of them to nothing—pretty game. I'll say! "I found out over there that Jerry is not so tough as one might imagine." he added. "Our boys were more than a match for.him. It was not as though he had the soft pedal on. He threw everything but the grand piano at us, and I am certain from what I saw myself that we inflicted five times the damage on him that he did on ,us." Accurate Fire The accuracy of the New Zealand artillery fire in the Grecian campaign was amazing he said, and was considerably better than the enemy's. "His tanks are tough, but our outsize in fowling-pieces skittled them like nobody's business. The first I saw showed up at 10,000 yards—seven of the 40-ton variety. Bang, bang—two shots, and the two leading tanks were blown to pieces. The other five skipped smartly up a side gully, where some Tommy anti-tank gunners bowled them over in jig-time. They were definitely wary, of all our artillery and anti-tank fire, and once they had met up with our infantry they were very shy of a second helping."