MOUNTAINS OF CRETE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25718, 14 December 1944, Page 9

MOUNTAINS OF CRETE

NO ANZACS IN HIDING ALL NOW ACCOUNTED FOR (N.Z.E.F. Special War Correspondent) RETIMO (Crete), Dec. 5. (Message delayed through transmission difficulties.) The stories that the mountains of Crete harbour thousands of Australian, New Zealand, and English escaped prisoners who were left behind at the evacuation of the island in 1941, are quite untrue. So far as I have been able to ascertain, there is only one man who has been here continuously since being • taken prisoner in that campaign, and he is an English officer who for years has been operating with the military mission. During the early days of the occupation, the prisons in the Canea, Maleme, and Galatos areas were filled with Imperial troops, the treatment of whom was not the best. There are well-authenticated stories of wounded Maoris having been brutally crossexamined in real Gestapo style to force them io admit atrocities. Tt was relatively easy to escape in those overcrowded times, but there was no place of lasting refuge. The total population was not more than 400,000, of which the bomb-blasted towns of Heroklion, Retimo, and Canea, took a large share. Many soldiers did shelter in ihc-sc- towns, but. their chances were better in the mountain villages. The majority of these, crowded away in inaccessible country, were pitifully poor. The villagers eked out just about enough to support their own population, and there was scarcely any room for refugees. Nevertheless, they were very helpful and often for years supported some of our soldiers. The policy adopted by the Germans of destroying villages suspected of harbouring escaped Allied soldiers also had effect in some quarters. To lose one’s village in the winter was almost a sentence of death, and some villages, at first helpful, became isolationist, though never unfriendly. Reliable estimates place the number of Allied soldiers in hiding as never more than 800 at any one time. The figure fluctuated, as many could not stand the hard life in the mountains and others were driven to seek medical attention.

There is a true story of two Australian brothers who escaped only for one to be smitten with malaria. They both surrended. The sick one recovered after treatment, and both escaped again. When British officers arrived their work of organising resistance was handicapped by a constant procession of men demanding assistance. Collecting points were organised, and one submarine took 80 and another 135 from bays on the south coast in the Sphakia and Plaka areas. The main task in clearing the hills was lo get the men off the island, and for this it was not always possible to rely on the hardpressed navy. Caique and Jewish fishing smack were hired, and these did yeoman service in the perilous waters. Working across seas which at the time were forbidden to the surface ships of the navy they were “ sitting birds ’’ for enemy planes or submarines, but they always got through. By October of last year the entire island had been cleared with the exception of the mountain area on the western end. Even these mountains hid no unore soldiers. The total number assisted out was about 500, but a careful check has revealed no stragglers. Thus ends beyond revival the legend of the Anzac mountaineers of Crete.