ESCAPES FROM GREECE

Southland Times, Issue 24437, 17 May 1941, Page 6

ESCAPES FROM GREECE

SLOW DEVIOUS ROUTES! TAKEN HOW NEW ZEALANDERS . ELUDED GERMANS (From. Official War Correspondent) CAIRO, May 15. While the Navy and the Merchant Service in brilliant co-operation and ■ with skill and daring performed feats | at the evacuation which took whole I 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. Scows and fishing boats carrying strange cargoes of exhausted, hungry men by slow, devious routes to friendly ports have brought a different, even a more dramatic, side to the picture of the evacuation. As these troops, many of whom are New Zealanders, rejoin their units the lists of missing men are being diminished 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 experiences of countless soldiers who, after being separated on special tasks from 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 comparison. ESCAPE IN LEAKY BOAT From a small dog-tired party of New Zealanders I heard how they had just reached safety after a forced march across the mountain from the Corinth Canal area and a voyage of 140 miles in an overcrowded leaky rowboat. These were a dozen cavalrymen and 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 18-foot boat found on the beach. From a high point an officer in the party saw British troops successfully engaging the enemy on the mainland while other small boats left the shore amid mortar fire. The party again set out that night, calling at another island to replenish their water supply and dine well off wild goat. Then crossing to the mainland on the other side of the gulf, they reached a hospitable village where they bought a sheep and made a house to house canvass for bread, greens, cheese and olive oil. After again eating as much as they could they left the mainland for the last time. “GLORIOUS STEW” They rowed along the coast from Tuesday night until Thursday morning, when they reached the southern end of Greece and struck out towards Crete, whose hills were visible on the horizon. “That evening we landed on an island 30 miles from Crete and made a glorious stew with mutton bones, eggs and tinned rations,” said one man. “The Greeks there treated us like long-lost brothers. The same night we were aboard a motor vessel on the way to Crete, cold, exhausted but safe.” The feat was extraordinary when it is considered that the men were so weary that some fell asleep during their hourly shifts on the single pair of oars which the boat possessed. Food was severely rationed, each of the two daily meals consisting only of small portions of meat, bread, water, one spring onion and one lettuce leaf. The crowded rowboat was only one of a veritable flotilla of assorted craft which carried hundreds of stragglers to safe lands. Parties a..d individual soldiers cut off in the earlier stages of the withdrawal Maoris, who fought their way through parachutists in the canal zone, escaping along the south-east coast road until it petered out. They treked 35 miles in 10 hours over high, stony country to Argos Gulf in the hope of finding a ship. As they rested in an olive grove they learned that German troops were sighted only took coastal routes to skirt the enemy j lines and used dinghies to cross gulfs j and bays. After the retirement to Thermopylae Pass one battalion commander sent a boat to an island on speculation and thus recovered mixed parties of isolated troops. Travelling by 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 close. Although the only navigational aids were a cheap map and a knowledge of the whereabouts of the North Star, they were so well provided with fuel and food that they were prepared to make for Palestine if necessary. HIGH COURAGE Often linked with the miracle of escape was a demonstration of high Anzac courage in tire face of almost impossible odds. During the withdrawal to Servia Pass a Canterbury infantry commander remained until daylight with a few of his Bren carriers 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 just cleared the pass under bombing attacks when they ran into German medium tanks, which had crossed mountains from another sector. Although tremendously outnumbered and outclassed in armaments, the New Zealanders engaged the enemy as if it were a matter of course, even before orders could be given. While they sent a hail of fire at the German force from a roadside position, the crew of an Australian carrier also in the column sacrificed their lives in an apparent headlong charge at one tank. The odds were too great, however, and a colonel with the surviving men had to withdraw across ffie foothills. Captured shortly after the same incident, an Auckland infantryman escaped to tell how the Germans put him to work with parties repairing a bridge demolished by our sappers. After being two days in enemy 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. Id this guise he passed unmolested through the German lines, and joined an Australian unit which was strongly suspicious of his identity until he guaranteed it in rich “digger” language.