HONOUR FOR WANGANUI SOLDIER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 40, 18 February 1943, Page 4

HONOUR FOR WANGANUI SOLDIER

TRAINING GREEK GUNNERS SKILL AND COURAGE IN BATTLE I The honour of being one of four New Zealand sergeants selected to train a Greek regiment fell to the lot of a Wanganui soldier serving with the Second N.Z.E.F. overseas. He is Staff-Sergeant C. C. Stewart, third son of Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Stewart, Wanganui, and an old boy of the Collegiate School. Going overseas with a New Zealand battery. Sergeant Stewart fought in Greece and later went to Libya. He was then recalled with other personnel to train Greek gunners. An overseas clipping pays the following tribute to the skill and courage of the Greeks in battle. It reads: “Aera (the rally cry of the Greeks, which means that they are after their enemy as fast as the wind). A group of Italians started uncomfortably as they heard the cry which has heralded death for so many of their comrades in Albania. A couple of minutes later they were surrounded; they put up their hands. “The Royal Greek Army was in action again. It, had picked up the fight where it had left off, after the battle of Crete, more than a year ago.

"When the Eighth Army crashed into Rommel’s lines, the Greek Brigade was in front, starting to level old scores. Formed just after the evacuation of Crete, the brigade trained in Palestine and moved to the Western Desert some six weeks before the attack started. Almost at once they started on night uatrols at which they proved extraordinarily good. "After the shortages from which they suffered when they were fighting on the other side of the Mediterranean, the Greeks were tremendously nleased with the lavish scale of arms and equipment with which they are provided. In Albania, their old guns, used in the 1912 war, were limited sometimes to five rounds a day. In the big shoot at the beginning of the offensive the Greek 25-pounders fired 1000 rounds at one target in 40 minutes.

"The Greek gunners were trained largely by New Zealand instructors. After the hatties of Greece and Crete, where the Greeks and Kiwis developed great mutual admiration, the New Zealand Government, at the request of the Greeks, made arrangements for New Zealanders to train them. Today it can be truthfully said that the Greek gunners in the desert have never failed to get their targets—and they have taken part in some very complicated shorrting schemes.”