MAORI BRINGS HOME A GREEK BRIDE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 301, 21 December 1945, Page 4

MAORI BRINGS HOME A GREEK BRIDE

WARTIME ROMANCE ON CRETE MONTHS OF SEPARATION (P.A.) Wellington, Dec. 20. Accompanied by his 25-year-old Greek bride, whom he married only two and a-half months ago. Corporal Edward Nathan, of the Maori Battalion, was a member of a draft which returned to-day on the Mooltan. His romance began in Crete in 1941, when he swam ashore after his hospital ship was bombed after leaving Suda Bay, and was given succour by his iuture wife, Miss Katina Torakis, a schoolmistress of a little Cretan village. For months after he and Katina had separated in Crete, because Corporal Nathan was apprehended by the Germans eventually, and narrowly escaped being shot as a spy, neither knew whether the other still lived. Corporal Nathan now speaks fluent Greek, and on his return to Crete recently he was attached as an interpreter to the Greek party that participated in the dedication of the British cemetery there. For 14 months, Corporal Nathan lived with Katina’s family, but eventually he was caught in the hills by the Germans and the Gestapo decided he should be “bumped off” as a spy. Fortunately, through friendly guards, he was able to have his identity disc smuggled into the civil prison, “it was then that they began to get really nasty, and beat me up with rifles, boots and fists—not for being a soldier, but I would not disclose how I obtained the disc,” said Corporal Nathan. Transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp in Athens, Corporal Nathan escaped within a fortnight, but was recaptured and spent the next two yean in Ober, Silesia, where he acted as an interpreter for Cretan prisoners. He subsequently was repatriated to England and, after unsuccessfully attempting to communicate with his fiancee, was given leave to go to Crete. Meanwhile, Katina s family had suffered. Her father had died as a consequence of German persecution, and Katina herself had been imprisoned. His arrival brought the romance to a happy ending and they were married on October 3. last. The bride and groom then travelled to England, where they caught the Mooltan for New Zealand.

Prior to the war, Corporal Nathan was farming in the Dargaville district, and he and his wife intend to settle there.