Grecian Adventure - Anzac Trail Stories & Photographs 1941 - Jim Claven 2022 by Jim Claven

GRECIAN ADVENTURE Greece 1941

Anzac Trail Stories & Photographs

Jim Claven

Grecian Adventure FRONT COVER IMAGES Above Archive Image 1.42 - “Greece – Burial Service.” Taken behind Allied lines, during the Greek campaign, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. BACK COVER IMAGES Left to right: Archive Image 1.9 - “Athens, April 1941.” Syntagma Square, Athens. Private Kevin Byrne photographed in Athens’ main square, the Hellenic Parliament at rear, photograph taken by a local Greek photographer, April 1941. Kevin Byrne Collection, Photograph reproduced courtesy of Michael Byrne; Archive Image 1.54 – “Kalamato [Kalamata], Greece, April 1941.” A gathering in Kalamata of locals and Allied soldiers. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria; Archive Image 1.57 - “Two of the many Greek girls who fed us with bread and water standing at the entrance of an old church at Trachila [Trahila] Greece, 30 April 1941”. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Anzac Trail Stories & Photographs Greece 1941

INSIDE FRONT COVER Detail from Map 8 – Aliakmon and Thermopylae Defence Lines, Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 82. Courtesy AWM. INSIDE BACK COVER Detail from Map 12 – Crete - Chania-Mournies Area “Morning, 25th May”, Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 245. Courtesy AWM. SECTION TITLE PAGES BACKWASH IMAGE Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.28 titled - “Greece – Ellisona [Ellasona] by Olympus”, This most probably depicts the 2/3rd CCS camp site, located behind Allied lines, near Ellasona, central Greece, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

 Jim Claven

First Published by the Pammessinian Brotherhood Papaflessas Ltd in 2022

ABN Registration No: 25005738349 2 Gooch Street, Thornbury Victoria, 3071 Contact: president@messinia.com.au Printed in Australia by Kosdown Printing, Layout by Vangelis Karakasis, Neos Kosmos (Ethnic Publications Pty Ltd) Original text © Jim Claven Photographs © State Library of Victoria, Doug Beckett, Arthur Bregiannis, Alexandra Bryant, Michael Byrne, Jim Claven, Dr Peter Ewer, Andrew Higgins, Deb Stewart and Craig Tolson. Maps © AWM, HMSO, Dr Peter Ewer and Andrew Ballis. The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder. Title: Grecian Adventure: Anzac Trail Stories & Photographs - Greece 1941 Author: Jim Claven ISBN: 978-0-646-83863-2

This project was supported by the Victorian Government and the Victorian Veterans Council, with funding provided through the 75th Anniversary of the end of World War Two (II) Grant Program.

Text Image 1.1 - The author. Photograph Andrew Higgins, 2015.

Jim Claven is a historian and freelance writer, holding degrees from Australia’s Monash University. He has been Secretary of the Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee from its foundation in 2011 and since that time has been researching Greece’s Anzac heritage trail, leading a number of commemorative tours there. He has written many articles on the Hellenic link to Australia’s Anzac story across both World Wars and delivered numerous public presentations on the subject. His writings have been published in academic and defence force journals, as well as national newspapers. He curated Remembering Lemnos and Gallipoli, a photographic exhibition showcasing archival photographs of Lemnos during the Gallipoli campaign. This has been displayed on Lemnos, in Athens and many Australian locations, including the Victorian Parliament. His previous publications include Lemnos & Gallipoli Revealed: A Pictorial History of the Anzacs in the Aegean 1915-16 (Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee, 2019), John Hancock and the Rise of Victorian Labor: The Detonation of the Volcano (Pluto Press, 1991) and The Centre is Mine: Tony Blair, New Labour and the Future of Electoral Politics (Pluto Press 2000). He also contributed to Mates & Allies: A Tribute to the bonds forged between Australians and Greeks during the Battle of Crete (Australian Embassy Greece, 2021). He lives in Melbourne.

To the memory of all those who served in the Greek campaign of 1941, those who helped the Allied forces, those who were captured, those who escaped and to the Greek people who suffered the dark night of occupation. To Private Syd Grant, Sergeant Alfred Huggins and Private Kevin Byrne for their dedication in recording their experience of the campaign, and to their families for preserving their archive for future generations. Finally, to the memory of the late Private Norm Maddock, Sapper Bill Rudd and Private Gil Easton, for their friendship and encouragement, and for their service and inspirational commitment to our common humanity and understanding. Lest we forget.

To my family – son Andrew, partner Vicki, brother Michael, sister Jenny and my parents Margaret and Jim - for their encouragement of my interest in history which in many ways has resulted in this book. I am particularly indebted to my parents for their decision to immigrate to Australia from Scotland thereby providing me with the opportunity to learn about Australia’s Anzac story and its Hellenic connection.

Grecian Adventure Anzac Trail Stories & Photographs Greece 1941

Archive Image 1.9 - “Athens, April 1941.” Syntagma Square, Athens. Private Kevin Byrne photographed in Athens’ main square, the Hellenic Parliament at rear, photograph taken by a local Greek photographer, April 1941. Kevin Byrne Collection, Photograph reproduced courtesy of Michael Byrne.

GRECIAN ADVENTURE

Contents Acronyms

Text Images, Archive Images and Maps List

Preface

Introduction

Before the Campaign – Australia 1941 1.

How OXI Day was welcomed in Australia in 1940

2. When Melbourne went blue and white - Greek Day 1941

37 42

The Greek Campaign – April-May 1941 3. Zeeto ee Australia! - With the Australians at Vevi

4. The Anzacs defending the Gate - When the Germans surrendered at the Servia Pass

5. When Hell came to the Olympus Pass

6. Overwhelmed - With the Anzacs at Platamonas and Pinieos Gorge

On the Plains of Thessaly with Ararat’s Private Felix Craig

105

8. When the Germans marched on Lemnos, April 1941

113

9. When paratroops filled the sky – The Anzacs at Corinth

119

10. To Argos, Nafplio and Tolo they came - With the Anzacs in the Argolis

131

11. A Hero of Kalamata - Red Cliffs' Captain Albert Gray

143

12. From Lefkada to St Kilda, Brallos Pass and Crete In the wake of Homer’s Odysseus and Gunner James Zampelis

156

13. Lost Victory at Heraklion 1941 – Templestowe’s Gunner Leonard Hodgson and the Battle of Crete

176

14. Remembering the Kondomari Massacre and Franz-Peter Weixler

183

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The Greek Campaign – Prisoners, Evaders and Escapers 15. Captured – The Anzac prisoners in the Peloponnese

191

16. To Hell and Back – Prisoners, escapers and their helpers in Thessaloniki’s Second World War POW Camp

200

17. Over the sea to Evia, Skyros and beyond - On the run with Frankston’s Warrant Officer Milton Boulter

225

18. From Tolo to Crete in 1941 – The Odyssey of Richmond’s Bernard O’Loughlin

234

19. On the road to Trahila with Private Syd Grant

240

20. A Grave in the Mani – The Fatal Journey of Prahran’s William Salter

255

21. The Song of Sfakia - Po Atarau or Now is the Hour

263

22. The Stones of Preveli - of Crete, Greece and Australia

268

23. Private Syd Grant, his Greek Campaign and his Photographs

275

24. Sergeant Alfred Huggins, his Greek Campaign and his Photographs

286

Epilogue

305

Between Pages 176 and 177

The following acronyms have been used throughout the book: AIF ATL AWM Bundesarchiv CWGC Davin DVA Ewer HMSO Long

McClymont Monteath

Appendices

Archive Images - The Greek Campaign Photographs

Acronyms

Mason

The Greek Campaigns and Photographs of Private Syd Grant and Sergeant Alfred Huggins

Appendix 1 - Maps Appendix 2 - Sources and Further Reading

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308 317

NAA NLA NAUK Thompson Walker

Australian Imperial Force Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand Australian War Memorial German Federal Archives Commonwealth War Graves Commission D. M. Davin, Crete, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-45, War History Branch Department of Internal Affairs, 1953 Department of Veterans Affairs Peter Ewer, Forgotten Anzacs: The Campaign in Greece 1941, Scribe, 2008 Her Majesty’s Stationery Office Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, Australia in the War of 1939-1945, AWM, 1953 W. Wynne Mason, Prisoners of War, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-45, War History Branch Department of Internal Affairs, 1954 W.G. McClymont, To Greece, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-45, War History Branch Department of Internal Affairs, 1959 Peter Monteath, P.O.W.: Australian prisoners of war in Hitler’s Reich, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2011 National Archives of Australia National Library of Australia National Archives of the United Kingdom Peter Thompson, Anzac Fury: The Bloody Battle of Crete 1941, William Heinemann Australia, 2010 Allan S. Walker, Medical Series: Middle East and Far East, Australian in the War of 1939-45, AWM, 1956

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Text Images, Archive Images and Maps List Textual Images - The following images are reproduced within the text of the book. Text Image 1.1 - The author. Photograph Andrew Higgins, 2015. Text Image 1.2 – 2/8th Battalion standard with its battle honours in Greece listed – Greece 1941, Mount Olympus, Veve, Crete and Withdrawal to Sphakia, Ballarat Town Hall. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 1.3 - Greek campaign certificate, issued to Corporal Henry Bernard Moran, Photograph Jim Claven 2015. Courtesy of Michael Moran. Text Images 2.1 and 2.2 - Australian Greek Day Badges. Authors Collection. Text Image 2.3 - “Shows several people in crowd holding flags printed for the “Greece War victims Appeal” of 1941”, The Argus (Melbourne), 1941. State Library of Victoria, Collection Reference H98.100/3518. Text Image 2.4 - “Young women waving paper flags for the “Greece War Victims Appeal” on the 14th February, 1941”, The Argus (Melbourne), 1941. State Library of Victoria Collection, Reference H98.100/3448. Text Image 2.5 - “Young women waving paper flags for the “Greece War Victims Appeal” on the 14th February, 1941”, The Argus (Melbourne), 1941. State Library of Victoria, Collection Reference H98.100/3449. Text Image 3.1 - Kleidi valley looking north to Vevi in fine weather and in winter (right). In April 1941, the 2/4th battalion defended the hills to the left, supported by the 2/3rd Field Regiment, and the 2/8th those to the right. Photograph Jim Claven 2015. Text Image 3.2 - View of the hills to the west of Kleide valley looking south from Vevi. In April 1941, this was the location of the 1st Rangers, 2/4th Battalion and 2/3rd Field Regiment, the 1st Rangers straddling the road. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 3.3 – The view north from Vevi, the centre of the German's advance on the Allied defenders in April 1941. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 3.4 – Greek Battle of Vevi memorial signage, on the hillside at the southern entrance to the Kleidi valley. Photograph Jim Claven 2015. Text Images 3.5 and 3.6 - Greek Battle of Vevi memorial, at the southern entrance to the Kleidi valley (above) and memorial inscription (right). Photograph Jim Claven 2015. Text Images 3.7 and 3.8 - War memorial at Vevi, with the 2/4th Battalion commemorative plaque to the battle of Vevi affixed at the base (above). Photographs Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 3.9 – Veve Battle honour from the 2/8th Battalion banner, Ballarat Town Hall. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 4.1 - The view of Servia and the plain, with the Aliakmon River and modern Polifito Lake, from high in the Servia Pass, looking north-west. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 4.2 - Fotis and Fotini Teliopoulos (fourth and second from right) and their nephew George (at left) in their home garden in the village of Avles. The author second from right. Photograph Deb Stewart 2018. Text Images 4.3 - This 1912 monument near the entrance to the Servia Pass, the view ahead looking across the Anzac defence positions on 15th April. A perfect location for a new commemorative memorial to the Anzac battle of Service Pass of April 1941. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

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Text Image 4.4 - The grave of Frankston’s Private Robert Carter King, Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 5.1 - Mount Olympus viewed from the road into the Olympus Pass from Katerini. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 5.2 - The author with Effie and Sakis Karavidas (right) at the memorial to those murdered by the Germans in WW2 (and those killed in the Albanian War), Aghios Dimitrios. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 6.1 - Old castle on Castle Hill at Platamonas, defended by the New Zealanders in 1941. Photograph Jim Claven 2013 Text Image 6.2 - The view north from Castle Hill, Platamonas. Photograph Jim Claven 2013. Text Image 6.3 - Pinieos River Gorge, through which German armour advanced on the Anzac positions on April 18, 1941. Photograph Jim Claven 2013. Text Image 6.4 – Private Edwin Madigan. Courtesy Dr Peter Ewer. Text Images 6.5 and 6.6 - The Greek resistance memorial, Pinieos Gorge (Tempe Valley). Photographs Jim Claven 2013. Text Images 7.1 and 7.2 - Craig Family Memorial Window and detail, Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Ararat. Photograph Alexandra Bryant 2015. Text Image 7.3 - Fiona Craig with the author, reviewing Felix’s memorabilia and photographs. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 7.4 - Private Felix Craig’s grave at Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 8.1 - Liza Koutsaplis , Mrs and Mr Nikolaos Koutsaplis (second from right) and the author (right). Photograph Jim Claven 2015 Text Image 8.2 – Chris Mingos and Angelo Kalomiris (right) with the author in Melbourne. Photograph Jim Claven 2017. Text Image 8.3 – Dimitris Boulotis at the 1941-44 Martyrs Monument, Myrina, Lemnos. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 9.1 - The Corinth Canal, looking east, with the site of the former bridge destroyed in the battle in the middle distance. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 9.2 - Gravestone of Parkdale’s Private George Young, Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 9.3 - Banner of the 2/6th Battalion, Anzac Day Parade, Melbourne. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 9.4 – New Battle of Corinth Canal Memorial plaque, created by the author and Melbourne’s Pankorinthian Association, to be unveiled in Corinth. Photograph Jim Claven 2020 Text Image 10.1 - Argos Cemetery. Argos, Greece. Photograph Jim Claven 2013. Text Image 10.2 - Nafplio and its harbour, from the Palamidi. The Island of Bourtzi and its Venetian fortress in the centre foreground. Photograph Jim Claven 2012. Text Image 10.3 - Streets and lanes of old Nafplio. These would have thronged with Allied soldiers and their vehicles in April 1941. Photograph Jim Claven 2013. Text Image 10.4 - Remains of Italian WW2 machine gun emplacement, Ancient Asini. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 10.5 - Tolo Bay, early evening, as it must have looked to the Allied troops as they awaited evacuation. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 10.6 - View across the battlefield of Asini-Tolo, the Asini-Tolo road visible in the foreground. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 11.1 – View of the Kalamata Bay from the waterfront, with the pier in the middle distance and the coast stretching down to the Mani in the far distance. Photograph Doug Beckett 2018. Text Image 11.2 - Kalamata Bay, close up of the pier. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 11.3 - The final approach of the Australian attack on the German position, led by Captain Albert Gray. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

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Text Images 11.4 and 1.5 - Red Cliffs War Memorial and detail with Albert Gray’s listing. Photograph Craig Tolson 2018. Text Images 11.6 and 11.7 - Greek Campaign Memorial, Kalamata , with detail. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 11.8 – New Kalamata Waterfront Memorial plaque, created by the author and Melbourne’s Pammessinian Brotherhood Papaflessas, to be unveiled in Kalamata. Photograph Jim Claven 2020. Text Image 12.1- The fields of Marantochori. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 12.2 – The author with one of James’ relatives Panorea Zampelis, Marantochori. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 12.3 – Brallos Pass. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 12.4 – Lieutenant John Anderson, 2/2nd Field Regiment. Courtesy Dr Peter Ewer. Text Image 12.5 - Bralo War Cemetery, Brallos Pass. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 12.6 - The grave of Gunner Herbert Robbins, Bralo War Cemetery, Brallos Pass. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 12.7 – Souda Bay, from the Suda Bay War Cemetery. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 12.8 – The birthplace of Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, Mournies. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 12.9 - The Athens Memorial at Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 12.10 – Gunner James Zampelis listing on the Athens Memorial at Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 12.11 - Stained glass memorial window (detail) for Corporal John McAllister Vincent, Anglican Christ Church, Brunswick. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 12.12 – The old, damaged farm wall outside Mournies. Photograph Arthur Bregiannis 2017. Text Image 13.1 – Greek Resistance and Kriepe Kidnapping Memorial, south of Heraklion. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Images 13.2 and 13.3 – Seaforth Highlanders Memorial, Suda Bay War Cemetery, Crete. Photograph Jim Claven 2013. Text Image 13.4 – The waters off Heraklion harbor, Heraklion. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 13.5 – Gunner Leonard Hodgson listing on the Athens Memorial at Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2013. Text Image 14.1 - The Kondomari Massacre Memorial. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 14.2 - Cretan resistance stile at the entrance to the Kondomari Massacre Memorial. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 14.3 - John Irwin and Bruce Mildenhall at the Kondomari Massacre Memorial. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 15.1 - Nafplio school grounds, the location of the former prisoner enclosure in April 1941, Nafplio. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 15.2 - Corinth refugee centre, location of the former German POW camp in 1941, Corinth. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 15.3 - On the trail of the Corinth Anzacs and Palestine soldiers – me with my fellow researchers, from third left – Talya Klayner-Dayagi, Yehiam Sharon (at rear), Ori Avigour, the author, Yossi Solomin and Tova Michal Solomin, Corinth Canal. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 15.4 – New Corinth POW Camp Memorial plaque, created by the author and Melbourne’s Pankorinthian Association, to be unveiled in Corinth. Photograph Jim Claven 2020. Text Image 16.1 - Thessaloniki waterfront from the White Tower- where the arriving Allied prisoners of war marched in 1941. Photograph Jim Claven 2015. Text Image 16.2 - The War Museum at Thessaloniki, on the grounds of the former POW camp, Dulag 183. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

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Text Image 16.3 – The waters surrounding Imbros, with Samothrace in the distance, where some Allied escapers sailed to freedom. Photograph Jim Claven 2015. Text Image 17.1 – The Greek mainland viewed from Evia. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 18.1 - Lovely Tolo beach, viewed from Ancient Asini. In April 1941 the town and beaches were packed with Allied troops desperately waiting to be evacuated. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 19.1 - Caves above the road to Trahila. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 19.2 – Abandoned old building, above Trahila, with its bay in the distance. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 19.3 - Trahila harbour. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 19.4 – Limeni Bay. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 19.5 – Wild poppies growing near Trahila. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 19.6 – New Mani Evacuation Memorial plaque, created by the author and Melbourne’s Pammessinian Brotherhood Papaflessas, to be unveiled in Trahila. Photograph Jim Claven 2020. Text Image 20.1 – The hills and mountains of the Mani. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 20.2 - The home of Patrick Leigh Fermor, Kardamyli. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 20.3 - Kalimitsi bay, near Neo Proastio. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Text Image 20.4 – Major Julian Frederick Doelberg’s grave at Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 20.5 – Prahran’s Private William Salter’s grave at Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 21.1 - The waters of Sfakia harbor where the Allied soldiers were evacuated. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 21.2 - Sfakia War Memorial, photographed during the annual commemorations held there. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Text Image 22.1 - Preveli Memorial, Preveli, Crete. Photograph Jim Claven 2012. Text Image 22.2 and 22.3 - Fountain and dedication plaque, Preveli Monastery, Crete. Photograph Jim Claven 2012. Text Image 23.1 - Catherine and Elizabeth Grant at the farm gate of “Kalamata” in Western Victoria, 1956. Photograph reproduced courtesy of Catherine Bell. Text Image 23.2 - Donation ceremony of Sydney Grant’s photographic collection to the State Library of Victoria. Photograph Jim Claven November 2016. Text Images 24.1 and 24.2 - Cover and page from one of the photographic albums in Alfred Huggins’ collection. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Photograph Jim Claven 2020. Text Image 24.3 - Donation ceremony of Alfred Huggins’ photographic collection to the State Library of Victoria. Photograph Christina Despoteris 2020.

Archive Images – These are photographs reproduced from the Sydney Grant, Alfred Huggins and Kevin Byrne collections. Archive Image 1.1 - Private Sydney (Syd) Carney Grant (VX6699). Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.2 - “Beyrouth.” Triple exposure photograph of Sergeant Alfred Huggins (NX22277). Beirut, Lebanon, c1941-43. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.3 - Australian Driver Kevin Byrne, Australian Army Service Corps. Kevin Byrne Collection, Photograph reproduced courtesy of Michael Byrne. Archive Image 1.4 - “HMAS Perth”, Postcard. Alfred and the 2/3rd CCS sailed aboard the Perth on their initial arrival in Greece in March 1941. The Perth took part in the naval aspects of the Greek campaign, including the evacuation of Allied forces from the Greek mainland, including Nafplio. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.5 – “Transport boat getting ready for Greece, March 1941– ‘HAV’ from Oslo.” Alexandria, Egypt. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.6 - “Two taken on one neg – warship convoy leaving for Greece, Alexandria [Egypt], March 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.7 – “Heading for Greece, March 1941.” Aboard the transport HAV. Sydney Grant Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.8 – “Going into Port Piraeus, Greece, March 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.9 - “Athens, April 1941.” Syntagma Square, Athens. Private Kevin Byrne photographed in Athens’ main square, the Hellenic Parliament at rear, photograph taken by a local Greek photographer, April 1941. Kevin Byrne Collection, Photograph reproduced courtesy of Michael Byrne. Archive Image 1.10 - “Acropolies.” Acropolis, Athens. Three Australian soldiers with the Acropolis in the rear. Probably comrades of Alfred, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.11 - “Greece.” Acropolis, Athens. Three Australian soldiers (Alfred at left) with the porch of the Caryatids of the Erechtheion apparently superimposed at rear, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.12 - Untitled. Photographic Postcard, with Alfred’s portrait inserted, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.13 - “Greece.” Acropolis, Athens, from below. Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.14 - “Parthenon.” Athens. Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.15 - “7 Virgins Acropolies.” Caryatids, Parthenon, Athens. Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.16 – “Athenes, Le Propylaea”, Acropolis, Athens. Postcard possibly bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.17 - “Pythons Greece.” Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.18 - “Greece.” The Acropolis in Athens can be seen in the background. Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.19 - “Greece.” Ancient Corinth with Acrocorinth in the distance. Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.20 - “Peasant Women Greece.” Possibly photographs bought in Athens, MarchApril 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.21 - “Sentry Greece.” Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.22– “Just past Larissa towards Ellason [Elassona], Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.23 – “This was taken on the way up out of the back of a truck before the fun started. This is very typical. You can gather in a small measure the magnificent scenery in Greece. Note [illegible] place for prayer that the Greeks have all along the roads.” Taken as the 2/3 CCS advanced through Greece, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.24 - “Mt Olympus, Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.25 – “Looking from one of our old camps to Mt Olympus, Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.26 – “Looking towards Mt Olympus, Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.27 – “Greek soldiers carrying pontoons up to Serbia [writing unclear] passing Mt Olympus, Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.28 - “Greece – Ellisona [Elassona] by Olympus.” This most probably depicts the 2/3rd CCS camp site, located behind Allied lines, near Elassona, central Greece, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Images 1.29 to 32 - “Ellisona [Elassona]– in stages of bombing.” Elassona, central Greece, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Images 1.33 to 1.39 – “Stick of bombs.” Greece, April 1941. Sydney Grant Collection, State MS 15995, Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.40 - “At this particular time our respective insurance companies would have been as frightened as we, were out this chap didn’t care if they dropped bombs or tram cars – a very enviable condition.” Somewhere in mainland Greece, given its location within the album, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.41 - “Operation – Greece.” Members of the 2/3rd CCS operating on a wounded soldier during the Greek campaign, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.42 - “Greece – Burial Service.” Taken behind Allied lines, during the Greek campaign, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.43 - “Greece.” April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.44 – Untitled. Greece, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.45 - “Lamia.” The note on the back states that this depicts the last 2/3rd CCS camp site, located behind Allied lines, near Lamia, central Greece, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.46 – “Vola where the first Australian 16 Brigade were evacuated near Lamia, Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.47 – “The R.E. dump alight from German [writing unclear] Lavardia [Livadia], Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.48 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. As Alfred writes on the back this photograph depicts German troops in Athens following in its capture, April 1941. Note the use of horse transport on the right. Alfred Huggins Collection. Archive Image 1.49 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. As Alfred writes on the back this photograph depicts German troops in Athens following in its capture, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.50 - “Nafpleon [Nafplio] – where we evacuated.” Nafplio, Greece, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.51 - “Greece – Wreckage.” With the Germans exercising effective air superiority, troops were subject to German air attack wherever they were located, Nafplio, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.52 - “Greece – Wreckage – Woman Pilot.” This downed German airplane appears to have been piloted by a female, Nafplio, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.53 – “Greeks, Serbian officers and Australian soldiers Kalamata, 28 April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.54 – “Kalamato [Kalamata], Greece, April 1941.” A gathering in Kalamata of locals and Allied soldiers. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.55 – “A view of the country at Drachilia (Trachila) [Trahila] Greece where we were evacuated from, 30th April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.56 – “Trachila [Trahila] where we were picked up by destroyers on May 1st at 2.30am south of Kalamata, 35 miles or so, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.57 – “Two of the many Greek girls who fed us with bread and water standing at the entrance of an old church at Trachila [Trahila] Greece, 30 April 1941”. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.58 – “Two fishing boats and Greek boy at Drachilia (Trachila) [Trahila] we were unable to get these going, Greece, 30 April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.59 – “A few of the lads on HMS Kimberley returning from Greece, 1 May 1941 – Max Woods [top second from right], Geo Knight [top right].” At sea. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.60 - “A few Palestinians aboard HMS Kimberley, 1 May 1941.” At sea, returning from Greece. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.61 - “Bill Demster and Taffy Phelps coming back from Greece, May 1941.” Probably taken aboard HMS Kimberley on tis voyage from Trahila to Crete, 1st May 1941. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.62 - “Lunch – Crete.” May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.63 - “Communion Service – Crete.” May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.64 – “Crete, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.65 – “Suda [Souda] Bay Crete, May 1941.” Syd Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.66 – “British War Cemetery, Suda [Souda] Bay, Crete, May 1941, 5 kms east from centre of Chania [Xania].” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.67 – “Bomb crater in cemetery, Crete, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.68 – “Old ruins of “Turkish church [sic], Crete, May 1941.” Refers to a Greek Orthodox Church from the Ottoman or Byzantine era Crete. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.69 – “Village of Neon Corinth [Neo Chorio], Crete May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.70 – “The village well Neon Corinth [Neo Chorio], Crete, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.71 - “Mess Parade at Neon Corinth [Neo Chorio] using any old tines for gear, Crete, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.72 - “One of the many very cold snow streams near Neon Corinth [Neo Chorio], Crete, May, 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.73 – “Another snow water stream near Neon Corinth [Neo Chorio], Crete May, 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.74 - “The old [writing unclear] a real terror for the plonk at Neon Corinth [Neo Chorio], May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.75 – “Listening into the news in Crete – [writing unclear] Marriott, Sid Stein, Sgt Jack Davies with cap, Spud Murphy, Indian Jack Roberts [writing unclear] Jarrett with hat and pipe, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.76 – “The first lot to leave Crete from Suda [Souda] Bay, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.77 - “Marching down to the Lossybank.” Presumably taken from aboard MV Lossiebank after Alfred boarded, May 14, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.78 - “Lossybank – Leaving Crete.” Taken from aboard MV Lossiebank on voyage from Crete to Alexandria, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.79 – Untitled. Probably taken as the MV Lossiebank leaves Crete, depicting the coast of Crete, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.80 – Untitled. Possibly taken from MV Lossiebank, during voyage from Crete to

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Alexandria, possibly view of Crete coast, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.81 – Untitled. Possibly taken from MV Lossiebank, during voyage from Crete to Alexandria, possibly view of Crete coast, May 14-16, 1941, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.82 – Untitled. Possibly taken from MV Lossiebank, during voyage from Crete to Alexandria, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.83 - Untitled. Possibly taken from MV Lossiebank, during voyage from Crete to Alexandria. May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.84 – Untitled. Possibly taken from MV Lossiebank, during voyage from Crete to Alexandria, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.85 – Untitled. Possibly taken during voyage aboard MV Lossiebank from Crete to Alexandria, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.86 - “Lossybank”. May 14-16, 1941. Taken aboard MV Lossiebank on voyage from Crete to Alexandria. This photograph was reproduced in Allan S. Walker’s volume 2 of the Australian official medical history of WW2 – Middle East and Far East - under the title “Evacuation from Crete on S.S. Lossiebank” and attributed to J.C. Belisario (AWM 043237). Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.87 - “In the hold Lossybank.” Taken during the 2/3 CCS evacuation from Crete to Egypt, May 14-16, 1941, aboard MV Lossiebank. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.88 - “Arrival back in Palestine from Crete.” May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.89 - “Feeding us at Port Said after the evacuation of Greece quite a mixture of troops Aust, Greeks, English, I can be seen behind the chap in shorts, singlet and hands in his pockets by the copper tin, returning from a refill of tea, Jack is sitting down on a box with his back to the camera, 2nd May [sic] 1941.” The actual date of this photograph would have been sometime in May, following Syd’s departure from Trahila and time spent on Crete. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.90 - Troops at Port Said Egypt after evacuating from Greece, May 1941. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.91 - Feeding troops Port Said Egypt after Greece, May 1941. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.92 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops being addressed by an officer in Greece, prior to the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.93 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops in Greece, prior to the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.94 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict a German paratroop camp in Greece, prior to the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.95 - Untitled. A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops about to embark on their air transport plane, prior to the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.96 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops about to embark on their air transport plane in Greece, prior to the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.97 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops landing taken from the ground, taken during the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.98 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops landing taken from the ground, taken during the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Archive Image 1.99 - Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.28 titled - “Greece – Ellisona [Ellasona] by Olympus”. This most probably depicts the 2/3rd CCS camp site, located behind Allied lines, near Ellasona, central Greece, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Maps - The following maps are reproduced in Appendix 1. Map 1 – Greece and the Balkans - “Greece and the Balkans”, Playfair, I. S. O. et al, The Mediterranean and Middle East: The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally (1941), History of the Second World War: United Kingdom Military Series. II, HMSO, 1956. Public Domain. Map 2 – Greece - “Greece, 1940-41”, Peter Ewer, Forgotten Anzacs, Scribe, 2008, p. 70. Colourised version reproduced courtesy of Dr Peter Ewer. Map 3 – The Battle of Vevi 1 - “’The roof is leaking’, the Battle of Vevi, 10-13th April 1941”, Peter Ewer, Forgotten Anzacs, Scribe, 2008, p. 122. Colourised version reproduced courtesy Dr Peter Ewer. Map 4 – The Battle of Vevi 2 - Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 59. Courtesy AWM. Map 5 – The Battle of Servia - “Dispositions, 15th April”, Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p 75. Courtesy AWM. Map 6 – The Olympus Pass - “Dawn, 15th April”, - Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 84. Courtesy AWM. Map 7 – Pinieos Gorge – “Dispositions, 17th April”, - Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, opposite p. 107. Courtesy AWM. Map 8 – Aliakmon and Thermopylae Defence Lines - Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 82. Courtesy AWM. Map 9 – The Peloponnese – Kalamata, Pylos, Methone and the Mani - Greece and The Aegean, Geographical Section, General Staff, No. 2758, British War Office, 1943, Second Edition 1951, (excerpt). Courtesy Andrew Ballis. Map 10 – Kalamata - “Battle for Kalamata Waterfront, 28-29 April 1941”, published in W.G. McClymont, To Greece, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-45, War History Branch Department of Internal Affairs, 1959, p. 452, Imperial War Museum, Public Domain. Map 11 – Crete - Greece and The Aegean, Geographical Section, General Staff, No. 2758, British War Office, 1943, Second Edition 1951, (excerpt). Courtesy Andrew Ballis. Map 12 – Crete - Chania-Mournies Area - “Morning, 25th May”, Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 245. Courtesy AWM. Map 13 – The Battle of Heraklion - “Evening 20th May”, Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 282. Courtesy AWM.

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Preface April and May 2021 saw the 80th anniversary of the Greek campaign of 1941. Events were held throughout Greece and Australia – as well as in the other nations who were engaged in the Allied defence of Greece – to commemorate this important chapter in the modern history of both Greece and Australia. Australia is home to one of the largest and most significant communities across the Greek diaspora. It is said that Melbourne in Australia is the third largest Greek city in the world, after Athens and Thessaloniki. This community has a rich history stretching back to the days of Australia’s gold rush, augmented by waves of subsequent immigration. The most important of these occurred in the aftermath of the Second World War, which saw tens of thousands of Greeks make their way to Australia and a new life. Australia thus became the new home to an expanded and growing community, proud of both its Hellenic heritage and new allegiance. In Australia, these new arrivals would meet locals with connections to Greece - the Anzacs who took part in the Greek campaign. They would meet them in their local communities as they went about their daily lives. Maybe they would meet them as these veterans searched for the feta cheese, kalamata olives or ouzo that they remembered and loved from their brief time in Greece. They would see them march in Anzac Day parades held across Australia every year, their unit standards emblazoned with the words “Greece”, “Vevi”, “Brallos”, Sfakia”, “Crete” and many more, signifying their part in the campaign. This connection would grow with renewed friendships. These veterans would come together at annual celebrations of the campaign, joining with Greek veterans and civilians, in celebration of their service and in remembrance of fallen comrades. Some Australian veterans would venture as far as Greece, returning to the scenes of their youth, of desperate days and time of solidarity with the local Greeks who helped and supported them. For all these reasons our community is honoured to assist in bringing to a wider audience these stories from the Greek campaign. Taking his title from the writings of one Australian unit’s War Diary – Grecian Adventure – Jim Claven has assembled an amazing collection of stories, connecting families from across Australian and Greece. In this he celebrates the personal bonds forged in war and remembered for decades after.

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One of the most significant aspects of this book is its reproduction of nearly 100 never before published original photographs of the Greek campaign. Taken by young Australian soldiers during the campaign itself – along with others obtained or purchased by them in the course of the campaign – these photographs reproduced in their entirety and viewed together reveal Greece as experienced by these young soldiers themselves at this time of war. It is a tribute to Jim that he has been able to identify these photographs from his research and commemorative activities over many years, assist these families in their donation of their collections to one of Australia’s most important public historical research institutions and obtain permission to reproduce them in this volume. Along with Jim, we hope that this publication will stimulate others to come forward with yet more stories of the Greek campaign, in letters and diaries – and hopefully even more photographs – to enrich our common understanding of this important part of Australian and Greek modern history. We thank the Victorian Government and the Victorian Veterans Council for their funding support for this commemorative project under the 75th Anniversary of the end of World War Two (II) Grant Program. I would also like to thank the following veteran’s families and community organisations for their contributions to the printing of the book – Michael Byrne, the Syd Grant family (Elizabeth, Catherine, Robert and David), the Alfred Huggins family (Philip and David), Deb Stewart, the Pammessinian Brotherhood Papaflessas, the Central Pontian Association of Melbourne and Victoria “Pontiaki Estia”, the Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee and the Agios Dimitrios “Olympou” Philanthropic & Cultural League. Finally, we thank Jim Claven for his dedication and commitment in preparing this publication for its wider audience. We hope that this publication will form an important and lasting contribution to the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Greek campaign.

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Introduction This publication focuses on the story of the Greek campaign of 1941 as it was experienced by a number of Australian service personnel who took part in this fateful campaign, illustrated by nearly 100 never before published photographs taken or collected by the veterans themselves. In following the campaign’s trail throughout Greece, visiting many of its battlefields and sites connected to the Anzacs, informed by my own field research and accompanied by many of my own photographs, the book can also be seen as a field guide to the campaign. Most importantly, it is published as a contribution to the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Greek campaign. The Allied campaign in the defence of Greece against the Axis invasion in the Second World War was one of the lesser known but significant campaigns of the war. It would witness the first Axis defeat in the war, as Italian forces were thrown back into Albania by the Greek Army supported by a small British Royal Air Force contingent. The defence of Greece’s shores would be supported by British and Commonwealth naval forces in the Mediterranean, who would deliver major defeats to the Italian Navy at Cape Spada in July 1940 and Cape Matapan in March 1941. The increasing fear and likelihood of a German invasion in support of their defeated Italian allies, saw the arrival of tens of thousands of Allied soldiers and equipment in Greece. Arriving at Piraeus harbour throughout March and April 1941, these troops would enjoy a few days leave in beautiful Athens before moving north to join the Greek Army in its defence of Greece. For many of the young Australians, arriving from the deserts of North Africa, with an enthusiastic welcome from the people as they moved through Athens, the campaign ahead could have seemed like it was going to be an “adventure.”1 This festive feeling was soon replaced by the harsh reality of war. The German attack commenced on 6 April and the days and weeks that followed saw Allied defenders engaged in a series of desperate 1

Lest we forget.

Mr Steven Gotsis President, on behalf of the Pammessinian Brotherhood Papaflessas Ltd

The title of this book – the Grecian Adventure – is taken from a report in the War Diary of one of the Australian units that served across the length and breadth of Greece, from northern Greece to the Peloponnese, and on to Crete. The Greek campaign report written by the 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion’s 35-year-old South Australian Quartermaster, Captain Keith Murdoch Durrant (Service Number 424/SX596) states that “… the month of April opened very quietly as there were only a few details left to be considered before this unit was committed to the Grecian adventure.” Captain Keith Murdoch Durrant, Quartermaster 2/1st M.G. Bn. A.I.F., “2/1st M.G. Bn. A.I.F., Report on Q Activities – April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 Item Number 8/5/1.

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engagements as they fought a fighting withdrawal that would take them across the length of Greece. Overwhelmed by superior forces, the Allied forces would eventually make their way to the evacuation beaches established across southern Greece. This would be followed by the battle of Crete, from which Allied forces would again be forced into a dangerous evacuation to Egypt. The vast majority of British and Empire troops – along with some Greek troops – would be saved, surviving the dangerous sea journey as the Allied ships suffered enemy air attacks. Thousands of other Allied troops would be left to face captivity by the enemy. Some of the latter would evade or escape capture and make their way back to Allied lines in the Middle East, thanks to the help of local civilians. Australian forces played a significant part in the Greek campaign. Having fought bravely in the successful North African campaign capturing Bardia and Tobruk, these experienced and battle-hardened troops, began to arrive in Greece in March and would play a major part in the fighting throughout April and May, from Vevi in the north of Greece to the final defences at Sfakia in southern Crete. The Royal Australian Navy’s warships would take part in the naval victory of Cape Matapan as well as the evacuations from Greece. The battle honours of the Greek campaign would be embroidered on to the standards of the Australian units who served there and would hang in public spaces across Australia – such as the 2/8th Battalion’s standard which hangs in Ballarat Town Hall in Victoria, proudly listing its Greek campaign battle honours of Greece 1941, Veve, Mount Olympus, Crete and Withdrawal to Sphakia (see Text Image 1.2). For Greece itself, what followed after the Allied evacuation was four long years of Axis occupation, the country divided into three occupation zones (German, Italian and Bulgarian). This period followed the experience of much of occupied Europe – of social disruption and famine, death and destruction, resistance and collaboration - finally ending with liberation in 1944. The Greek campaign was also one of the key links in the Hellenic link to Australia’s Anzac tradition. The Australian soldiers who came to Greece would form – along with their New Zealand comrades – a second Anzac Corps. The optimistic order issued to divisional commanders announcing the formation of the Corps by the Australian General Thomas Blamey on April 12 appealed to the troops to remember their forebears who had served as Anzacs in the First World War:

“As from 1800 hrs 12 April I Aust Corps will be designated ANZAC CORPS. In making this announcement the GOC ANZAC CORPS desires to say that the reunion of the Australian and New Zealand Divisions gives all ranks the greatest uplift. The task ahead though difficult is not nearly so desperate as that which our fathers faced in April twentysix years ago. We go to it together with stout hearts and certain success.”2 As Blamey alluded, the Hellenic link to Anzac indeed began on the shores of the northern Aegean Island of Lemnos in March 1915, with the arrival of the first Australian troops stepping ashore in preparation for the coming Gallipoli campaign. Other Islands, then part of Greece, would also play witness to an Australian presence during the campaign, such as Imbros and Tenedos. With the end of the Gallipoli campaign in December 1915, the link would spread to the great Salonika Front, stretching across Thrace and Macedonia in northern Greece, where hundreds of Australian troops would serve for three long years until the end of the war. The only Australian nurse to die in Greece during the First World War – Ballarat’s Nurse Gertrude Munro - would be buried in Thessaloniki’s Mikra War Cemetery as the war drew to a close. Australian warships would also sail the waters of Greece in the First World War, first in the Ionian Sea as part of the campaign to contain enemy naval forces in the Adriatic Sea and later across the Aegean as the war drew to a close. These warships and their sailors would take part in the final stages of the war in the eastern Mediterranean, with the signing of the Armistice of Mudros in October 1918 and subsequent occupation of the key ports of the Ottoman Empire. It has been my pleasure to have researched these aspects of the Hellenic link to Anzac over many years, in libraries and collections across Australia and overseas as well as conducting field research at the sites connected to this story – across the length and breadth of Greece, from Thessaloniki and Vevi to the Peloponnese, from Lefkada to Crete and across the Aegean to Lemnos, Imbros, Tenedos and more. This research has resulted in many historical articles as well as my previous publication – Lemnos & Gallipoli Revealed: A Pictorial History of the Anzacs in the Aegean 1915-16. 2

General Thomas Blamey quoted in Long, p. 70.

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World War. And most importantly, they assisted Australian (and other Allied soldiers) as they attempted to evade or escape capture by the enemy as the 1941 campaign ended. These connections would continue to be remembered long after the war ended. The Australians who served there would be honoured by the Greek Government with the award of the Greek campaign medal and commemorative certificate (see Text Image 1.3), a recognition that continues to this day as veterans and their descendents are identified.3 They would live on in the stories told by the survivors of the war, both in Australia and Greece. The memory of these young Australians who came to Greece would live in the stories of Greek civilians contemplating emigration to Australia after the war. Australian soldiers would acquire a taste for the cuisine of their Greek hosts – as well as Greece’s famous ouzo and tsipouro! They would also live on in the relationships forged by those Australian servicemen and Greek women who found love in time of war. Text Image 1.2 – Australian 2/8th Battalion standard with its battle honours in Greece listed – Greece 1941, Mount Olympus, Veve, Crete and Withdrawal to Sphakia, Ballarat Town Hall. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

The Australian service personnel – both men and women – who arrived in Greece in March 1941 walked in the footsteps of their forebears. While most may not have done so literally (although those like Lance Corporal Ivan Dudley “Skip” Welsh came to Thessaloniki as prisoners or escapers certainly did) they were continuing a military tradition stretching back to the First World War. Australian sailors would sail the same waters as their forebears, placing themselves in harm’s way to engage the enemy or to evacuate the tens of thousands of Allied troops as the campaign drew to a close, first on the mainland and then on Crete. These included HMAS Sydney, which led the Allied naval squadron to victory over the Italian Navy at Cape Spada in July 1940 and HMAS Perth which took part in the Allied naval victory over the Italian Navy at Cape Matapan in March 1941, as well as the evacuations from both mainland Greece and Crete in April and May 1941. Sadly, both warships would be lost in the Pacific theatre later in the war. This tradition is also the story of the people of Greece who welcomed and assisted these strangers from a far away land to their shores. As they had done on Lemnos in 1915-16, the Greek population provided hospitality and assistance to the Anzacs of 1941. Greek soldiers served alongside Australians as they had done on the Salonika Front in the First

This book is not a comprehensive history of the Greek campaign or the Australian role in it. Rather it seeks to add to the existing publications on the campaign by providing a series of stories to illustrate some of the individual connections between Australians and Greeks forged during the campaign – from Red Cliffs to Frankston, from St Kilda to Ballarat, from Prahran to Horsham. I have illustrated these stories with modern photographs taken during my field research into these stories. They depict some of the key locations referred to and should assist the reader to visualise the environment in which these events took place. Many of these stories have been brought to me by individuals keen to tell their own family connection to this sometimes forgotten campaign. They have been eager to show me photographs from the campaign and find out more about the places their relatives saw and the dangers they faced. Their enthusiasm inspired me to follow these trails across Greece – both in my reading and in my field research, which has taken me across the length and breadth of Greece. In so doing I have had the honour to meet with many Greek locals who remembered the stories of when the Anzacs came to Greece’s aid. In many respects I owe these stories to the many individuals who have shared their personal family connections with the Greek campaign. I thank them all. 3

See the following article for a description of the continuing effort by successive Greek Governments to continue to make these recognition awards to Greek campaign veterans: Manny Karvelas, “Sub-Branch News - Hellenic”, Mufti, Returned and Service League of Australia Victorian Branch, March 2017, p. 18.

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photographer or collector concerned. Additional descriptive comments not within quotation marks are provided by myself to aid the reader, drawing on the available historical evidence. I have complemented these images with two provided by Michael Byrne of his father Kevin. The photograph of Private Kevin Byrne enjoying some leave in Athens’ Syntagma Square is emblematic of the period, as the Allied soldiers enjoyed some well-earned leave and became tourists for a day or today, experiencing the sights and hospitality of Greece’s capital. Along with a small number of photographs from the State Library of Victoria and two from the collection of Dr Peter Ewer, I have reproduced many of my own photographs throughout the text, depicting in vivid colour some of the key locations in Greece’s Second World War Anzac trail. These are referred to throughout the text. Where reference is made in the text to photographs from other public collections (such as those of the AWM, ATL or Bundesarchiv), individual photographs are identified by the relevant institution and their allotted collection or acquisition number (such as AWM 007486). Text Image 1.3 - Greek campaign certificate, issued to Corporal Henry Bernard Moran, Photograph Jim Claven 2015. Courtesy of Michael Moran.

However, one of the most important aspects of the book is its reproduction of nearly 100 original photographs of the Greek campaign taken overwhelmingly by two Australian soldiers – Private Syd Grant and Sergeant Alfred Huggins, with two others from the collection of another soldier, Private Kevin Byrne. The book would have been much the poorer without these photographs. Given their extensive collections, I have also included biographies of both Syd and Alfred with detailed accounts of the Greek campaign as they experienced it. These provide the context to guide one through their photographic collections. These collections are in many respects unique, not merely as original photographs in themselves, but as documents of a short and intense campaign which provided limited opportunity for contemporaneous documentation. Syd and Alfred’s effort to compile a photographic document of their time in Greece provides all interested in the campaign with a unique visual window into the Hellenic link to Australia’s Anzac tradition. This is the first time that these photographs have been published in their entirety. Titles or descriptions of photographs contained within quotation marks and italicised are those comments written in the albums or on the photographs themselves, by the

Versions of many of these stories have appeared previously in various publications, including Australia’s major Greek community newspaper Neos Kosmos. Some draw on various presentations that I have made across Australia and in Greece. Others still are based on previous writings concerning the collections of both Syd Grant and Alfred Huggins. I have decided to retain the immediacy with which a number of the articles have been written, often containing references to visiting the locations concerned, but have attempted to update them without altering the original feel of the stories. And while each chapter can be read as a stand-alone essay to be read in its own right, taken together I believe the whole provides an interesting insight into the impact of the Greek campaign on both Australians and Greeks. Those readers in search of further reading or seeking the various sources from which my stories are drawn are directed to both the footnotes throughout the text and Appendix 2 which lists the references for each chapter as well as the official and secondary histories of the campaign. I have endeavoured to use anglicised versions of the modern names for the locations referred to throughout the book. Unless otherwise stated, all references to battalions denote an infantry formation. All military units are Australian unless otherwise stated (such as British 1st Rangers), their designation indentified by their distinctive numbers (such as 2/8th).

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Victorian Government for funding this project and the Pammessinian Brotherhood Pappaflessas for their support. I thank Neos Kosmos and Vangelis Karakasis for the layout and Kosdown Printing for the printing of the book. And I thank all the individuals and community organisations who have made financial contributions to the publication of the book. I would especially like to thank the families of both Syd Grant and Alfred Huggins for sharing with me both Syd and Alfred’s stories and photographs (as well as Michael Byrne for sharing with me the story and photographs of his father Private Kevin Byrne). I thank Dr Kevin Molloy and the State Library of Victoria for permission to publish the photographs that are now in their care. Thanks to the following individuals who have granted permission for the reproduction of their photographs – Doug Beckett, Arthur Bregiannis, Alexandra Bryant, Andrew Higgins, Deb Stewart and Craig Tolson. Thank to Dr Peter Ewer for permission to reproduce archival photographs from his collection. Thanks also to Dr Peter Ewer, the Australian War Memorial and Andrew Ballis for allowing me to reproduce the maps of Greece and many of the battlefields of the Greek campaign contained in Appendix 1.

Before the Campaign Australia 1940-41

I would also like to thank all those individuals – in both Greece, Australia and beyond – who are referred to in the text and who have generously shared their stories and research with me and now with you, the reader. My research and this book would have been much the poorer without their generous help and guidance. These individuals are listed within Appendix 2. I would also like to thank Paul Sougleris for his enthusiasm and encouragement for this and many other commemorative projects which we have been engaged on. To the best of my knowledge, all quotes from texts in copyright are within the limits of “fair dealing” as described in The Society of Authors’ Guidance on Copyright and Premission. If any mistakes have been made, I apologise unreservedly. Finally, I would thank my reader-editors – Dr Peter Ewer, Michael Claven, Craig Tolson and Neil Churches - who have helped improve and refine the final text of the book which you are now reading. I would particularly like to thank Dr Peter Ewer for his informed assistance and support, bringing to our discussions his detailed and extensive knowledge of the Greek campaign. In acknowledging those who have contributed to my research and the production of this book, I of course take full responsibility for any errors in the book. I hope that readers will enjoy this modest contribution to the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Greek campaign.

Jim Claven Melbourne, May 2021

Text Images 2.1 and 2.2 - Australian Greek Day Badges, Authors Collection.

JIM CLAVEN

Australia joined the Second World War in September 1939 and soon dispatched troops to the Middle East. These troops would form part of the Second Australian Imperial Force or 2nd AIF, following in the wake of the Australian service personnel who had served there in the First World War as part of the 1st Australian Imperial Force or 1st AIF.

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How OXI Day was welcomed in Australia in 1940

By 1940 much of western and central Europe had fallen to Hitler’s forces or joined in alliance with them. It was in late 1940 that Italian forces under Mussolini launched their attack on Greece. The Greek defeat of the Italian advance gave heart to all Allied nations.

In modern day Australia it can be difficult to gain a sense of what it must have been like for those living through the dark days of the Second World War.

Soon celebrations and fundraising efforts would be held across Australia, first raising support for Greece’s war victims and then for the Allied war effort in general. These efforts took place in towns and cities across Australia, one of the largest taking place in Melbourne on February 14, 1941. These efforts would be known as Greek Day Appeals.

For members of Australia’s Hellenic community one of the most important days in that time is of course OXI Day – the day that the leader of Greece, Prime Minister and former General Metaxas, rejected the Italian dictator Mussolini’s ultimatum on October 28, 1940. This day is commemorated in Greece and throughout the Hellenic Diaspora every year.

These events saw Australia’s Greek community join with the wider community in a warm declaration of solidarity which would continue throughout the war. It would be a solidarity that would endure as Australian troops began to arrive in Greece from March 1941, as part of the Allied effort to help defend Greece against the looming German invasion. Before the Greek campaign of 1941 – there was Greek Day.

The ultimatum had been issued by the Italian ambassador to Greece, Emanuele Grazzi, around 3am on that day. It demanded Greece allow Axis forces to enter Greek territory and occupy certain unspecified strategic locations or otherwise face war. Prior to this Italian forces had sunk the Greek light cruiser Elli – then the second largest warship in the Royal Hellenic Navy - on August 15 in an act designed to provoke a Greek declaration of war. The actual response of the Greek leader was more laconic than is generally known, his reply being “Alors, c’est la guerre” (French for “then it is war.”). But for the Greek people at the time, as they filled the streets, and ever since, the answer was simply Oxi! - meaning No! The next day The Argus newspaper reported Metaxas’ proclamation to the people of Greece as follows: “I have informed Italy that I consider her demands and the manner in which they have been made a declaration of war against Greece. The time has come for all Greeks to fight to the death

JIM CLAVEN

for all they hold dear.”1 Two hours later after the expiration of the ultimatum 140,000 Italian troops began their attack on Greece from their bases in Albania. The ensuing Italian invasion and valiant Greek resistance would overcome the political divisions then deep in Greek society. The rise of Metaxas to power was controversial. The suspension of parliamentary democracy and the endorsement of Metaxas’ takeover by the Greek King would add to the problematic history of Greece’s monarchical form of government and be one of the reasons leading to the foundation of contemporary Greece’s republican form of government. But this all lay in the future.

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troops – in an iconic photograph by Australian war photographer Damien Parer - were welcomed by Greek Evzones on the Acropolis above Athens (see AWM 006818). As Metaxas issued his statement in Athens, John Curtin – the future Australian wartime leader – joined with the Federal Government to form the Advisory War Council to oversee the war effort. In Australia support for Greece filled the newspapers. Reports of the success of Greek forces on the Albanian front were reported with exhilaration. The Argus reported on 31 October the mood in Athens: “The appearance of Athens yesterday strongly reflected the determination of the Government and the army to resist the invader. Troops in full kit marched off to the front with mountain guns drawn by mules among their equipment. Tinhatted air-raid wardens were doing their duty in the streets, and shop windows had been criss-crossed with tape, and cellars had been converted into shelters.”3

The Greek Armed forces mobilised and met the Italian invasion. Despite the bitter conditions of the fighting that took place in the mountains and the scarcity of supplies, the Greek Army – often valiantly aided by Greek woman carrying supplies to the troops – threw back the Italian assault and entered deep into Italian-occupied Albania. The Greek resistance to the Italian ultimatum was met with declarations of support from Britain and her Allies – including Australia. The Argus reported on October 31 the British Prime Minister’s announcement of support for the Greek resistance. They went on to report Metaxas’ moving reply: “Your words have resounded throughout Greece. We are going to march to final triumph with the serenity and resolution that led us to oppose our perfidious adversary’s aggression. With all confidence in our great and heroic Ally we are going to base a common certain victory on the eternal principles of morality, justice and liberty established 3,000 years ago on the sacred soil that we are defending.”2 British air and naval support were rushed to assist the Greek war effort. British Royal Air Force squadrons were soon operating out of hastily built airfields far up in northern Greece, providing valuable air support for the Greek troops engaging the enemy on the ground. Royal Navy warships interdicted Italian naval support for its troops along the Greek coastline. British troops landed in Crete, the first contingent of what would grow into the Allied contribution to the defence of Greece and Crete against the coming German invasion. In March 1941 Australian 1

-, “Italian Attack Launched on Greece”, The Argus (Melbourne), Tuesday 29th October 1940, p. 1, NLA.

-, “British Naval Aircraft Raid Italian Base: Many Bombs Dropped”, The Argus (Melbourne), Thursday 31st October 1940, p. 3, NLA.

It went on to report that the Hellenic community of Egypt had placed itself at the disposal of the Greek government. Allied military support for Greece was soon being reported. The Age newspaper was reporting as early as October 29 that bombers of the Royal Navy’s fleet air arm had come to Greece’s aid bombing the Italian air bases in the Dodecanese. On Monday, October 28 – the evening of Metaxa’s rejection of the ultimatum – the Greek community in Sydney gathered at the Athenian Club – “the meeting place of the Greek community.” The Argus reported the next day that “customary pastimes” were suspended on the announcement that Greece was at war, as young members of the club shouted “Zito o polemos” – Hurrah for the war – and toasts were drunk to Metaxas and to Britain.4 On October 29 Victorian members of the Greek Ex-Servicemen’s Legion of Australia, along with members of the Melbourne Greek community, held a meeting at the Greek Consulate. The Age reported the next day that the meeting had pledged its support for Greece in its hour of need and that “if necessary, Greeks were prepared to return to their native land and fight.”5 The newspaper also reported similar declarations of 3

-, “British Naval Aircraft Raid Italian Base: Many Bombs Dropped”, The Argus (Melbourne), Thursday 31st October 1940, p. 3, NLA.

-, “Zito O Polemos”, The Argus (Melbourne), Tuesday, 29th October 1940, p. 5, NLA.

-, “Support for Greek Cause”, The Age (Melbourne), Wednesday 30th October 1940, p. 11, NLA.

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support from the Greek Consul in Sydney, Mr Vrisalis. He is reported as having said that while many in the community feared for the safety of their loved ones in Greece, they were “glad that the Italian ultimatum had been rejected.”6

become famously known as Greek Day Appeals. In one famous act of support, the Greek community then resident in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran presented the Mayor of the City with a Greek flag to fly on Greek Day (see Chapter 2).

The Argus reported on October 29 that the President of the Melbourne Greek Community, Mr Raftopoulos, had expressed the confidence that the Greek people would do their best against the enemy. The Greek Consul in Melbourne, Mr Lucas, was reported in the same article stating that Greece was a peace-loving nation who did not want war but would fight through to the end now that war had been forced on them by Italy’s aggression.

Although the Greek victory was followed by the devastating German invasion of Greece in April and subsequent four long years of occupation, the significance of the Greek Army’s defeat of the Italian invasion should not be underestimated. In October 1940, Greece was the sole ally on the continent of Europe of Britain and the Empire (as it was then known), including Australia. Greece’s victory over Italy was the first major victory against the Axis powers of the Second World War.

On October 30 prayers for the Allied cause were offered at both Greek Orthodox Churches then established in New South Wales – and no doubt similar offerings were made at other Greek Orthodox Churches across the country.

All Australians – whether Hellenes or not - have good reason to remember the day Greece said No.

By October 31 Melbourne’s Greek community was reported in The Age that it would convene a meeting at Melbourne Town Hall at 3pm on Sunday, November 10, with the aim of discussing “plans for providing financial assistance for the motherland in the war against Italy.” The same article reported that the Greek Consul in Melbourne, Ithacan-born Mr Lucas (whose full name was Antonios Ioannis Gerasimos Lekatsas), had cabled Metaxas stating that “The Greeks in Victoria with deep emotion watching developments in homeland. Taking immediate steps to assist financially in struggle. God Bless our soldiers”. 7 The Consulate envisaged that Greek reservist's resident in Australia would be called “to the colours.” The Greek Vice-Consul, Mr Nicolades, was reported as saying that “Greeks in Victoria were delighted at the great fight being waged by their countrymen against the invading Italian Army.” He went on to say that Italy would regret its act of aggression as Great Britain and her Allies would now bring their forces to bear on Italy.8 These were the first steps in what would be a major fundraising effort – supported by thousands of local government and community groups across the whole Australian population. These funds would be known as the Greek War Victims Funds, endorsed by the Australian Government and hundreds of Mayors across the country. Fundraising days would 6

-, “Support for Greek Cause”, The Age (Melbourne), Wednesday 30th October 1940, p. 11, NLA.

-, “Greeks to start war fund”, The Age (Melbourne), Thursday 31st October 1940, p. 7, NLA.

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their power to recognise the bravery of the gallant Greeks.”2 Victorian Member of Parliament, Norman Martin, who was chair of the Patriotic Funds Council of Victoria, wrote in support of the Greek Appeal: “The victories achieved by the valiant armies of Greece against overwhelming, and what was previously believed better equipped forces, have won the admiration of every British subject, not only in Australia, but throughout the

When Melbourne went blue and white – Greek Day 1941

world, and the value of such victories for the cause of the Allies is incalculable. That the citizens of Greece are not escaping the horrors of war is apparent from the grim stories of the merciless Italian bombing of the Greek city of Corfu, which was described as the blackest deed of Fascism. It is almost unnecessary to point out that, in defending herself so valiantly, Greece is assisting the cause of Empire, and helping

If you had got on to a tram or train into Flinders Street station early in the morning of Friday, February 14, 1941, you would have marvelled at the crowds. Nearly 100,000 Melbournians – 10 per cent of the population - had thronged into the city to line Swanston Street from the Yarra up to Bourke Street and beyond. Traffic was diverted from the city centre. Through the steamers and confetti showering the crowds, the sun shone on that bright summer’s morning. But this wasn’t any normal city parade. The blue and white decorations of the street stalls and flags waived by the crowd said it all. They had come to Melbourne in their thousands to declare their support for Greece’s fight against the Italian invasion which had commenced in late 1940. This was Victoria’s first major fundraising event in support of Greece in the Second World War. Encouraged by the Australian Government, across the country fundraising committees were established in the wake of the invasion, all aimed to solicit local financial donations for the Greek War Victims Appeal .1 Soon a Greek Appeal Fund was set up in Melbourne – The Melbourne Greek War Victims Fund – following a meeting of “representative citizens” held at the Melbourne Town Hall. Melbourne’s Lord Mayor, Councillor Frank Beaurepaire, urged support for the new Fund stating: “the valour of the Greek Army had changed the whole situation in the Mediterranean and Australians should do everything in 1

Some local councils appear to have raised the funds on behalf of the Lord Mayor of Melbourne or Sydney and then remitted the funds raised locally to that main fund. See for example: -, “£762 for Greek Appeal”, Daily Examiner (Grafton NSW), Friday 14th March 1941, p. 7, NLA.

to keep our own country free.”3 February 14th would be Victoria’s biggest Greek Day. The Lord Mayor of Melbourne had written to all Mayors throughout Victoria urging them to hold local fundraising efforts in support of the Greek Appeal to be held on that day. All sub-branches of the RSL and the Australian Comforts Fund were urged to join in the effort. Over 30,000 Greek Day badges were distributed to Councils across Victoria (see Text Images 2.1 and 2.2). The aim was to raise £5,000 in Melbourne and hopefully £12,000 across Victoria. The Chair of the new Commonwealth Council for Greek Day - the Australian Minister for External Affairs, Sir Frederick Stewart - broadcast the night before the parade urging Melbournians to attend the event stating that “Greece’s cause was our cause and Greece’s war our war… The Greek victories already achieved had had incalculable effects. For the first time the Axis had been turned.”4

Text Images 2.1 and 2.2 - Australian Greek Day Badges. Authors Collection.

-, “Greek War Appeal”, The Age (Melbourne) Tuesday 3rd December 1940, p. 6, NLA.

-, “Appeal for Greek Victims”, The Age (Melbourne) Wednesday 4th December 1940, p. 8, NLA.

-, “Greek Appeal Day”, The Argus (Melbourne) Friday 14th February 1941, p. 7, NLA.

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Text Image 2.3 - “Shows several people in crowd holding flags printed for the “Greece War victims Appeal” of 1941”, The Argus (Melbourne), 1941. State Library of Victoria, Collection Reference H98.100/3518.

Text Image 2.5 - “Young women waving paper flags for the “Greece War Victims Appeal” on the 14th February, 1941”, The Argus (Melbourne), 1941. State Library of Victoria, Collection Reference H98.100/3449. Text Image 2.4 - “Young women waving paper flags for the “Greece War Victims Appeal” on the 14th February, 1941”, The Argus (Melbourne), 1941. State Library of Victoria, Collection, Reference H98.100/3448.

The feature of the day was the march of 4,000 soldiers of the Australian 23rd Brigade along Swanston Street, in front of the Melbourne Town Hall and on through the city. The route of the parade was to start at Alexandra Parade, proceed over Princes Bridge, along Swanston, Bourke, Elizabeth, Collins and Market Streets, Queens Bridge, Riverside Avenue and Jeffrey’s Parade, returning to their starting point (see Text Image 2.3). They marched in their summer battle dress, “bronzed under the Bonegilla sun and clad in shorts and shirts”, as The Argus reported the next day.5 The soldiers had arrived in Melbourne at dawn, having travelled by train from their camp in NSW. On the lawns near Alexandra Avenue they rested before the march and enjoyed their breakfast. Then they prepared themselves for the coming march, freshening up and polishing their boots by the Yarra River bank. They even enjoyed some chocolate – gifts from the Greek Appeal.6 Meanwhile the crowds had gathered from well before 9am to ensure a good position for the march past. 5

-, “4,000 AIF Men in March – Greek Appeal Day,’ The Argus (Melbourne), Saturday 15th February 1941, p. 5; -, “Message from Duchess – Greek Appeal Day”, The Argus (Melbourne), Thursday 13th February 1941, p. 2, NLA. -, “4,000 AIF Men in March – Greek Appeal Day”, The Argus (Melbourne), Saturday 15th February 1941, p 5, NLA; -, “The AIF Marches – Australia holds out a Helping Hand to the Heroic Greeks”, Australasian (Melbourne) Saturday 22 February 1941, p. 5, NLA. The latter recorded the diggers shaving by propping mirrors on trees and others “an early morning’ swill’ from the river bank.”

At 10am the soldiers marched six-abreast up Swanston Street from Flinders Street led by their commander, Brigadier Lind and a goat - their regimental mascot – “which caused much amusement” with the crowd.7 It was particularly appropriate given the predominance of the animal in Greece that the soldiers had chosen a goat as their regimental mascot. The soldiers were joined by eight bands marching with them – and four others assembled along the route. As they marched the soldiers would have taken heart from shouts of support and the waving of the special Greek War Victims Appeal flags from the crowds standing behind the barriers and in the windows and balconies above (see Text Images 2.4 and 2.5). Groups of girls are reported to have joined in and sang with the marching bands, no doubt to the enjoyment of the troops. As the soldiers passed the Town Hall building the salute was taken by the Governor of Victoria Sir Winston Dugan, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne Councillor Frank Beaurepaire, Minister for the Army Percy Spender MP, General Officer Commanding Southern Command Lieutenant General E.K. Smart, and Major-Generals Drake-Brockman, Downes, Rankin, Derham and Gordon Bennett – the latter having served on Lemnos and at Gallipoli in the First World War. At the conclusion of the march, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne entertained the Governor of Victoria and the AIF officers.

-, “4,000 AIF Men in March – Greek Appeal Day”, The Argus (Melbourne), Saturday 15th February 1941, p. 5; -, “Message from Duchess – Greek Appeal Day”, The Argus (Melbourne), Thursday 13th February 1941, p. 2, NLA.

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Later in the march the soldiers were roused by the cheers of factory workers as they returned along Riverside Avenue. The soldiers enjoyed apples and pears donated by the Apple and Pear Board. The march had taken about an hour.

It would appear that the Greek Consul – the Ithacan-born Mr John Lucas (whose full name was Antonios Ioannis Gerasimos Lekatsas) - and his family played a major role in organising the stalls and volunteers from the community which would become such a hallmark of the day.

As soon as the soldiers had marched by, hundreds of men and women got busy at more than 30 stalls set up throughout the route to raise funds for the Appeal. Many stalls were bedecked in the blue and white colours of the Greek flag, with a number of helpers wearing Greek national costume. For weeks before the City of Melbourne had appealed for volunteers to assist in the selling of the 70,000 special Greek Day badges and 10,000 paper Greek Appeal flags produced as fundraisers for the day. It was reported that an “army of women” - over 700 strong - answered the call for volunteers to help make Melbourne’s Greek Day a great success.8

Women and girls made a major contribution to the success of the day. As you approached the Town Hall you would have seen the fruit stall, where the wife of the Greek Consul Mrs Lucas worked with many others from the community to raise funds. Her daughter Miss Marea Lucas ran a spinning wheel at the Block Arcade. In Bourke Street another stall was operated by Ms A. Nicolaides, wife of Melbourne's Greek ViceConsul, assisted by many others from the community, including Miss Iris Nicolaides and Miss Danae Sigalas who were dressed in Greek national costume selling buttons and badges. Many families from the community were involved. The Lucas’, Cospoditis’, the Raftopoulos’, the Marmaras’, the Sigalas’, the Karas’, the Contogiannis’ and the Nicolaides’ – to name only a few.

The women volunteers rattled collection tins, staffed stalls and spinning wheels; and sold Greek Day badges, buttons and flags. The wives of Melbourne City Councillors held a flowers and “mystery” stall and many RSL sub-branches organised their own stalls to raise funds for the Appeal. The singer Gladys Moncrieff made “a rousing appeal” for funds from atop an anti-aircraft gun! And Mr E. Long, the President of the Richmond Sub-Branch of the RSL, “spent a busy and profitable day” conducting “raffles for the Greeks.”9 Melbourne’s Greek community embraced the event, joining with the wider community in common cause. In the week before the parade, the Greek community resident in the municipality of Prahran held a ceremony at the Prahran Town Hall to donate a large Greek National Flag to the Mayor of Prahran. They did so to honour the Greek soldiers fighting “in the tradition of Alexander the Great” alongside the Allies, and they looked forward to seeing the flag floating above the Town Hall.10 The Mayor responded by stating that all Australians recognised the important role that Greece was playing as an Ally in the fight against the Axis and that the Greek Flag would indeed be flown alongside the Australian and British Flags. -, “Army of Women in Action – Greek Appeal A Success”, The Age (Melbourne), Saturday 15th February 1941, p. 16, NLA.

Kitchens throughout Melbourne’s Greek community were busy in the days before the parade preparing delicacies that would be offered for sale. Many Greek stalls are reported to have carried “a tempting assortment of wares” – cakes, pastries, shortbreads, rose–petal jam and Greek sweetmeats – all home-baked from traditional Greek recipes. One Greek stall offered “rare and tropical fruits.”11 Greek children in traditional Greek national costume waved the special Greek Day flags, featuring the national flags of both nations. At the Town Hall little Olga Marmaras (who would later become Olga Black) was reported to have been “charming in Greek costume, taking a lively interest in the luck dip attached to the stall.” She was pictured in her costume holding the Greek Day flags in the Australasian newspaper under title “who’ll buy a flag?”12 Greek-owned cafes in the city closed their shops so the staff could join in the celebration of solidarity – the café girls took off their aprons and rushed out to waive at the passing diggers. At one point in the crowd a group of Greek ex-servicemen gathered “to wish their Australian Allies well.” 13

-, “The AIF Marches – Australia holds out a Helping Hand to the Heroic Greeks”, Australasian (Melbourne) Saturday 22 February 1941, p. 20, NLA. 10

- , “Greek Flag for Prahran”, The Age (Melbourne), 4 February 1941, p. 6. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19410204&id=mnozAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PZcDAAA AIBAJ&pg=5436,2602359&hl=en.

11 -, “Army of Women in Action – Greek Appeal A Success”, The Age (Melbourne), Saturday 15th February 1941, p. 16, NLA. 12

-, “The AIF Marches – Australia holds out a Helping Hand to the Heroic Greeks”, Australasian (Melbourne) Saturday 22 February 1941, p. 20, NLA. 13 -, “4,000 AIF Men in March – Greek Appeal Day”, The Argus (Melbourne), Saturday 15th February 1941, p. 5, NLA.

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Loudspeakers broadcast an appeal on the BBC by the Duchess of Kent – the former Princess Marina of Greece – seeking support for Greek war victims. Greece was facing “an unprovoked attack … Greece needs help and it needs it now,” she said. As her voice was heard by the huge crowd, many stalls sold “Marina Dolls” dressed in “Greek costume” in her honour.14

The Record reported that the residents of South Melbourne led by Mrs A. Mott conducted a fundraising stall and wheel for the appeal raising nearly £130. The Gippsland Times reported that the Victorian country town of Sale raised over £18, with contributions from the Town Council, the Sale Branch of the Red Cross, the Technical School Mother’s Club, someone called “HJ” and the Gippsland Freemasons Lodge No. 51.

The day was a great success. Over £4,000 was raised from the sale of the specially made Greek Day badges and flags, stall sales and donations. State School children donated £250 and the women of the Legacy Club in Collins Street a further £198.

In Dandenong a popular local fish shop owner Mr Steve de George was reported in the local paper as having donated a day’s takings to the Australian war effort. In Frankston, the local council unanimously supported the establishment of a local Greek Appeal fund and stated how appropriate this was given that the then Greek Consul in Melbourne, Mr John Lucas, had been a resident and ratepayer of the municipality for many years. In establishing the local fund, the Frankston Shire President, Councillor F.H. Wells stated that they were “giving a lead to people who desire to give some material expression to their gratification to Greece for that country’s successes against the enemy.” 16

The following week the Appeal continued with an “all-star concert” at the Melbourne Town Hall. The concert was attended by the Mayor of Melbourne, the Greek Consul and his wife, the Greek Vice-Consul and his wife as well as Mr and Mrs S. Photios, honorary secretary for the concert. As those attending the concert walked up the Town Hall steps they were met by the beautiful sight of women from Melbourne’s Greek community wearing “graceful classical Grecian robes” selling concert programmes. The dresses were made in white and pastel tones, trimmed in gold and silver scroll work, with matching garlands on their heads. 15 The next month Melbournians responded generously again, this time to an appeal for funds to assist the Greek fighting forces by Mr Nicolaides, Greek Vice-Consul, at a meeting at Melbourne Town Hall on Greek Independence Day. The meeting had been preceded by a march and ceremony at the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance, attended by the Greek Consul and Vice-Consul, the Greek Ex-Servicemen's Legion of Australia, the band of the Gallipoli Legion of Anzacs and representatives of the Australian Air League and the RSL Carlton and Fitzroy subbranches.

In Horsham, the local Council held a “Button Day for the Greeks” and allocated different sections of Firebrace Street, the town’s main street, to fundraising groups including the local Red Cross, Horsham Tennis Club, Country Women’s Association and the Australian Comforts Fund, raising over £83 with the newspaper report stating that “Very few refusals were made to their appeal of ‘Buy a button for our Greek Allies.”17 Similar major rallies and events were held in most capital cities, including Sydney and Brisbane, as well as in smaller towns across the country. Photographs in the Weekly Times from the Sydney Greek Day parade show several proud Greek men who marched dressed in the uniform of the Evzones. Funding raising efforts were reported as bring organised in Lismore in New South Wales and Rockhampton and Innisfail in Queensland, with Grafton’s Daily Examiner reporting that that the effort in Lismore had raised over £762.

Melbourne’s Greek Day on 14 February was just the first of hundreds of events and fundraisers held throughout Victoria. Since late 1940, members of the community joined in to donate and volunteer to the various fundraising efforts organised throughout Victoria to support Greece’s war effort. Often activities would centre on a particular day and these would become known as Greek Day.

This coming together of the Greek and Australian communities would continue throughout the war, a number of efforts being organised by Melbourne’s Greek Consul, Mr John Lucas. For example, he is mentioned as having organised “a grand ball” so the Greek community can contribute to a fund to build a war veterans’ cottage in April 1945.18

A fundraising matinee show in Melbourne featuring Noel Coward in a performance of his play, Private Lives, was held on December 17, 1940.

16 -, “Appeal for Greeks – Shire President to open fund”, Standard (Frankston), Friday 13th December 1940, p. 1, NLA. 17

-, “Greek Appeal Day”, The Argus (Melbourne) Friday 14th February 1941, p. 7, NLA.

-, “For Greek War Appeal”, The Argus (Melbourne, Wednesday 19th February 1941, p. 6, NLA.

-, “Button Day for Greeks Totals £83”, Horsham Times, Tuesday 11th March 1941, p. 2, NLA.

-, “Greek Ball for war veterans’ appeal”, The Argus (Melbourne), Wednesday 18th April 1945, p. 8, NLA.

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Greek Day should not be forgotten. Not only had Melbourne shown its support for Greece in its hour of need but it had also demonstrated the solidarity between ordinary Australians and their neighbours of Greek heritage. This great day of solidarity held in Melbourne in 1941 should be celebrated as a symbol of all the Greek Days held in the Second World War.

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The Greek Campaign March-May 1941

My inspiration for researching this story grew from hearing the fond memories of some of those from Melbourne’s Greek community who took part in these events all those years ago - Ms Olga Black, Dr Peter Mangos and Mr Peter Kanis. And I thank them for sharing their stories with me. Wouldn’t it be great to see Greek flags flying alongside the Australian flag over the Melbourne and Stonnington City Councils in commemorations of Greek Day – as they had done in 1941. Wouldn’t it be great to see the Greek flag flying alongside the Australian flag every year on the anniversary of the Greek Days held across Autralian in 1941? Now that would be fine thing.

Archive Image 1.42 - “Greece – Burial Service.” Taken behind Allied lines, during the Greek campaign, April 1941, Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria

Archive Image 1.63 - “Communion Service – Crete.” May 1941, Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Greece and the Balkans

The Greek Campaign of 1941 began as the first Allied troops arrived at Piraeus from their bases in Egypt in March. Troops then made their way north, joining their Greek Allies across northern Greece in anticipation of the looming Axis invasion. What followed was a fighting retreat across the length and breadth of Greece, with Allied forces engaging with German forces as they attacked from the north. The campaign would see Australian and New Zealand forces face German troops for the first time since 1918. Allied troops would take part in numerous engagements from Vevi in the north in April to the defence of Sfakia in May. What follows are a series of stories from this campaign, illustrated by both archival and modern photographs. They cover some of the major engagements of the campaign, including Vevi, Servia, Pinieos Gorge, Brallos Pass, Corinth Canal and Kalamata. These stories identify some of the individual Australian soldiers who were involved in the defence of Greece, connecting their communities in Australia with those where they walked and fought in Greece. To these I have added the story of the occupation of Lemnos which although no Australians were engaged in 1941 is included due to its having played such an important role in Australia’s Anzac story of 1915-16. Each chapter can be read as stand alone stories or taken together as a whole, illustrating the depth of the Australian experience of the Greek campaign.

Map 1 - “Greece and the Balkans”, Playfair, I. S. O. et al, The Mediterranean and Middle East: The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally (1941), History of the Second World War: United Kingdom Military Series. II, HMSO, 1956. Public Domain.

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Zeeto ee Australia! – With the Australians at Vevi Northern Greece is a surprise. When many people think of Greece they often picture a world of beaches and islands in the sun. But as anyone who has travelled across Greece knows – Greece is more than sun and beaches. Its northern reaches are green and abundant. Mount Olympus gives way to valleys, with lovely villages and towns. The famous traditional inns – xenone – can be found in many beautiful locations. The region’s restored villages and towns, like that of Edessa, reveal a distinctive architecture that has thankfully been preserved. Its cuisine is rich and varied, with touches of difference to familiar delights that stay with you months later. In these hills and valleys to the far west of Thessaloniki, there lies Xino Nero. Taking its name from the mineral-rich waters of its streams, this small village contains one of Greece’s best restaurants and inns. Faithfully restored by its owner-chef, the Kontosoros Guest House & Restaurant is a wonderful example of these traditional inns that dot northern Greece. Sitting here enjoying the food and hospitality of this lovely northern xenone, it’s hard to imagine that you are in a place once touched by war. For it was in this area, in the hills and valleys of Western Macedonia, that the German Army made its advance in early April 1941. Just to the north of Xino Nero, around the little village of Vevi and the winding Kleidi valley to its south, one of the major battles of the Greek campaign took place.

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This battle brought together Australian and New Zealand soldiers, fighting alongside their British and Greek allies, in their first major confrontation between Anzac and German troops since 1918 and the only time Australians would face the military units of Hitler’s dreaded SS. These new Anzacs were again fighting in Greece as tens of thousands of Australian and New Zealand soldiers had done in the First World War – at Lemnos, at Thessaloniki and across Macedonia and Thrace, and in the waters of the Ionian Islands. The battle of Vevi deserves to be better known and appreciated – both in Greece and in Australia. At the beginning of what would be an ill-fated campaign, fought against overwhelming odds, the Anzacs and the other Allied troops stood bravely against some of the most elite troops in the German Army. It is a battle that is commemorated in this remote region of Greece but is rarely mentioned beyond. Its defence and the fighting retreat that followed, holding up the German advance at a crucial moment in their assault on Greece, deserves greater recognition. This is the story of the Australians and their comrades at Vevi.1

Northern Macedonia – The Road to the South This area of northern Greece has often been a place of war. Through this land wound the Via Egnata, the Roman road joining Constantinople to Rome, via Thessaloniki, Edessa and on through modern Albania and Yugoslavia. Vevi and the Kleidi Pass to the south lie in the centre of the Monastir Gap, one of the major routes leading from northern Greece to the south. This had been the route of invading armies since the time of Alexander the Great. It was here that the Byzantine army first defeated the Frankish Crusader armies before the Byzantines went on to liberate Constantinople in the thirteenth century. The ruins of Frankish and Byzantine castles stand testimony to its military past. At Grevena were located the headquarters of the famous Armastoles, an irregular militia established in Byzantine times, the predecessors of Greece’s patriotic brigands, the klephts. In the early twentieth century, the Greek nationalist leaders Telios Agapinos (at Edessa), Pavlos Mela (at Melas) and Vanghelis (at Lekhovon) were active in the war to unite the region with Greece. More recently, it had witnessed battles and carnage in the Salonika campaign of the First World War. Australian soldiers and nurses served 1

While the battle has also been referred to as the battle of Kleidi, I have used the the battle of Vevi on the basis that this is the name attributed to the engagement by the Australians involved and also that used by Gavin Long, the author of the Australian official history of the campaign.

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here, such as Major Ned Herring, who would serve again in the area in 1941. Miles Franklin, a nursing orderly during this campaign, recorded her visits to Edessa and Lake Vegorritis on her short periods of rest from the field hospital at Arnissa. I wonder if some of the older villagers in 1941 remembered the Australian accents from all those years ago. The Anzacs of 1941 were indeed walking in the footsteps of their compatriots who had served in Greece in the First World War.

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As 21-year-old South Grafton-born Captain Charlie Green (Service Number NX121) of the Australian 2/2nd battalion wrote of the welcome in Athens, the Greeks were “pleased to see us in the city and greeted us with open arms”. 4 Later he described his arrival at the camp at Daphni, near Athens: “What a contrast! Instead of awakening with eyes, ears and noses full of sand we breathed in pure crisp air with the scent of flowers. Flowers! We hadn’t seen them since leaving Australia. After months of desert glare the landscape at Daphne was a dream come true. The troops stood and gazed at the natural gardens full of shrubs and flowers which scented in the breeze; at the grasses that made a swishing noise as you walked through ... We saw civilians dressed as we used to dress before the war ... From the hillside one could look back into the valley below and see Athens.”5

The Anzacs Arrive The Anzac troops of 1941 arrived in Greece at the port of Piraeus throughout March and early April. 2 By the April 5, Lustreforce – as the Allied force in Greece was designated – was principally comprised of the British 1st Armoured Brigade, the New Zealand Division and the Australian 6th Australian Division less four infantry battalions and one field artillery regiment. The 6th Division was commanded by 59-yearold Grafton-born General Iven Mackay (Service Number NX363), a veteran of both the Gallipoli and Salonika campaigns in the First World War. Overall command of the Allied forces in Central Macedonia was entrusted to British General Wilson. The Allied force would rise to some 62,000 troops (combining British, Australian, New Zealand and other British Empire forces), joining the 540,000-strong Greek Army. Facing them would be over 1 million Axis troops.

A Warm Greek Welcome Greece was a welcome relief to the new arrivals from the Middle East. For many the sunlight, the grey green trees and clear water evoked memories of Australia. The civilians cheered them and threw flowers as they drove through the streets. Arriving at Piraeus, 25-year-old Lieutenant Ken Clift from Bondi in NSW (Service Number NX3698) described his arrival: “We were smartly turned out in shirts, shorts, slouch hats and puttees. … We marched through the streets of the port besieged by pretty girls who threw flowers and ran alongside the troops offering sweets and small glasses of wine.”3 2 The first Anzac troops to arrive in Greece were the 18th New Zealand Battalion on March 7, along with the New Zealand General Freyberg. They were followed by the 2/6th Australian General Hospital and the 2/3rd Casualty Clearing Station who arrived in Piraeus on March 8 - the first Australian medical units to embark in Greece. The first Australian fighting unit – the 2/3rd Battalion, arrived on March 19, along with the Australian commander General Blamey. The overall British Commander of the Allied expedition, General Wilson, arrived in Athens on March 8. By March 19 the British 1st Armoured Brigade, all but a few units of the New Zealand Division and one brigade of Australians of the 6th Division had landed in Greece. Ewer, p. 91; Walker, pp. 232, 234; Long, pp. 224, 227. 3

Ken Clift, The Saga of a Sig: NX3698 Ken Clift DCM, K.C.D. Publications, 1972, p. 53.

Some troops had time to sightsee, visiting the sites of Athens or the local churches around the camp at Daphni, as 34-year old Wongarbonborn Lieutenant Harry Lovett (Service Number NX1598) of the Australian 16th Brigade did on March 26. Many would venture a visit to the famous sites of Classical Greece. Twenty-two-year-old Albury-born Private Kevin Byrne (Service Number VX47857) of the Australian Army Service Corps wrote of enjoying six hours leave, fraternising with the locals “who were very friendly” even cooking meals for the Australians, “the best tucker I’s had since leaving Australia” Kevin remembered; and his visiting the “most of the famous Greek tourist icons including the Acropolis and the Parthenon.”6 A number took photographs as mementoes of their visit to the Acropolis, such as Sergeant Alfred Huggins (see Archive Image 1.10). There are a number of photographs in the Australian War Memorial of such visits (see for example AWM 006795 and 006797) but probably one of the most iconic is that taken by Australian war photographer Damien Parer of three Australian soldiers with three Greek Evzone soldiers with the Acropolis in the background (see AWM 006818). Kenneth Slessor, an Australian war correspondent and poet, found the experience overwhelming: 4

Captain Charlie Green, quoted in Charlton, The Thirty-Niners, Macmillan, 1981, p. 147.

Captain Charlie Green, quoted in Long, p. 31.

Entries for 15th and 18th April 1941, Private Kevin Byrne, “The Klagenfurt POW’s – In The Bag”, written 2015, http://klagenfurtpow.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/kevin-byrnes-memoir.html.

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“Useless to try to put this experience into words. The view from the parapet at the rear of the Erectheum the most extraordinary I have ever seen – Athens scurrying, smoking and glittering underneath, the mountains and ruined temples around, and the sea, the islands and Salamis away in the distance. The sky the Attic blue which can’t be graded. In the Parthenon, a hush in which the wings of doves and pigeons flying from the columns can be heard – but as you approach the parapet, the noise of the city seems to break over the crest of the hill like a wave, and hits you in the face – motor-horns, bells, children’s cries, dogs barking.”7 Another Australian war correspondent Chester Wilmot remarked that the welcome received by a contingent of New Zealand troops as they marched through Athens was as wholehearted as if it had been in Auckland. A series of photographs taken by Australian war photographer George Silk captures Australian soldiers drinking and fraternising with Greek soldiers from the Albanian front. George’s written annotations reflect the optimism of the time, reporting that the Australians were met with “an enthusiastic welcome”, experienced “mutual enjoyment”, were treated as “honoured guests” and “very warm friendships” were created (see AWM 006771, AWM 006765, AWM 006809 and AWM 006816). He also found time to remark that while the local wine – probably retsina – was not to many of the Australians' taste, the local beer “is excellent and cheaper than in Australia” (see AWM 006766). With typical Australian bravado, the photographer writes that the general opinion of the Australians is that “Greece is the finest country in the world – bar one” (see AWM 006809). Chester Wilmot reported from Athens at the time in similar terms, stating that some Australian troops who went to a local inn near their camp to have one or two drinks, found that the local Greeks had other ideas, insisting they stay until well after midnight and not paying for one drink. And the troops found an improved diet as the locals were eager to swap fresh food – like eggs – for army biscuits. As the troops began to move north, groups of villagers waved and gave the thumbs-up sign, calling out “Zeeto ee Australia” – Long Live Australia.8 Some Australian soldiers would remark on the amazing scenery on their way northwards. On March 30, Lieutenant Harry Lovett’s

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2/2nd Battalion were astride the Larissa-Servia Road when he caught sight of Mt Olympus: “Mt Olympus wasn’t very far away. It looked lovely in the evening when it seemed to be a deep purple colour except for just the snow capped peak. The bush was just lovely – early spring and violets (marvellous perfume), pansys, hyacinths, crocus etc. everywhere.”9 Chester Wilmot also remarked on the beauty of the surroundings – the rich green valleys with fruit trees in bloom, the bright red poppies and yellow dandelions, the rolling highlands. Of the mountains he wrote: “Great masses of rock rising almost sheer in places, liked clenched fists of stone ... They looked formidable barriers to any attacking force and as the few roads that pass through them twisted and wound their way round narrow ledges with precipitous cliffs it seemed as though geography at least would be on our side.”10

Vevi – The Key to the North The route that the Anzacs defended followed the main road linking Athens with Macedonia through the Florina Valley west of Olympus and on into Yugoslavia and to what was referred to as the “Monastir Gap”, flanked as it is by major mountains. This Greek frontier had been a major battlefield in the Salonika campaign in the First World War, where Allied forces had eventually defeated the invading Austrian, German and Bulgarian armies. The defence of Vevi came at a critical time in the Greek campaign. The invasion of Greece was spear-headed by the ten Divisions of the German Second Army, supported by 1,000 frontline aircraft. They struck first in Thrace and Eastern Macedonian on the April 6 (see Maps 1 and 2). Subject to heavy artillery and air bombardment and lacking any real air support, the Greek Army on the northern frontier held up the advancing Germans for two days. The German armoured forces took the line of least resistance and pressed on south towards Doiran, heading for the Axios Valley and Thessaloniki. By April 8 the enemy had taken Kilkis and Thessaloniki fell to the German 2nd Armoured Division on April 9. The fall of Thessaloniki resulted in the surrender of the Greek Army of Eastern Macedonia, enabling the German 164th Division to occupy the islands of Samothrace, Thasos, Lemnos, Mytilene and Chios. 9

Clement Semmler ed., The Diaries of Kenneth Slessor, UQP, 1985, pp. 224-225.

Long, p. 33.

Lieutenant Harry Lovett, quoted in Peter Charlton, The Thirty-Niners, Macmillan, 1981, p. 149.

Chester Wilmot, Letter from the Front 2 – 16 April 1941, in Neil McDonald, ed., Chester Wilmot Reports – Broadcasts that Shaped World War 2, ABC, 2004, p. 119.

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The British and Greek commanders – Generals Wilson and Papagos – ordered the withdrawal of Allied forces to the new Olympus-Aliakmon defence line. The defence at Vevi was now critical to the protection of the Allied forces defending central and western Greece. As the historian Dr Peter Ewer describes it, at Vevi the Monastir Valley had become “the side door into the whole of Greece for the invading Germans.”11 Brigadier George Vasey was ordered to hold the northern entrance to the Kleidi Pass, just south of the village of Vevi. The Allied forces (1st Armoured Brigade and New Zealand Division) carried out demolitions of bridges across the Axios and Aliakmon Rivers, the former then withdrawing to Kozani and the latter across the Aliakmon.

To Stop A Blitzkrieg The key to the new defence line would be at Vevi. Here the Australian, New Zealand, British abd Greek forces would make their stand under the command of 6th Division Commander General Mackay, whose HQ was at Perdika. Its orders from General Wilson were “to stop a blitzkrieg down Florina gap”12 The defenders at Vevi were now designated Mackay Force. General Mackay placed command of the frontline with 46-year-old Malvernborn Brigadier George Vasey (Service Number VX9). Along with his own Australian 19th Brigade, Vasey now had the British 1st Rangers, the 6th Division's 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiment, two companies of the New Zealand 27 th Machine Gun Battalion, the British 2nd Royal Horse Artillery and 64th Medium Artillery Regiment, the Australian 19th Brigade’s 2/3rd Field Artillery Regiment and the 2/1st Field Company engineers. The tank units of Brigadier Charrington’s 1st Armoured Brigade were retained in reserve on the Sotir ridge nine kilometres from the front. The defence force was weak in infantry but relatively strong in artillery. Its three regiments of field and medium artillery were commanded by 48-year-old Maryborough-born Brigadier Ned Herring (Service Number VX15). It was now crucial that the Vevi position be held as long as possible to cover the planned withdrawal of the Greek forces in Macedonia and Albania to the new Olympus-Aliakmon defence line. The defenders at Vevi would have to stop the German advance and hold their position until the night of April 12. 11

Ewer, p 118.

Long, p. 43.

Text Image 3.1 - Kleidi valley looking north to Vevi in fine weather. In April 1941, the 2/4th Battalion defended the hills to the left, supported by the 2/3rd Field Regiment, and the 2/8th Battalion those to the right. Photographs Jim Claven 2015.

Readying for Battle Throughout April 9 the Allied forces defending Vevi were deploying for action. They were strung out along an over 16-kilometre front, centring on the Kleidi Valley (see Text Image 3.1). In preparation for the coming defence, Allied forces – units of the 1st Armoured Brigade and New Zealand Division – carried out demolitions of bridges across the Axios and Aliakmon Rivers, the former then withdrawing to Kozani and the latter across the Aliakmon. On the right was the 4,500 strong Greek Dodecanese Regiment in the area of Lakes Vegorritis and Petron. The Australian 2/8th Battalion was next to the left along the ridges in front of the village of Kleidi, then the British 1st Rangers, astride the road that led through the Kleidi valley, and the Australian 2/4th Battalion on a front over six kilometres long on the hills to the left of the road, with the Australian 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiment in front. Commanded by 35-year-old Leadville-born Lieutenant Colonel Dougherty (Service Number 251858/NX148), the 2/4th Battalion made contact with the 21st Greek Brigade (part of the Cavalry Division) to its left, the Battalion’s left company establishing a jointly held post about five miles west of the road. The three contingents of field and medium artillery – the 2/3rd Field Artillery Regiment, the British 2nd Royal Horse

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As well as being cold, the Australian and other Allied troops were tired. Their route to arrive at the front had been long and difficult, with little opportunity for rest or sleep. They had travelled all night on trucks, the 2/8th Battalion having endured crowded trains and trucks over the previous two nights. Fully laden, they had then marched to the north of Xino Nero, where they spent the night of April 9 in the snow without shelter, moving on the next day to their positions at Vevi. The ground which welcomed them on the exposed forward slopes was so hard that only shallow scrapes could be dug. As 35-year-old Manchester-born Private Dick Parry (Service Number WX341) of the 2/4th Battalion said:

Text Image 3.2 - View of the hills to the west of Kleide valley looking south from Vevi. In April 1941, this was the location of the 1st Rangers, 2/4th Battalion and 2/3rd Field Regiment, the 1st Rangers straddling the road. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

Artillery and 64th Medium Artillery Regiment – were positioned mainly in the hills to the south of the village of Vevi, although some of the Australian guns were initially positioned eight kilometres to the north. The anti-tank artillery and machine gunners offset the thinness of the infantry line. While the 2/1st Australian Anti-Tank Regiment supported the Rangers, one platoon of the New Zealand machine gunners was with the left company of the 2/8th Battalion and two companies of the New Zealand machine gunners were also supporting the Rangers as well as the 2/4th Battalion. Forward of the Rangers the 2/1st Field Company had been busy laying a minefield (see Text Image 3.2). Map 3 outlines the positions of the various Allied defending units on the eve of the battle. Apart from the long line that Mackay Force was tasked to hold, the defence had a few weaknesses. The Greek units were under-equipped, often armed with antique pre-First World War rifles. The British 1st Rangers were inexperienced and detached from their normal unit, the British 1st Armoured Brigade, and the 2/8th Battalion suffered from not having been able to train a number of its recent new recruits. The weather seemed to benefit the attackers. From April 8 onwards snow fell intermittently on the mountains, then rain fell in the valleys and fog enveloped the area until 10am. A Private in the 2/4th Battalion asserted that, unlike the on-coming Germans, 80 per cent of the unit had never seen snow before.

“We are high up in the pass, and it is bitterly cold and raining. March four miles and dig in. Then march about five miles and dig in. ... we try to sleep, but rain turns into sleet and ice. Our blankets and clothes are wet through. Hard luck: we move again and dig in for the third time in one night and no sleep for two nights.”13 Even the advantages of its narrow valley and steep rock-strewn hills could be turned on the defence. Its rugged terrain hampered communications and transport. As Gavin Long concluded: “It was a strong natural position, but on each flank the front was so extended that it was necessary to separate platoons widely, and some could keep in touch only be patrolling the considerable gaps between. On the right and left the steep hillsides and the lack of tracks made it necessary to man handle all weapons and supplies to the forward positions, and rapid movement of troops from one part of the front to another was not possible. 14 In preparation for the arrival of the enemy, a detachment of Australian engineers of the 2/1st Field Company spent April 7 creating craters in the roads north of Vevi, blowing up the railway running through the valley and a small bridge at the head of the pass. They also laid fields of antitank mines, the largest southwest of Vevi, ahead of the pass near the railway and in the pass itself. The defenders were keenly aware of the proximity of the enemy. During the night of April 9, a platoon of Rangers on patrol failed to return and a sentry in a forward position was killed. The latter fell victim as 13 Dick Parry, quoted in Cecil Chrystal et al, Unit History Editorial Committee, ed., White Over Green: The 2/4th Battalion and reference to the 4th Battalion, 2/4th Battalion Association, 1963, p. 113. 14

Long, pp. 47-48.

he approached seven German soldiers in Greek uniforms. On other occasions, the Australians reported that the Germans called out in cultured English for the defenders to put down their guns. The Australians would come to respond to ruses like this with bursts of machine gun and rifle fire.

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Text Image 3.3 – The view north from Vevi, the centre of the German's advance on the Allied defenders in April 1941. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

A feeling of looming fatalism overcame some of the Australians perched in their defence lines at Vevi. A 2/8th Battalion officer wrote in their War Diary that they were was now a sense of “Greek fatalism – attitude adopted of ‘we shall die here to the last man.’”

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At about 10 am, with German trucks near Vevi and further north near Itia, the British 1st Rangers blew up the road ahead of the minefield in front of their position. The first German advance units began probing the Allied lines (see Text Image 3.3). According to 26-year old Brisbaneborn Captain Alexander Douglas Crawford (Service Number QX6014) of of the 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiment, the first German column looked “like a dark grey caterpillar on a green lawn”.15 The first salvo of the British 64th Medium Regiment scored a hit on a German truck. General Mackay declared “our first ball!”16 The 2/3rd Field Regiment’s 5th Battery did even better, hitting five vehicles before the Germans pulled back. The Battery’s Forward Observation Officer, 33-year-old Adelaide-born Captain Gordon Laybourne Smith (Service Number SX1456) wrote: “In all its insolence he drove his trucks down the main road ... to within 3,000 yards of our infantry. At first I could not believe it was an enemy, all had been so still and quiet. Then came some sense. My orders flew over the wire and the first rounds screamed through the air ... A few furious moments and back went the Hun, but five trucks stayed on the road as silent witness that my Troop can really shoot.”17

April 10 – Contact! The enemy forces included those of the elite SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, then a brigade sized unit, commanded by Josef “Sepp” Dietrich, accompanied by the 9th Panzer Division. To the west, the German 73rd Infantry Division had already been repulsed by the Greek Cavalry Division. Along with batteries of powerful German 88-mm anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns, the German advance included a number of armoured vehicles and was supported by over 1,000 aircraft – compared to the less than 130 British aircraft available to the defenders. The German commanders were also aware of the size of the defending force, having been informed by their agents in Egypt. As the Germans crossed slowly through the muddy, cratered road along the Florina Valley to take cover behind the low Lofoi ridge, they were attacked by the few British aircraft available to the defenders. Air force reconnaissance had reported that a large collection of German vehicles remained on the north bank of the Crna River in Yugoslavia waiting for the bridge to be repaired. The fluidity of the front was still evident in that despite the closeness of some German forward patrols at Vevi, a New Zealand armoured car patrol could still advance on demolition work far into Yugoslavia on April 10 to a position north of Bitolj. The ensuing action delayed the Germans and resulted in the awarding of a Military Medal to one of the New Zealand soldiers.

As the 2/3rd Field Artillery Regiment’s War Diary states the unit’s opening artillery salvoes at Vevi made it “the first time [an] Australian Artillery Unit to engage German forces in this war.”18 At 4.50pm five companies of German troops were driven off by small arms fire as they attempted an attack on the 2/4th Battalion’s position. As they made off towards the railway line to the west, seeking shelter behind a coal dump, the British 2nd Royal Horse Artillery “blew the tripe” out of them. Another fresh attack on the 2/4th was repulsed by heavy fire.19 Throughout the day, Captain Gordon Laybourne Smith successfully directed the fire of his 2/3rd Field Artillery on to the Germans de-bussing on the plain before Vevi. The defenders were happy to see the British Royal Air Force in the air attacking the German column heading south in the face of sustained German anti-aircraft fire. Historian Dr Peter Ewer writes that one Hurricane pilot – Lieutenant “Timber” Woods 15

Captain D.A. Crawford, quoted in Mark Johnston, The Proud 6th, Cambridge UP, 2008, p. 68.

Ivan Chapman, Iven G. Mackay, Citizen and Soldier, Melway, 1975, p. 220.

Captain Gordon Laybourne Smith, quoted in Les Bishop, Thunder under the Guns – A history of the 2/3rd Field Regiment, 2/3rd Australian Field Regiment Association, 1998, p. 189. 18

Entry for 10th-12th April 1941, 2nd AIF, Royal Australian Artillery, 2/3 Field Regiment, War Diary, March to May 1941, AWM52 4/2/3/10.

Thompson, p. 160.

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crash landed in no-man’s land and was brought back to friendly lines by 25-year-old Belmore-born Lieutenant Kenneth Kesteven of the 2/4th Battalion (Service Number 251860/NX4012). There was no coordinated attack that day, the German infantry and armoured vehicles having out-run their own artillery. This was fortunate for the defenders. While the British 1st Rangers and 2/4th Battalion had arrived in time to occupy their positions by April 9, the 2/8th Battalion was still finishing its 25-to-30-kilometre march and scrambling wearily up the hills to fill the gap on the right, finally reaching its position at 6pm. They also discovered that their only armoured transport – their Bren Gun Carriers – were unable to traverse the hills or go through the deepening mud. And they had yet to dig in. Generals Wilson, Mackay and Karassos met at Perdika at 2pm on April 10 to plan the coming withdrawal from the Vermion-Veria positions to the Olympus-Aliakmon defence line. Three nights would be needed to allow the Greek Army units to withdrawn due to their lack of transport. Three Greek Battalions would withdraw on April 10-11,, three more on April 11-12 and the rearguards and the Dodecanese on the April 12-13. Mackay Force would then withdraw. These orders imposed a wearying march across mountain ranges on the Greek units who lacked mechanised transport and who had to negotiate the roads and bridges already blown up by the Allies. They also placed the responsibility on Mackay Force to defend a thin line against a strengthening German force for three nights and two days. The Germans probed the stretched Allied lines during the night of April 10. Australian units reported German soldiers trying to confuse the defenders by calling to them in English – “Stand up Steve” and “Friendly patrol here”. Five Australians, a section of New Zealander machine gunners and six of the British Rangers were captured in this way. Fire fights with the enemy continued all night, allowing no time for rest or sleep.

April 11– Holding the Line The weather turned for the worse, bringing blizzard conditions to the battlefield. Mist in the heights on each side of the valley made it impossible to see more than fifty yards. The Anzacs reported several guns had frozen over night and were unable to fire. Some soldiers dropped out of the line with frostbite. Some lucky Australians would enjoy some internal fortitude against the terrible weather. As 25-year-old Sunburyborn Lieutenant Michael Alistair Clarke (Service Number VX123) of the

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2/3rd Field Artillery Regiment left to take up a forward observation post for the unit’s 5th Battery, a Roman Catholic Padre thrust a welcome bottle of Scotch whisky into his hands, “for medicinal purposes” of course. 20 The well-known photograph of Lieutenant Colonel Dougherty of the 2/4th Battalion with the commanding officer of the flanking Greek Battalion surrounded in snow is testament to these conditions (see AWM 128423). While the weather hampered the defenders at Vevi, their blinding effect allowed the Germans to use the conditions to manoeuvre closer to the Australians. The Germans had formed their force to attack Vevi and the Kleidi Pass into a “kampfgruppe” or battle group, adding artillery and Stug III assault guns to the SS Brigade’s 1st Battalion. As the morning progressed a few German tanks appeared, one and then another being disabled by the mines in the field forward of the Rangers. German infantry began digging in along the road to Kelli (a village on the right in front of the Dodecanese Regiment). As the day wore on, German artillery arrived, joined by heavy mortars and machine guns sited behind the Lofoi ridge, and began to exact a toll on the Allies. A little before 5pm two battalions of German infantry attacked astride the road. Supported by the British and Australian artillery, the enemy was stopped when they were half a mile from the allied forward posts. Reports – though false – arrived of a flanking movement by German tanks against a position held by the Greek forces between Lakes Petron and Vegottitis, threatening the rear of the defence. By 9.30pm the Germans had abandoned their attack for the day, Vasey reporting that his forces had the “situation well in hand”.21 This didn’t deter the Germans from attempting their infiltration techniques again. This time the German attacker’s cultured English voices were met with heavy fire. The snow was now up to a foot deep over the whole of Hill 1001 – the 3,000-foot ridge on which the 2/4th Battalion had deployed – and there was snow on the hills of the right flank, where from 10pm a German company made sharp attacks on the 2/8th Battalion. It was here that the first German prisoners were taken and the Anzacs discovered that they were fighting units of the SS Liebestandarte Adolf Hitler. In the Pisoderion Pass north-west of the Vevi positions, the Greek Cavalry Division again repulsed the Germans probing forward against their positions, just as the Greek Army on the Albanian front continued to hold against the Italians. 20

Michael Clarke, My War: 1939-1945, Michael Clarke Press, 1990, p. 339.

Brigadier George Vasey quoted in Ewer, p. 126.

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By the morning of April 12 Mackay Force had held on for two of the three nights they had been ordered to hold the line at Vevi despite fatigue and the cold. A concerted German attack was to come. One more night was needed to allow the transport-strapped Greek forces to withdraw to the Olympus-Aliakmon defence line. MacKay’s orders to the 2/4th and 2/8th Battalion’s was for them to begin thinning out their front and withdrawing at 7.30pm on April 12 and to begin embussing on transports at 8pm. The British Rangers (being in the centre astride the road) were to cover this withdrawal. All were to be in their vehicles by 4am on April 13. At Rodona and Sotir, a further ten kilometres back, part of the British Armoured Brigade and a company of British Rangers withdrawn earlier would cover the withdrawals. The rest of the British Armoured Brigade which had remained out of the battle further back at Ptolemais would now form a rearguard through which the Sotir force would withdraw.

Easter Saturday, April 12 – Attack As morning approached a bizarre but natural scene opened up for the defenders. The sound of sheep bells tinkling and oxen lowing in the valley nearly a mile away floated up to the defending troops. As Chester Wilmot reported, the war seemed a hundred miles away when near the Australian lines a shepherd was letting his flock out of their night pens and oxen could be seen hauling a wagon up a hill. The snow lay more than a foot deep on the hillsides. Cold and hungry, the Australians suffered from frostbite, exhaustion and even altitude sickness. Chester Wilmot reported that “our troops felt the cold particularly badly”, with no chance of getting warm. 22 Across the Florina Valley, Greek soldiers and civilians made their way south clogging the roads. Kenneth Slessor remarked in a despatch to Australia on this sorry sight: “Down from the line come Greek soldiers caked in mud, hobbling with utter weariness. In between come the refugees. They are the saddest sight of all. Some trudge on foot, others are on gaunt farm horses or walk beside tiny mules tottering under their loads. Each has all that he can call home rolled up in a blanket.”23 22 Chester Wilmot, “Letter from the Front 2 – 16 April 1941”, in Neil McDonald, ed., Chester Wilmot Reports – broadcasts that shaped World War 2, ABC, 2004, p. 120. 23

Clement Semmler, ed., War Despatches of Kenneth Slessor, UQP, 1987, p. 147.

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German troops were now attacking around Edessa and through both the Veria and Servia Passes. The German planned a three-pronged attack against Mackay Force, with one group attacking the Allied defence line in the centre through Kleidi to Sotir, another formation attacking Kelli on the Allied right, and yet another executing a flanking movement through Flambouron on the Allied left. At 8.30am the Germans launched their assault on the defenders. On a wide front east of the road the Germans, supported by intense mortar and machine gun fire, attacked the 2/8th Battalion in close formation at their junction with the British Rangers (see Map 4). Under cover of the poor weather, the Germans were able to get to bayonet range before the defenders could even see them. As one Australian soldier remarked to the Australian war correspondent Chester Wilmot: “Suddenly you’d see figures appearing out of the wall of snow in front of you, we’d give them all we had and then the snow would close over them again. I thought they’d never stop coming ...”24 They succeeded in over-running the foremost platoon – that of 21-year-old Lieutenant Thomas Charles Oldfield (Service Number VX7066) from Albury – killing or capturing all but six men. Yet the remainder of this company led by Captain Robertson inflicted heavy causalities on the attackers. All day long the assault ebbed and flowed around the Australian positions. The position of all three rearguard units – the 2/4th Battalion, 2/8th Battalion and the British Rangers became perilous. As the British Rangers in the centre of the Allied defence line fell back, the 2/8th Battalion began to withdraw further up the slope of the hill. The German infantry jumped from their trucks and advanced close behind their armoured vehicles. The two guns of the 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiment and those of the British 2nd Royal Horse Artillery engaged the Germans on the road in the centre with open sights, delaying their advance. At 2pm the 2/8th Battalion launched a successful counterattack regaining vital ground on the ridges, and after six hours of intermittent fighting in the pass on the slopes to the west, the 2/8th Battalion still held the heights to the east of the road. Yet the retreat of the British Rangers two miles to the rear forced the retreat of the supporting 2/1st Anti-Tank regiment and the abandonment 24 Chester Wilmot, “Monastir Gap – 17 April 1941”, in Neil McDonald, ed., Chester Wilmot Reports – Broadcasts that Shaped World War 2, ABC, 2004, p. 127.

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of five of their six guns stuck in the mud. Their retreat left a platoon of New Zealand machine gunners isolated in advance of the British Royal Horse Artillery and the 2/8th Battalion was in danger of being surrounded. At the same time, the 2/3 Field Artillery Regiment fought the Germans from a few hundred metres away as the Australian infantry fell back. As the planned withdrawal of the Dodecanese Regiment was completed by 4pm in the face of German attacks on its position, the 2/8th Battalion position now formed a salient and was attacked by infantry supported by tanks across its whole front. 25 rd

By dusk the German armour had penetrated deep into the Australian lines and the battalion began to fall back, passing through the village of Kleidi. Platoons and sections became separated in the confusion. Entering the valley floor, they came under heavy machine gun fire. Exhausted men were ordered by their officers to discard their weapons, a controversial move that would incense command. Making their way overland, they marched sixteen kilometres through heavy mud, reaching Sotir by 9pm and Rodona by 11pm. On their route some of the Battalion were mistakenly fired on by British tanks, presumably near Sotir. Despite a valiant defence in hastily prepared positions, the 2/8th Battalion was badly mauled at Vevi. The bravery of the Battalion is reflected in the fact that one Victorian member of the Battalion, Corporal Henry Bernard Moran (Service Number VX4879) from Waubra near Ballarat, was mentioned-in-despatches for his “distinguished service” throughout the Middle East, Greece and Crete, including for that at Vevi. 26 From the 29 officers and 619 other ranks that had arrived in Greece only weeks before, the Battalion was reduced to 250 weary men who made it safely to Rodona throughout the night, only 50 of them armed and half of its officers and two-thirds of the men unaccounted for. Many arrived in small parties, some without boots and Vasey wrote in the 19th Brigade War Diary that their commander, 50-year-old Warracknabeal-born Lieutenant Colonel John Wesley Mitchell (Service Number VX40) from East St Kilda, arrived “completely exhausted.”27 The Germans awarded their highest decoration for valour, the Knights 25 Denied sufficient transport, the Dodecanese were burdened with their nearly 1,200 wounded. Those who couldn’t fit on the 30 3-ton trucks provided would have to march out or be captured. Ewer, p. 128. 26 Quoted in letter from AIF District Records Office to Mrs Elizabeth C. Moran, dated 12th June 1942, with reference to Second Supplment to the London Gazette, No. 35396, 26th December 1941, p. 7339, 7360, NAA. 27

Lieutenant Colonel J.W. Mitchell, quoted in Peter Ewer, Forgotten Anzacs – The Campaign in Greece 1941, Scribe 2008, p 133.

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Cross, to Obersturmfuhrer Gert Pleiss, who led the final assault on the 2/8th Battalion. While the infantry pulled back, a detachment of the 2/1st Field Company continued to carry out key demolitions on the road through the pass and the railway line south of Kleidi, often under fire from advancing German units. The successful retreat under fire of the New Zealand machine-gunners earned the Military Cross for its commander, Lieutenant W.F. Liley. The artillery continued to delay the advance of the Germans in the centre, filling the gap of the retreating infantry. Pulling back, and with fire support from their 5th Battery, the 2/3rd Field Artillery Regiment saved all but two of their forward guns which had become bogged. The Australian artillery commander, Brigadier Ned Herring, stated that the 2/3rd Field Artillery Regiment along with the 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiment, supported by the British Royal Horse Artillery, had “done wonders”.28 34-year-old Brisbane-born Major James Love (Service Number QX6029) of the 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiment wrote in the unit War Diary that the “gun drill, fire discipline and accuracy of shooting of these RHA gunners was truly magnificent”. 29

The Roof is Leaking With the German attack intensifying throughout April 12, Vasey gave the order to Lieutenant Colonel Dougherty of the 2/4th Battalion at 5pm on that evening to commence the withdrawal, the order coded famously as “Tell him the roof is leaking, he had better come over so we can cook up a plot.”30 Dougherty did his best to extricate the men of the 2/4th Battalion, withdrawing them to their transport south of Rodona – a 20-kilometre cross-country hike. He used Bren Gun Carriers to cover the withdrawal of their forward units and to ensure no one was left behind. It was not until 7.30pm that the withdrawal order reached the 2/4th platoon commanded by 37-year-old Sunderland (UK)-born Lieutenant John Snowden Copland (Service Number NX164) from Manly, who were defending the summit of Hill 1001 on the left of the road. They withdrew 28 Brigadier Ned Herring quoted in Stuart Sayers, Ned Herring: A life of Sir Edmund Herring, AWM/ Hyland House, 1980, p.171. 29 30

Major James Love quoted in Mark Johnston, Anzacs in the Middle East, Cambridge UP, 2008, p 82.

Brigadier George Vasey quoted in David Horner, General Vasey’s War, Melbourne UP, 1992, pp. 95-96.

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in defensive formation as the Germans advanced up the slopes. As the units of 2/4th withdrew to Xino Nero and beyond, they kept clear of the valley road through which the Germans were now advancing. The withdrawal included fire fights with advanced German units astride the road. Instead of keeping well west of the road as ordered by Lieutenant Colonel Dougherty, a mixed group of Anzacs – including 70 Australians - were captured by Germans in a strong position astride the road, disarmed and shepherded into a nearby field as they marched through Xino Nero. Throughout April 13 Brigadier Vasey, the 2/4th Battalion, British units and the 1st Armoured Brigade fought a fierce rearguard action at Sotir, the German machine gun fire like “one whining, hissing mass of lead” recalled the 2/4th Battalion's Private Dick Parry.31 Above the retreating troops German Messerschmitt 109’s flew up and down the road firing incendiary bullets at the retreating troops. Sadly, a number of Allied prisoners (Australians, British and Greeks), who had only been captured during the previous night, were caught in the crossfire during this fight as they sat on ploughed land in front of the Allied positions. Some managed to escape but others were killed – including the 21-year-old New South Welshman Lieutenant John de Meyrick (Service Number NX4006) of the 2/4th Battalion - and more than thirty wounded. In one of the few tank battles of the Greek campaign, the British 1st Armoured Brigade successful attacked the enemy, destroying a number of tanks and holding up the advance until the evening of April 13. But the battle had effectively destroyed the one small, armoured force possessed by the Allied army in Greece and its being kept aside from the Vevi battle had shown the Allied commands failure to mount a combined arms defence. The armoured vehicles of the 33rd Panzer Regiment now continued on to Ptolemaida (then known as Ptolemais) and the troops of the SS Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler unit wheeled west in an attempt to cut off the Greek forces withdrawing from Albania. The passes of the Olympus-Aliakmon defence line were now held by the New Zealand 4th and 5th Brigades, while the Australian 16th Brigade guarded the heights above Servia. So ended the battle of Vevi. As the troops crossed the Aliakmon River, they were welcomed by 31 Private Dick Parry quoted in Cecil Chrystal et al. Unit Histroy Editorial Committee (eds.), White over Green - the 2/4th Battalion and reference to the 4th Battalion, 2/4th Battalion Association, 1963, p. 122.

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Father Paddy Youll, a Catholic Priest, and Padre Harold Hosier of the Salvation Army, staffing a tea point after carrying their gear up the mountainside on a donkey. They handed out tots of Johnnie Walker Black Label whisky and packets of Sao biscuits. A welcome reviver for the survivors of the three-day battle. It has been estimated that some 28 Australians and 1 or 2 New Zealanders were killed at Vevi, along with 27 British soldiers. An unknown number were wounded and 480 captured. Greek forces are estimated to have lost 40 killed or wounded, and 136 taken prisoner. German losses are recorded as being 37 killed, 98 wounded and 2 taken prisoner. The battle had also effectively destroyed the 2/8th Battalion and the British 1st Armoured Brigade as fighting units for the rest of the campaign. As the day ended, most of the Australian and New Zealand troops who had fought at Vevi would have been made unaware that from 6pm on April 12 the Second Anzac Corps had been formed. The General Officer Commanding, Australian General Blamey announced: “…that the reunion of the Australian and New Zealand Divisions gives all ranks the greatest uplift. The task ahead though difficult is not so desperate as that to which our fathers faced in April twenty-six years ago. We go to it together with stout hearts and certainty of success”.32 In delivering the order to General Freyberg’s Headquarters, Blamey added to Captain R. Morrison of the New Zealand 25th Battalion: “There you are, sonny, you have only got to live until 6 o’clock tonight to be a bloody Anzac.”33 While many of the defenders at Vevi were unaware of it, their battle had been the first of the second Anzacs. The formation of the Second Anzacs Corps as the battle of Vevi took place also lay in the footsteps of the first Anzacs who had walked on Greek soil in 1915 – on the Aegean Island of Lemnos. This fact would not have been lost on several of the senior leaders of the Anzac force in Greece in 1941 who had also been part of the Gallipoli campaign, Thomas Blamey having been a Staff Major with the 1st Australian Division, Iven Mackay an Australian 4th Battalion Captain, Sydney Rowell an Australian 3rd Light Horse Lieutenant and New Zealand’s Bernard Freyberg a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. 32

General Blamey quoted in Long, p. 70.

General Blamey quoted in Thompson, p. 161.

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The Reckoning Mackay Force had indeed inflicted casualties on the enemy and held them up for three days. But as the defenders reached Rodona it was clear that they had sustained significant losses, as the nurses at 2/5th Australian General Hospital at Ekali could attest. The British Rangers had suffered heavily. The 2/1st Anti-Tank gunners had sited its guns well forward of the infantry and lost sixteen guns and 85 officers and men had been captured, including Captain Alexander Douglas Crawford. The 2/3rd Field Artillery Regiment had lost two guns, bogged in the mud, and the British 64th Medium one gun. The 2/4th Battalion had lost one of its three rifle companies when it unwittingly walked into a German position and were captured. On the same night, 2/8th Battalion could assemble only 50 armed men, the remaining 200 lacking weapons. Only in the sector held by the 2/4th Battalion did the defenders at Vevi stay in formation until the appointed withdrawal time of 8pm. In the end, the two Australian battalions were temporarily disabled as effective military formations. The Allied failure to use its limited armour at Vevi as part of an integrated battle formation, with infantry and artillery, also played a role in undermining the Allied defence. The Anzac, British and Greek troops had nonetheless held on in difficult conditions against an enemy with overwhelming odds, superior weapons and tactics. Many of the defending units – including raw and untrained reinforcements - had been thrown into the front-line after an exhausting rush from the desert, with little rest or food. They had marched for days through mud and slush, weighed down by a hundred rounds of ammunition, five days rations, greatcoat, blanket, groundsheet and haversack. They had beaten off German patrols and attacks for three days and withdrew only when faced with encirclement. The poor weather, including blizzards, rain, fog and mud, had disrupted communications and transport, many platoons and sections finding themselves isolated and trapped, while the enemy pressed forward. Mackay Force had successfully achieved its objective of holding up the enemy to ensure a better defensive position could be formed at the Olympus-Aliakmon defence line. The Greek units had fought well, the Dodecanese making an orderly withdrawal as planned and the 21st Greek Brigade, to the left of the 2/4th Battalion, continuing to fight hard after the withdrawal of Mackay Force, later joining the Greek 12th and 20th Divisions. The 2/8th Battalion had to defend a four kilometre long front above the

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snow line. It had engaged with the enemy from April 11, given them hell in the words of one soldier and had retreated only on the order to retire. The scattered men had not thought of surrender but sought to find their way back to re-join the unit – to have “another smack at Gerry” in the words of Captain Laybourne Smith.34 And they had done this without any effective air support. As Chester Wilmot concluded in his ABC radio report from the battlefield to Australians: “It had been a difficult four days – of hard fighting – and intense cold, but still a handful of men had shown again that with courage and resource even [hand] picked Nazi troops could be beaten. As I drove back from this Front with some of our troops and came through the main defensive area, I realised how much this rearguard action had meant to us. Hills which had been bare a week ago were now manned by troops and bristling with guns: the line where the real fight was to be, had been established thanks to the men who held the Monastir Gap.”35

The War Continues Mackay Force withdrew to its new positions on the left of the Olympus-Aliakmon defence line, with the Australian 16th Brigade taking up positions to its right, having fallen back from the Veria Pass (see Map 8). The fighting withdrawal of the Australian and other Allied forces in Greece now continued. The Australians and New Zealanders would add new battle honours to the name of the Anzac Corps – at Servia, at Platamonas and Pinieos Gorge, at Brallos Pass and Thermopylae and at the Corinth Canal. On April 23 the order was issued to begin the evacuation of Allied forces from Greece. Thus began the story of a second Dunkirk. From all over southern Greece, all types of transports started to remove the Anzacs and other Allied forces to Crete – from Rafina and Port Rafti to the east of Athens and Megara to the south-west, from Nafplio, Tolo, Monemvasia, Kalamata and many other smaller ports across the Peloponnese. It has been estimated that of the over 17,000 Australians and nearly 17,000 New Zealanders who took part in the Greek campaign on the 34 35

Captain Laybourne Smith, quoted in Mark Johnston, The Proud 6th, Cambridge UP, 2008, p. 70.

Chester Wilmot, “Monastir Gap – 17 April 1941”, in Neil McDonald ed., Chester Wilmot Reports – Broadcasts that Shaped World War 2, ABC, 2004, p. 128.

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mainland, some 14,157 Australians and 14,454 New Zealanders were successfully evacuated. Amongst the Allied forces lost were 2,030 Australians and 1,640 New Zealanders who were captured and over 600 Anzacs killed and over 1,100 wounded in what amounted to a month-long campaign. The loss of much war materials would prove disastrous for the continuation of the war on Crete, with hundreds of tanks, vehicles and aircraft lost, destroyed or abandoned. Some of the troops that survived the battle at Vevi would be killed and captured during the retreat, like the three hundred men of the British 4th Hussars - who had fought bravely at Sotir only weeks before - were ambushed defending Kalamata. Corporal Henry Moran of the 2/8th Battalion was a Vevi veteran who was evacuated from Kalamata on April 26 and took part in the defence of Chania in the battle of Crete. After service in the Middle East and New Guinea, Henry would survive the war and return to Ballarat. Historian Dr Peter Ewer recounts how one of the last Australian soldiers to be evacuated from Kalamata on the night of the April 28 was Kevin Price of the 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiment who had fought at Vevi. Taken to Crete on a destroyer, he would survive the war to return to East Malvern – where his local fish and chip shop was now under the new management of a Greek family who had witnessed the battle of Vevi in April 1941. The retreat of the Anzacs would not end the war or the suffering of the local population. Like the rest of Greece, the years of German occupation brought suffering, with famine and oppression. The Greek

Text Images 3.5 and 3.6 - Greek Battle of Vevi memorial, at the southern entrance to the Kleidi valley (above) and memorial inscription (right). Photograph Jim Claven 2015.

resistance movement would fight the enemy for four long years, aided with Allied support. The first acts of resistance and subversion in mainland Greece took place in the villages of Macedonia. The Bishop of Kozani was a prominent member of the resistance. Near Kastoria, lies Pendalofon which became the headquarters of the British Military Mission to the Greek Resistance until the liberation of Greece. And as the Greek civilian population had welcomed the Anzacs as friends on their arrival they would do so again as they made their retreat across Greece (see Chapter 11).

Text Image 3.4 – Greek Battle of Vevi memorial signage, on the hillside at the southern entrance to the Kleidi valley. Photograph Jim Claven 2015.

The battle fought at Vevi would be remembered by the locals of the region. A few important local memorials stand testimony to this. Off the main highway, at Xino Nero, stands a war memorial erected by the locals to commemorate the battle fought here in 1941. Every year, a memorial service is held there in honour of those Allied soldiers who served and those who fell. Another grand memorial to the battle stands tall on a hill as you enter the Kleidi Valley (see Text Images

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I would like to end with what I believe is particularly relevant quotation drawn from Ancient Greece. The words were recorded by Charles Bean, the Australian war correspondent and official historian of Australia’s involvement in the First World War. After the First World War had ended, an ancient marble monument held in the Athens National Museum, was brought to the attention of some visiting Australians. The monument bore the names of twentyeight Athenian warriors who had fought on the Hellespont – the modernday Dardanelles - resisting another invader – the Persians – in 440BC. Text Images 3.7 and 3.8 - War memorial at Vevi (left), with the 2/4th Battalion commemorative plaque to the battle of Vevi affixed at the base (above). Photographs Jim Claven 2018.

On a slab of Pentelic marble across both columns of the monument was a dedication to the sacrifice of these warriors. One of the Australians suggested a shortened version to commemorate others who fell on the same shores 2,355 years later: “They gave their shining youth, and raised thereby Valour’s own monument which cannot die.”36 Fitting words for all those who served in the battle of Vevi – and the wider battle for Greece which followed.

Text Image 3.9 – Veve Battle honour from the 2/8th Battalion banner, Ballarat Town Hall. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

3.4, 3.5 and 3.6). As you enter the village of Vevi and turn into its main square, the Greek war memorial contains a plaque dedicated “to the members of 2/4th Aust Inf Bn. 6 Aust Div A.I.F, the Greek Armed Forces, and the people of Vevi, who gave their lives in the defence of Greece in 1941” (see Text Images 3.7 and 3.8).” And back in Ballarat, the banner of the 2/8th Battalion hangs in the Town Hall, proudly displaying the battle honour of Vevi (see Text Image 3.9). It is moving to visit these memorials that stand across this distant battlefield in northern Greece. The service of those Anzacs, fighting alongside their Greek and British allies, deserves to be better remembered in Australia. So if you are travelling through Xino Nero, maybe staying at the lovely Kontosoros Guest House and Restaurant, enjoying its excellent food and accommodation – spare a thought for those brave Anzacs and their Greek and British comrades, who came to the Kleidi Valley and Vevi, all those years ago to defend Greece. 36

C.E.W. Bean, Gallipoli Mission, AWM, 1948, p. 390.

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The Anzacs defending the Gate - When the Germans surrendered at the Servia Pass I have visited Servia and the battle site on a few occasions, approaching it from Kozani in the north as well as from Larissa in the south. The route connects Central Macedonia to the north and Thessaly in the south. I have walked the ground to better understand what happened here in 1941. The first thing one notices is the great 2,000-foot escarpment above Servia town which stretches almost as far as the eye can see and before you the Aliakmon River, now turned into a long wide lake due to the construction of a hydro-electric dam. Immediately one is struck by the gap in the escarpment – the Servia Pass - the only route south from Servia and the north (see Text Image 4.1). It is no wonder that the traditional name for this location is the "Porta Pass" – the Gate – and so it was referred to in the various Australian unit war diaries. In April 1941 it would be the Anzacs who would have to hold the gate shut to the advancing German invaders. It is these physical features that have made possession of the Servia Pass a military objective over the centuries. The Greek military victory here over Ottoman forces on October 9, 1912 – known as the battle of Sarantaporo - secured the Servia Pass, opening the way for the liberation of Central Macedonia and on to Thessaloniki. The battle here played a central role in ending Ottoman rule in central Greece. I walked the battlefield with my good friend Fotis Teliopoulos, who has returned with his wife Fotini after many years in Melbourne to live in his ancestral village of Avles (see Text Image 4.2). He has many fond

Text Image 4.1 - The view of Servia and the plain, with the Aliakmon River and modern Polifito Lake, from high in the Servia Pass, looking north-west. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

memories of Hawthorn, its Greek community and his good friend Yiannis Salpigtidis back in Melbourne. We walked together along the road up to the northern entrance to the Pass and to the great monument to those Hellenes who fell here in 1912 (see Text Image 4.3). Standing at the monument, I looked back, down across the rolling fields below, to the waters of the Aliakmon. Ahead in the middle distance lies Fotis’ Avles and down the winding road is Servia town. The same road runs from Servia alongside the monument and up through the Pass. It is a beautiful sunny day as I try to imagine the scene that welcomed the Anzacs as they prepared to defend the Pass on those cold and misty days in April 1941.

Text Image 4.2 - Fotis and Fotini Teliopoulos (fourth and second from right) and their nephew George (at left) in their home garden in the village of Avles. The author second from right. Photograph Deb Stewart 2018.

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village and further to the left and across the Aliakmon River were the New Zealand 26th Infantry Battalion as well as the 2/4th and 2/8th Battalions, the latter depleted in strength from the fighting at Vevi. These troops were supported by the New Zealand 5th Field Ambulance as well as Australian, New Zealand and British artillery units, along with a small number of Greek and Yugoslav artillery pieces.

Text Image 4.3 - This 1912 monument near the entrance to the Servia Pass, the view ahead looking across the Anzac defence positions on April 15. A perfect location for a new commemorative memorial to the Anzac battle of Servia Pass of April 1941. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

The Allied defence at Servia Pass had been preceded three days before by the battle of Vevi to the north. Here Australian, New Zealand, British and Greek forces had held up the Germans. Yet they had sustained many casualties and their fighting withdrawal opened up the way for the Germans to approach the Aliakmon River, Servia and the Pass. Now it would be the turn of the defenders at Servia.

The Defenders By the morning of April 15, the Allied defence line stretched nearly 15 kilometres, from the heights of the escarpment around the village of Moskhokhori and on to the Servia Pass itself and across the Aliakmon River, with defenders drawn primarily from Australian and New Zealand formations (see Map 5). On the right of the Pass, positioned behind the escarpment were three Australian infantry battalions (the 2/1st, 2/2nd and 2/3rd), with the New Zealand 18th Battalion to their left around Kastania village followed by the B Company of the 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion around Lava village. To the left of the Pass was the New Zealand 20th Battalion around Prosilio

However, the brunt of the coming battle would be borne by the men of the New Zealand 19th Battalion and the Australian machine gunners of the 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion’s C Company. Along with its B Company, the battle of Servia Pass would be their baptism of fire. The whole Battalion had arrived in Greece on April 9 in what their War Diary called their “Grecian Adventure.”1 After moving north and reaching Tyrnavos on the morning of the April 12, they were sent further north arriving at the Servia Pass at 2pm the following day. One of the machine gunners was 21-year-old Private Laurence “Friday” Mills (Service Number QX6553), an indigenous Australian from Thursday Island, Queensland, who would be photographed that day with his fellow machine gunners by an unknown official Australian war photographer (AWM 007650). Initially positioned north of the Aliakmon River, the Battalion’s A Company was withdrawn south to Domokos before the battle commenced. The Allies prepared their position. The Australian engineers of the 2/1st Field Company blew up the great iron bridge across the Aliakmon River, making it impassable to vehicles. The defenders of the Pass dugin, completing their anti-tank ditches and slit-trenches, around the road leading from Servia.

The Attack on Servia Pass The German assault at Servia Pass commenced on April 13 and 14 with squadrons of fighters and dive-bombers attacking the Allied positions, targeting the Allied artillery and cratering the main road to the front of the Pass. By dusk on April 14 German artillery began shelling the Allied positions and by 8pm the lights of German vehicles could be seen moving from Kozani. Australian and New Zealand troops positioned to the right of the Servia Pass, at Kastania and Lava, suffered due to this enemy bombing and shelling. The 2/3rd Battalion positioned at Velvendos reported Servia 1

Captain Keith Murdoch Durrant, Quartermaster 2/1st M.G. Bn. A.I.F., “2/1st M.G. Bn. A.I.F., Report on Q Activities – April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/5/1.

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itself being “severely bombed” on April 14. Although the 2/2nd Battalion reported no casualties, other Anzac units did. Three New Zealand soldiers were killed by a direct hit on their slit trench. The Australian machine gunners of B Company, commanded by 41-yearold Horsham-born Major John Bolton (Service Number VX216), suffered three casualties due to the shelling and bombing of the Allied positions on April 14. One of those injured was 35-year-old Private William McCarty (Service Number VX4760) from Caradoc in Victoria and one who would die of his wounds was 30-year-old South Australian Private Herbert Doran (Service Number SX1107). Wet weather on April 15 and 16 kept Text Image 4.4 - The grave of Frankston’s enemy aircraft out of the skies Private Robert Carter King, Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven but shelling on April 16 resulted 2016. in four more casualties, all from Victoria. Despite these losses the Company’s 24-year old Melbourneborn Lance Corporal Donald Gill (Service Number VX704) shot down two enemy planes, one on April 14 and another two days later. And while they commenced their withdrawal south, six more soldiers were wounded due to enemy shelling, including 21-year-old Kyabram-born Private Robert King (service number VX4531) from Frankston. Robert would die of his wounds and eventually be buried in Athens’ Phaleron War Cemetery (see Text Image 4.4). The main thrust of the German assault fell on the Anzac defenders of the Pass itself. Before dawn on April 15 the 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion’s C Company – commanded by 42-year-old South Australian Major Cyril Fidock (Service Number SX1437) – were in position with the New Zealand 19th Battalion and ready for action, the defenders having spent the previous night finalising their defences. C Company’s 10th Platoon occupied the central position at the northern entrance to the Pass and along with the New Zealanders of the 19th Battalion they would bear the

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main brunt of the looming German assault on the Pass. C Company’s 11th and 12th Platoons were positioned to cover a river frontage of four miles with the patrols of the New Zealand 19th Battalion in support. The latter position was down a steep cliff which the men reached during the night of April 14, their being kept in contact with Company Headquarters by signallers laying a communication wire. The defenders would be supported by the guns of the Australian 2/3rd Field Regiment based in the Mikrovalton area south of the Pass. As the Australian Machine Gun battalion history states the Australians now “had a grandstand view.”2 Suddenly the defenders saw German infantry “straggling along the road” towards them, “casually walking towards the Pass, having no apparent order” and making no attempt to keep quiet.3 They were two companies of the German 11th Infantry Regiment who had made their way over the partially submerged bridge, entered Servia village and continued on towards the Pass unaware of the trap into which they were entering. It was only after they had passed some of the hidden defenders that the Anzacs opened up their withering fire on the enemy from three sides. As two of the Australian machine gunners with 10th Platoon recalled the Germans “could neither advance nor retreat.”4 The German attackers ran for cover into small bushes near the escarpment. Despite two attempted counter attacks halted by the defenders, soon the Germans began to emerge with white handkerchiefs. Some Germans sought cover in the fields that stretched down towards the Aliakmon River, but they found no escape. As one of the German officers there later recounted, “the enemy was firing accurately at every individual man who emerged from cover anywhere.”5 This first German advance on the Pass had begun at 5.30am and by 8am it was all over. The Germans put their losses at 36 killed, 72 wounded and 190 missing. While both the Australian and New Zealand official historians report approximately 190 German wounded and captured, the Australian historian estimated total German losses at about 400. Many of those captured were Austrians, at least one of whom is reported to have 2

Philip Hocking, The Long Carry: A History of 2/1 Australian Machine Gun Battalion, 1939-46, 2/1 Machine Gun Battalion Association, 1997, p. 69.

Long, p. 87; McClymont, p. 274.

Recollections of 10th Platoon gunners Stewart Milliken and Vic Lloyd, quoted in Philip Hocking, The Long Carry: A History of 2/1 Australian Machine Gun Battalion, 1939-46, 2/1 Machine Gun Battalion Association, 1997, p. 70. 5 Lieutenant Hoffman, “Report on Action of 8 Company on 14th and 15th April”, quoted in McClymont, To Greece, p. 276.

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denounced the poor tactics of their officers to their Allied captors. The captured enemy troops would be amongst the first Allied convoy to leave the mainland during the Allied evacuation in late April. The defenders suffered only seven casualties, including the New Zealand 19th Battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Varnham. That was not the end for the defenders. The Anzacs at the Pass also suffered “a bad air attack” from around 1pm which lasted 20 minutes.6 This would see two Australian machine gunners – 25-year-old Corporal Edward Bryant (Service Number NX11379) from Parramatta in New South Wales and 32-year-old South Australian Private Alfred Pascoe (Service Number SX93) – distinguish themselves by responding to the air attack, standing in the open, regardless of their own safety, keeping up a heavy volume of fire on the enemy planes with their anti-aircraft Bren Guns, hitting many and downing one. They had done “gallant work” worthy of recognition in words of their Company commander, their Battalion War Diary recording also that they did an “excellent job and deserve commendation.”7 Further German infantry attacks on the Pass also took place throughout the afternoon, ending in their withdrawal. At 6pm the machine gunners were subjected to a further two hours of enemy air attacks. Two machine gunners from Queensland were wounded in these attacks - 22-year-old Private Arthur Charles Bradford (Service Number QX4657) from Kin Kin in Queensland and 21-year-old Private Robert Harvey (Service Number QX7433) from Brisbane - the latter dying of his wounds the next day. Despite these losses, as the Australian official historian states, these attacks were all easily repulsed. Together the New Zealand infantrymen and Australian machine gunners had defeated the German advance on the Pass. The battle was now over. Unbeknownst to the Germans, throughout the evening of April 15 and into April 17 the Allied defenders completed their successful withdrawal south from their positions at the Servia Pass. They were aided by wet misty weather on April 16 and fog the next day which grounded enemy airplanes and limited visibility to 500 yards as the defenders made their way south, some climbing goat tracks leading up the steep escarpment. Four Australian machine gunners 6 Log Diary Entry for 1635 hours on 15th April and 1915 hours on16th April 1941, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/5/1. 7

“Major C.H. Fidock, Commanding Officer, “C” Company, Report on Greece and Crete “C” Company”, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/5/1; Log Diary Entry for 1635 hours on 15th April and 1915 hours on16th April 1941, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/5/1.

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from C Company would be injured or wounded during the withdrawal from the Pass. It would not be until 6am on April 18 that German patrols discovered that the Allied positions had been abandoned. The battle to defend the Servia Pass was over. Six Australian machine gunners were captured by the advancing Germans in the days after the battle. One C Company machine gunner – 22-year-old Private Ivan Chapman (Service Number NX111358) from Newtown in New South Wales - revealed after his release at the end of the war that he had been captured in Thessaly along with a group of other Anzac evaders in the days after the battle. As the Anzacs withdrew, they would take with them some 150 German prisoners who had surrendered during the battle for the Pass. They were photographed by Australian war photographer George Silk (see AWM 007628), the first major group of Germans to surrender in the Greek campaign, certainly a scene rare in the story of the campaign and a tribute to the Allied forces at Servia Pass. They also left behind a number of German dead, with my friend Fotis telling me that the fields in front of the Anzac position was once the graveyard for forty-five Germans.

Victory and Bravery Rewarded The defenders of Servia Pass had won a victory. The Germans had entered a well-prepared trap set for them by the Anzacs and been repulsed, sustaining significant casualties compared to minimal Allied losses. They had also surrendered en masse, the first time this had occurred during the Greek campaign. Soldier to soldier, the Anzacs who fought here faced off against their German opponents and proved themselves in battle. Most importantly the Gate had remained shut. The German advance had been held up for three days, allowing time for the planned Allied withdrawal south. The bravery of the Anzacs was recognised in awards and commendations. The commander of 10th Platoon that defended the Pass itself – 26-year-old Queenslander Lieutenant Richard Sampson (Service Number QX6063) – was awarded the Military Cross for his “great ability, courage and determination” during the battle. His citation goes on to state the role of the Platoon in the Battle:

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“By their successful resistance, this Platoon was able to hold off large forces of the enemy advancing and to inflict severe casualties on them. By its action also it was the direct cause of 150 of them surrendering and being brought in by a N.Z. Patrol. During the 15th April, the platoon position was continuously dive-bombed, and machine gunned by about 30 enemy planes whilst enemy infantry advanced, finally surrounding the position. The attitude of Lieut. Sampson throughout the action was an inspiration to his men and his skilful [sic] handling enabled him to finally extricate his Platoon without undue loss, and to bring out with him all his guns and ammunition.”8 Lieutenant Sampson’s award was made along with seven Military Medals, four to New Zealand infantrymen and three to Australian machine gunners mentioned earlier. B Company’s Lance Corporal Gill was awarded the Military Medal for his bravery in shooting at enemy planes during the Greek campaign, including shooting down two enemy planes at Servia Pass. Two C Company machine gunners – Corporal Edward Bryant and Private Alfred Pascoe – were award theirs for “gallantry, coolness and disregard for personal safety” whilst firing their anti-aircraft gun in an exposed position, against a determined enemy, downing at least one enemy plane.9 It was my pleasure to meet the son of Corporal Bryant during the Greek campaign commemorations held at Kalamata in 2016.

Remembrance The significance of the battle of Servia Pass of April 1941 should not be forgotten. We should remember the bravery of the Anzacs who shut the Gate on April 15. Wouldn’t it be appropriate that a commemorative plaque be erected in their honour, alongside the memorial to those other brave men who fell there in 1912. Separated by less than thirty years, both these battles played important roles in the modern history of Greece, one in its liberation and the other in its defence. What better place for a memorial to the Anzacs.

Citation quoted in Philip Hocking, The Long Carry: A History of 2/1 Australian Machine Gun Battalion, 1939-46, 2/1 Machine Gun Battalion Association, 1997, p. 317.

Citation quoted in Philip Hocking, The Long Carry: A History of 2/1 Australian Machine Gun Battalion, 1939-46, 2/1 Machine Gun Battalion Association, 1997, p. 318.

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When Hell came to the Olympus Pass Driving up from Katerini to the village of Agios Dimitrios along the Olympus Pass the road winds through wooded hills. On the coastal plains it is warm and sunny but as you rise up into the mountains the weather cools and the wet roads tell you that you are entering another environment. These are the slopes of Mount Olympus – the home of the ancient Greek Gods, of Zeus and more. It is not difficult to imagine the playful but tormenting Maenads in the forest, waiting to torment the tired shepherds or woodsmen of old. The mountain passes of the region have seen their share of conflict and war. No doubt it was through these that the ancient Dorians descended on the local inhabitants, ending the Mycenaean era in Greece. Herodotus’ history tells us that it was in these very passes that 10,000-armed men camped to face the advancing Persian army, before withdrawing to the Thermopylae Pass. On the walls of the village tavernas hang the old photographs of the fighters for Greek independence from Ottoman rule – and of the fierce klephts who walked the mountain passes. In the cold days of early April 1941 Anzac troops deployed across these same mountain passes in their effort to halt the coming German advance (see Text Image 5.1). After Vevi, major defensive engagements took place at Servia, Platamonas and Pinieos Gorge - to the west and east of the Katerini-Elassona road. In these battles Anzac and British troops would fight side by side with their Greek allies. The little village of Aghios Dimitrios – sitting astride this road – would see its share of the war too. I travelled on this road which was defended by the New Zealand 5th Brigade commanded by Brigadier Hargest on April 15-16 (see Map 6). A sheep farmer in civilian life, I wonder if he welcomed the sight of the

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flocks of sheep that no doubt traversed the area in 1941 as they do today. Hargest’s troops comprised soldiers of the New Zealand 22nd, 23rd and 28th (Maori) Battalions spread from left to right across the pass, with the 22nd defending the line of the road itself. They were to hold the pass until the night of April 16. Further to the south, as the road emerged from the Olympus range, the soldiers of the 2/1s Battalion were deployed at Livadero. These positions helped defend the major Allied transport hub at Larissa further south. Soon the New Zealanders were confronted by the advancing German 5 Mountain Division, which had earlier taken part in the fierce fighting at the Rupel Pass north of Thessaloniki. It was the soldiers of the New Zealand 22nd Battalion who first heard the German troops calling out in English to confuse the defenders as they defused mines laid earlier by the Allies. The New Zealanders were not to be fooled. The New Zealnd 22nd Battalion was attacked but supporting artillery and mortar fire saw the German’s withdraw. As morning broke over Mount Olympus, the soldiers of the New Zealnd 28th Battalion could see lines of trucks, troop carriers and motorcycles, stretched back 14 miles back to Katerini. th

At 8.30am on April 16, New Zealand artillery had destroyed fourteen vehicles, including two tanks. By mid-morning the weather closed in, with mist and rain reducing visibility to a few hundred yards and limiting the effectiveness of any artillery fire. As this cleared later in the morning the Maoris of the New Zealand 28th Battalion could see German troops advancing through the mountains and revines to the left of the defenders. As early evening approached, the New Zealand 28th Battalion soldiers could see the Germans advancing through the ravine to their left. They could be seen clambering over the wooded hills. Fighting would be heavy that day, as the New Zealand official historian McClymont quotes “the silent forest had gone berserk with sounds of mortars, rifles [and] grenades”. After a heavy engagement – with many casualties – the German attack was halted and the front stabilised. As night fell, the brave and vastly outnumbered New Zealanders withdraw across what historian Gavin Long describes as muddy mountain tracks, greasy with rain. The 23rd Battalion climbed to 2,000 feet over a shoulder of Mount Olympus to make its way south. After attempting to manhandle their nine artillery pieces over the tracks, they were forced to destroy them, tipping them over cliffs into the ravines below. Ten Bren Gun Carriers and twenty trucks had to be abandoned in the withdrawal – but not before the New Zealanders had acted to further

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impede the German advance by blowing craters in the road through the pass. The Allies went on to continue the fighting retreat across Greece to the evacuation beaches of the Peloponnese. According to the official history of the campaign, the New Zealand soldiers who fought at the Olympus Pass suffered 40 killed, over 50 wounded and over 130 captured during the campaign on the Greek mainland. They would take part in the battle of Crete that followed and many of these same New Zealand troops – those of the 22nd and 28th (Maori) Battalions – would take part in the famous Anzac charge at 42nd Street, south of Souda Bay (then known as Suda Bay). In 2016 a new memorial was erected to commemorate this victory. Night soon fell and the mists closed in as I arrived at Aghios Dimitrios in April 2018. It was an eerie reminder of the environment that confronted those young Kiwis as they had defended the area all those years ago. Suddenly the trees had parted, and I found myself in this typical mountain village, the houses gabled and over-looking the footpaths, the traditional homes that you find in the villages of northern Greece. I have travelled these roads many times and love the smell of wood fires as nightfall comes across the isolated villages of the region. In the centre of the village square stands a war memorial. This is not to the battle of April 1941. This one tells the story of a terrible retribution visited on this lovely little village during the Second World War. For here too – as across the whole of Greece – the ordinary people had joined together to resist the Germans – no matter the cost. On the memorial are listed the thirty-eight names of the local villagers – including the Mayor – executed by the German occupiers on February 23, 1942 in retaliation for the killing of two German guards. The guards had been protecting an iron works factory in the village which produced material for Germany’s war effort (see Text Image 5.2). One of the names on the memorial is that of Ioannis Manikas, the grandfather of my guide Effie Karavidas. One of the Andartes operating in northern Greece, Ioannis had joined the resistance to free his land from the German invaders. It was his group that carried out the attack on the German guards. In the cruel calculation of the Nazis, one German was worth twenty local Greek civilians – whether or not they had been involved in the action. Collective punishment was the order of the day under the German

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is legendary. They are steeped in the history of Greece, stretching back to the Persians, through the struggles for Greek independence and to those of the Second World War. The story of the New Zealand soldiers who defended this pass and the martyrs of Agios Dimitrios is a poignant one. These Anzacs had come from across the oceans to these misty hills that might have reminded them of the mountain passes of New Zealand’s South Island. The story of the villages’ martyrs is just one of the hundreds of examples of bravery and resistance that are to be found across Greece. Ordinary men and women who put themselves in harm’s way and the terrible German retribution visited on the local people.

Text Image 5.1 - Mount Olympus viewed from the road into the Olympus Pass from Katerini. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

occupation of Europe. Forty civilians were selected for execution near the railway station of Katerini. Thirty-nine from the village and one more from nearby Katerini. Yet one of those selected by the Germans from the village was a worker from beyond the village of the Jewish faith. Maybe he was from Thessaloniki, my friends in the village do not know. This resourceful man not only managed to successfully escape from the German truck taking the condemned of Agios Dimitrios to their deaths - he also survived the war. The Germans selected another civilian for execution when the truck arrived at Katerini. Later the Germans returned to Agios Dimitrios and killed more civilians, including a number of local women. Their names are also recorded proudly alongside the names of those executed on that grim day in February 1942. And so we sit in the local taverna – named Tsipourio’s Nest - and listen to Ilias the owner sing his laments, clutching his klitsa, sipping a glass of his home-made tsipourio – no doubt as many of those executed would have done if they had been able to live out their lives. The mountains and valleys of northern Greece contain some of the most beautiful scenery in Greece, and where the hospitality of the people

Text Image 5.2 - The author with Effie (left) and Sakis Karavidas (right) at the memorial to those murdered by the Germans in the Second World War (and those killed in the Albanian War), Aghios Dimitrios. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

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Overwhelmed - With the Anzacs at Platamonas and Pinieos Gorge Driving down the coastal road from Katerini one of the first things that strikes you is the long wide sweep of the coast. On your left the northern western edge of the Aegean Sea hugs the shore as it curves south. The whole effect is compressed by the presence of the snow-capped Olympus mountain range that rises to the right of the road. Suddenly you are struck by the ruins of a medieval castle on a hill in the distance between the road and the sea. As you near it you can see that much of its massive walls are still standing proud, guarding the road south as it has done for centuries. This is the castle at Palatamonas (referred to as Platamon by the Allies in 1941). Stopping and walking up to the top and looking north one can only be impressed by the defensive potential of its location (see Text Images 6.1 and 6.2). The defensive advantages of the site stretch back to ancient times, with the Franks and then the Ottomans erecting the fortifications the remains of which we see today. Castle Hill as it was known would form the focal point of the New Zealand defence of the area, and crucially the entrance to the nearby railway tunnel. In mid-April 1941 in the days before the Germans attacked their positions, the New Zealanders of the 21st Battalion would be so impressed by the views that they would take photographs of the castle and the view north, photographs now held in New Zealand’s Alexander Turnbull library (see ATL Images DA-10986 F, DA-11831-F, DA-11836-F and DA-11847-F).

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But beauty can also be dangerous. The castle sits to the north of the northern entrance to the Vale of Tempe, where the Pinieos River cuts its way through the mountains that is still the main transport route between Thessaloniki and the central and southern Greece. As it turns inland to the west, the gorge runs for eight kilometres between Mount Olympus to the north and Mount Ossa to the south. In 1941 the road which wound its way through the pass on its southern bank, cut from the mountainside and shaded Text Image 6.1 - Old castle on Castle Hill at by tall trees, was too narrow for Platamonas, defended by the New Zealanders in 1941. Photograph Jim Claven 2013 wheeled traffic. Across the river was the railway, enclosed for part of the way by the Platamonas Tunnel. The river itself was 30 to 50 metres wide and fast flowing. There is now a modern highway which has been diverted through a new road tunnel. To get a hint of what it would have looked like then, turn off the highway and take the old national road that winds through the gorge itself. Entering the gorge, with its forested mountains closing in steeply on both sides and the waters of the Pinieos River flowing fast below, you can see the importance of this route (see Text Image 6.3). Further south the Pinieos Gorge opens up to a plain, the river meandering its way to the west as the road and railway turn south to the major transport hub of Larissa. A natural defensive position, the historian Herodotus tells us that the Gorge was defended by 10,000 Spartans and their allies against the Persian invasion in 480BC before they withdrew further south to defend the pass at Thermopylae. It would be defended again in April 1941. Where Vevi and the Kleidi valley guarded the so-called Monastir Gap to the west, the Pinieos Gorge guarded the major eastern entrance to central Greece. On April 17-18 the Anzacs positioned here faced one of the major German advances into central Greece. They held the line for

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This was just in time. After having blown the eastern entrance to the railway tunnel, the New Zealanders defending Platamonas were eventually forced to withdraw on the morning of April 16 having faced sustained attacks that had commenced the previous day and suffering 35 casualties.

Text Image 6.2 - The view north from Castle Hill, Platamonas. Photograph Jim Claven 2013.

twenty-four hours before being withdrawn, suffering an intense and bruising confrontation with the enemy.

The Defence of Pinieos Gorge From

mid-April

the

It is interesting to note that the 2/3rd Battalion had been deployed to the area days earlier. Their War Diary reports that they arrived in the Tempe area in early April before moving further north to the Veria Pass on April 8, subsequently moving south-west to the Servia area on April 14. They found Tempe at this time a cold but quiet place.

Allied

command began to reinforce the defence of the Pinieos Gorge. By the evening of April 17 a number of Australian and New Zealand units were in position across the southern side of the Gorge and extending across the plain.1 1

The battle is sometimes referred to as having taken place in the Vale of Tempe (such as in the depiction of the battle by the Australian war artist William Dargie, see AWM ART23985). However I have followed the title of the battle used in both the Australian and New Zealand official histories of the Greek campaign – the battle of Pinieos Gorge. Long, p 113; McClymont, p. 253.

The New Zealanders – encompassing infantry and artillery - then took up positions further into the Gorge, stretching down to around Tempe village. Next to them and stretching across the southern banks of the Pinieos River were the Australians of the New South Wales 2/2nd and 2/3rd Battalions centred on and forward of the village of Evangelismos looking towards the higher ground across the Pinieos, with some of the 2/3rd in reserve with the Australian 16th Brigade Headquarters south of the village of Makrykhori (see Map 7). Artillery support consisted of a battery from the New Zealand 4th Field Regiment, a troop of the New Zealand 7th Anti-Tank Regiment and a troop of the Australian 2/1st AntiTank Regiment. As the Allied defenders came into position, the railway bridge across the Pinieos River south of the Gorge was destroyed and a crater blown in the road through the Gorge to form a roadblock defended by the New Zealanders. The Allied defence line stretched some five and half kilometres. Throughout April 17 35-year-old Woollahra-born Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Oliver Chilton (Service Number NX231) and New Zealand Colonels Macky and Parkinson prepared their defence, under the overall command of the Australian 16th Brigade commander Brigadier Arthur “Tubby” Allen, a First World War veteran.

Text Image 6.3 - Pinieos River Gorge, through which German armour advanced on the Anzac positions on April 18, 1941. Photograph Jim Claven 2013.

Facing the Anzacs was a German attacking force comprising units of the German 6th Mountain Division, two battalions of the German 3rd Panzer Regiment and three and a half artillery regiments. The armour available totaled some 150 tanks from both the Panzer Regiment and the 6th Mountain Division’s 112th Reconnaissance Unit, with infantry available totalling the equivalent of seven infantry battalions. Their attack would be two pronged. German mountain troops, supported by armour, advanced on the Allied left wing and centre from the village of Gonnoi (referred to as Gonnos by the Allies in 1941) just to the north of the Pinieos River at the western end to the Gorge. Meanwhile on the

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afternoon of April 17, a more mobile force of both infantry and armour began their advance into the eastern end of the Gorge. While Australian post-battle reports would estimate that some 50 German tanks took part in the battle, the German report cited by historian Gavin Long states that the Germans had three times that number at Pinieos Gorge. Standing at the village of Evangelismos today, with the entrance to the Gorge to the north and east, the land rolls down in front of you stretching out across the plain and the Pinieos River, with the road north leading to Gonnoi village leading into the mountains on the left. On a sunny summer’s day the view is breathtaking after the confines of the Gorge. On April 18 the scene ahead was one of blood and fire.

The Germans Attack As some of the Australian troops were still getting into position, the Germans began to probe the Anzacs at the head of the Gorge in the afternoon of April 17 and a small advance guard attacked Australian 2/2nd Battalion troops on the Pinieos River before midnight. The main engagements would commence the next morning and continue for the whole day. In the early morning German infantry began descending from Gonnoi and approached the river. Twenty-three-year-old Mosman-born Corporal Arthur Allan Baker (Service Number NX1395) of the 2/2nd Battalion was the first Australian soldier killed in the battle. Throughout the morning mortar and artillery fire was exchanged as the Germans continued their advance to the river. Further west, a German battalion was able to slowly cross the river near Parapotamos to the left of the Allied position, occupying the village. By midday the New Zealanders defending the Anzac right in the gorge itself were subject to heavy attack as the German panzers attempted to break through. Despite destroying a lead tank, the New Zealand gunners and infantry were soon in danger of being enveloped as the German infantry advanced up the slopes of Mount Ossa and their tanks continued their advance. While the Germans were halted at Tempe village by artillery fire, the New Zealanders withdrew southwards after having destroyed the railway and road bridge at Tempe, losing their cohesion as they passed through Australian positions, many reported by the 2/2nd Battalion commander to have been without weapons or equipment. For half-an-hour from 3pm the Allied positions around Makrykhori – including Brigadier Allen’s headquarters – were subjected to sustained

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air attack, with some thirtyfive enemy aircraft bombing the area. Soon the Australian infantry defending at the Pinieos River were overrun by German tanks and heavy infantry attacks, supported by machine gun fire from the hills above to the north. As the enemy infantry crossed the river they were subjected to intense fire from Australian Bren Gunners and an estimated Text image 6.4 – Private Edwin Madigan. Courtesy 350 mortar bombs fired by the Dr Peter Ewer. 2/2nd Battalion over an hour and half. According to reports cited by historian Gavin Long, the mortar barrels of the latter became “almost red hot.”2 One of those Australians who showered the Germans with mortar shells was 23-year-old Newcastle-born Private Edwin Madigan (Service Number NX1315) of the 2/2nd Battalion who was a former surfer and footballer (see Text Image 6.4). He recalled after the war that “all we could see was extended lines of German troops … we just kept bombing the [railway] bridge.”3 Yet the enemy tanks continued to advance along the main road south and soon German infantry had succeeded in crossing the river, the defending 2/2nd Battalion troops being subject to “fairly heavy machine gun and mortar fire” along with attacks by dive bombers, according to the 2/2nd Battalion report on the battle.4 By 4pm, 27-year-old Coonabarabran-born Captain John Gordon Hendry (Service Number NX256) of the 2/2 Batalion’s D Company – who was awarded the Military Cross for bravery at the battle of Bardia in the previous North African campaign - reported that German troop infiltration on the left flank of the Australian positions had become serious. The 2/2nd and 2/3rd Battalions at the Pinieos River were now ordered to withdraw south, which they did platoon by platoon covered 2

Quoted in Long, p. 116.

Quoted in Ewer, p. 186.

- , “Extracts from 2/3rd Battalion War Diary 18th March 1941 to 29th April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16; Long, p. 116.

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by the fire support of their Bren Gun Carriers, arriving at the 16th Brigade headquarters south of Makrykhori at around 4.45pm. Meanwhile the tanks advancing on the main road were followed by groups of infantry, including some in trailers towed by the tanks. Despite their having destroyed a number of these tanks with artillery fire, the Australians defending from the slopes above the road were forced to withdraw around 7pm as enemy tanks and infantry broke through their positions. As the defenders departed, they watched as more tanks moved south astride the road and fanned out in the Evangelismos area. Now the final major engagement of the battle occurred as eleven Australian Bren Gun Carriers (supported by a New Zealand 25 pounder artillery piece) formed up astride the road and railway to block the German advance and cover the Australian infantry’s withdrawal. Two tanks were destroyed before the New Zealand artillery fell silent due to lack of ammunition. The Australian carriers were forced to withdraw as the German infantry and tanks fanned out across the plain to the west under cover of the smoke from the burning tanks, supported by “heavy ground strafing” by enemy aircraft.5 The Germans were now advancing across the battlefield and were soon south of Evangelismos. As the final elements of 2/2nd Battalion withdrew from the battlefield they suffered several casualties “at very close range” as they ran the gauntlet of machine gun fire and tanks which had already penetrated their rear.6 For Edwin Madigan the memory of the withdrawal was still clear to him sixty years later, recalling having to dodge the advancing tanks as he and a comrade made their escape, as he said “you only got out with your life.”7 The battle of Pinieos Gorge was now effectively over.8 The battle had seen the relentless advance of the German armour, supported by infantry, the Anzac artillery and mortars successfully engaging the armour. While German tanks were sometimes hit and destroyed, their advance temporarily halted, soon the defenders were in danger of being surrounded by the enemy infantry moving forward as the tanks continued to advance. Despite initial successes, the Anzac infantry units, supported by mortar fire and Bren gun carriers, were overwhelmed. Field communications were lost and soon the Anzacs - , “Extracts from 2/3rd Battalion War Diary 18th March 1941 to 29th April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16.

Lt. Col. F.C. Chilton, Comd. 2/2 Aust. Inf. Bn., “Report on Operations of 2/2 Aust. Inf. Bn. At Peneios Gorge, 4th July 1941”, p. 7, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16.

Quoted in Ewer, pp. 194-195.

Long, pp. 118-119.

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began withdrawing, some in formation, and others in small and isolated groups.

Withdrawal and Evasion As the battle unfolded many of the Anzac defenders were over-run and forced to either surrender or withdraw in small groups as best they could. To make matters worse, by 8pm a German roadblock established about five kilometres north of Larissa blocked the main escape route south. Given the terrain and lack of transport, the 2/2nd Battalion battle report states that the only option for many Australians was to head east, aiming for Volos and the coast where they might eventually re-join Allied forces to the south. The 16th Brigade War Diary records that stragglers continued to arrive at collection points established south of Lamia throughout April 19 and up to the next morning. Many soldiers became split up in the darkness; those that weren’t killed or captured struggled to make their own routes back to Allied lines. Private Edwin Madigan and his group were successful in reaching Allied forces further south. Others would be embarking on longer journeys of return. The 2/2nd Battalion War Diary contained many accounts of groups of soldiers being unable to join the Allied forces to the south and being forced to make their way across the Aegean and back to Allied lines in the Middle east via Turkey. This was the case for the 2/2nd Battalion’s commander - Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Oliver Chilton - who reached Volos and crossed to Evia, where he joined up with other evaders from the battalion before crossing the Aegean on to Skyros and Anti-Psara, before landing at Smyrna in Turkey and finally arriving at Port Said on May 24 (see Chapter 17). Thirty-two-year-old Major Paul Arthur Cullen (Service Number NX163), commander of the 2/2nd Battalion’s B Company who was also born in Woolahra, ended up at Heraklion on Crete on May 5 with a party of some 122 fellow Anzac evaders having sailed from the coast to Skiathos and then Chios, even having hidden in a Greek Orthodox nunnery along the way, to the consternation of some of the nuns. Yet another group even made their return to Allied lines via Chios and Cyprus. The help of local Greek civilians was essential to the successful escapes of all of these evaders. Edwin and his Anzac comrades at Pinieos Gorge had succeeded in denying the German advance on Larissa on April 18. The Australian 16th Brigade report on the battle concludes that had this not been the case the main Anzac force in Greece would have been cut off – “and the story

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of Greece may have been an entirely different one.”9 As Brigadier Allen wrote afterwards: “It was a fantastic battle. Everybody was on top (no time to dig in), and all on the front line … some confusion could be expected with every weapon firing and straffing from above. … We had to hold this position until after dark and thanks to the morale of the force it was done.”10

Bravery Rewarded The intensity of the fighting and the determination of the defence saw many Australians recommended for bravery awards. One of these was 22-year-old Armidale-born Corporal Arthur James Hiddins (Service

Text images 6.5 and 6.6 (above) - The Greek resistance memorial, Pinieos Gorge (Tempe Valley). Photographs Jim Claven 2013.

Number NX1830) of the 2/2nd Battalion’s Signal Platoon. He would be awarded the Military Medal for “conspicuous gallantry and devotion near Angelismos [sic] on 18 April, 1941.”11 He had volunteered to retrieve a store truck from an area occupied by the enemy and under full view of enemy tanks had moved off across a ploughed field before being struck by one or more direct hits, the truck bursting into flames. Apparently unhurt, he made off across the field, disappearing behind a stone wall, subsequently making his escape to Turkey with the Battalion commander, Lieutenant

The Cost of Battle

Colonel Chilton.

But the Anzac success in holding up the enemy for 24 hours had come at a terrible cost. The German mobile and combined-arms attack hindered the orderly withdrawal of the Anzac defenders. This was reflected in the fact the vast majority of Anzac losses at both Platamonas and Pinieos Gorge were those taken prisoner. Two hundred and thirty-five soldiers of the New Zealand 21st Battalion were captured, with 14 killed and 26 wounded. Ewer estimates that the combined losses of the Australian infantry battalions at Pinieos Gorge were 178 captured, 26 killed and 47 wounded, a loss of over 250 men in 24 hours.

Two others were 26-year-old Sydney-born Corporal Francis Peter Evans (Service Number NX1294) and 21-year-old Toowoomba-born Sergeant Geoffrey Coyle (Service Number NX1250), who had taken part in the mortar attacks on the enemy. Their citations noted their coolness under fire as they brought their mortar fire to bear on the enemy inflicting many casualties despite being exposed to heavy machine gun fire and the advance of the Germans to within sixty yards of their position. Long writes that the efforts of these men had a deadly effect on the Germans attempting to cross the Pinieos River in the afternoon of the battle. Evans was awarded the Military Medal and Coyle Mentioned-in-Despatches for their bravery. 9

-, “Report on Operations in Greece, 16 Aust. Inf. Bde – Phase 6: Peneios Gorge 17/18/19 April 41”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16.

10 11

Brigadier Allen quoted in Long, p. 181.

Hiddins, Arthur James, Citation Card, AWM Collection, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ R1580011.

Ewer also argues that the result at Pinieos Gorge could have been a far better one if the Allied command had supported the Anzacs with armour. The Allied command – Generals Wilson and Blamey - had withdrawn the British 1st Armoured Brigade from Grevena to Kalabaka further south. If some of these few tanks had been committed to the defence of Pinieos Gorge, they would have at least enabled a more orderly withdrawal and saved many of the hundreds of men from being cut off and captured. In a similar vein, the 2/2nd Battalion report on the battle adds insufficient

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anti-tank capability as one of the key deficiencies in the Allied defence. The availability of armour, working together with mortars and artillery could also have inflicted losses on the German armour and held up the advance for a longer period. The withdrawal from Pinieos Gorge was the final nail in the coffin of the Olympus-Aliakmon defence line. The Allies continued their withdrawal further south through Larissa, Farsala, Domokos and Lamia to the new defence line that would be established at the Thermopylae line (see Map 8), all the while subject to enemy air attacks and the advance of the German land forces. The crucial military importance of the Pinieos Gorge position would not diminish during the German occupation, with the local Greek resistance blowing up German railway transports (see Text Images 6.5 and 6.6), a region in which some Allied escapers served with the resistance (see Slim Wrigley’s story in Chapter 16).

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On the Plains of Thessaly with Ararat’s Private Felix Craig Australia’s Anzac story connects many towns and hamlets across Australia and Greece. One of these is Victoria’s rural city of Ararat which is connected to Thessaly’s Farsala through the life and death of one of its sons, Felix Craig. For me this story began with the discovery of a beautiful stained-glass window in Ararat’s Holy Trinity Anglican Church. The window is the product of the devotion of a local family to the loss of their son on the other side of the world in the defence of Greece (see Text Images 7.1 and 7.2). Along with his brother Neville who died locally, the memorial honours Private Felix Craig (Service Number VX1912). Erected by his father and dedicated in December 1944, the window features a crusader and the inscription for Felix “killed in action in Greece 18th April 1941”.1 The inscription takes me back to my research on the battlefields of Greece.

The Plains of Thessaly Today when one travels south from northern Greece or north from Delphi to Meteora, you will most likely pass Farsala as you move through Thessaly. It sits astride an ancient crossroads, where the trails of central Greece meet those to the east, to Volos and Platamonas and the Aegean Sea (see Map 8, where Farsala is spelt Pharsala). Farsala has been one of Thessaly’s major cities since Classical times and its reputation stretches back into Greece’s mythic tales. Homer’s 1

-, “Window dedicated to Young Men”, Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, Friday 12th January 1945, p. 1 (report reprinted from the Ararat Advertiser of Tuesday 19th December), NLA.

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Joined to Greece in 1881, Farsala would be the site a major battle in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897.

Ararat’s Private Felix Craig comes to Thessaly Felix came to Greece as one of the over 17,000 diggers who arrived in March and April 1941 to support Greece in its defence against the coming invasion by the Axis powers.

Text Images 7.1 and 7.2 - Craig Family Memorial Window (left) and detail (above), Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Ararat. Photograph Alexandra Bryant 2015.

Iliad records Farsala as the home of Achilles’ father Peleus and the famous warriors, the myrmidons, who Achilles led into battle at the siege of Troy. The people of Farsala were so proud of this connection that the Greek writer Pausanias writing in the second century AD recorded that they gifted to the Sanctuary of Delphi a great statue of Achilles on his horse, with Patroclus running along beside. Odysseus visited Thessaly on his journeys and Jason and the Argonauts set sail from its shores in his boat made from the forests of Thessaly. Thessaly contains the famed Byzantine monasteries of Meteora, with their vivid Christian murals. Thessaly’s geography has ensured that its plains and valleys would be visited by war. The Persians marched this way in 480BC, so Julius Caesar fought at Farsala to defeat his rival Pompey in 48BC. Thessaly took part in the Greek Wars of Independence, producing one of its leaders in Rigas Feraios.

Born in Nambour, Queensland, the son of David and Julia Isabel Craig, Felix was a 25-year-old accountant living with his family in Ararat when war broke out in 1939. Sitting in Oakleigh’s Vanilla Café, Felix’s nephew David and great niece Fiona tell me how Felix was a keen sportsman and diligent student at school and university. They show me pre-war photos of Felix revealing a confident young man with the all the world ahead of him (see Text Image 7.3). Like thousands of other Australians, Felix would leave his civilian life behind when he enlisted at the South Melbourne Recruitment Centre on October 23, 1939. He would serve as a driver in the Australian Army Service Corps. Drivers played a crucial role in ensuring the troops were transported to and from battle. They were also trained to fight. A photo in the Craig family collection taken in January 1941 shows Felix in the Middle East practicing with an anti-aircraft gun alongside fellow digger Bill Williams. His skill with such weapons would soon earn Felix honour. Like his fellow diggers, Felix arrived at Piraeus from Egypt and would most probably have enjoyed a few days leave in Athens before he made his way to northern Greece. The campaign would develop into a series of fierce rearguard actions as the Allies faced superior forces. The battles of Vevi, Servia, Platamonas and Pinieos Gorge would be followed by their withdrawal further south through the pass at

Text Image 7.3 - Fiona Craig with the author, reviewing Felix’s memorabilia and photographs. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

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Farsala and from there to Domokos and the new Thermopylae defence line beyond - just as the Persians had marched south through Pinieos Gorge to Thermopylae in 480BC.

Thessaly, the Anzacs and the death of a heroic digger As the Allied troops made their way south, some wondered at their surrounds. Driving in a Bren Gun Carrier through the valley’s below, a young British soldier and future writer - Patrick Leigh Fermor – remembered years later how he looked up at the monasteries of Meteora and wondered “how detached they looked, and how immune” from the war. 2 So it was that Private Felix Craig drove to Farsala on the plains of Thessaly on April 18. As he drove through its towns and villages, I hope that he might have enjoyed some of the areas famed halva dessert. The roads around Farsala were congested with troops and civilians. Gavin Long writes that it took British General Wilson from 1am until 10am to travel the 50 miles from Soumpasi through Farsala to Lamia. At the same time during daylight hours they were subject to German air attack. The poor weather which lasted from April 16 and until the afternoon of the next day shrouded the roads and towns of Thessaly in drizzling rain and mist. This poor weather and the low-lying clouds enveloping the hills made flying dangerous. The afternoon would bring clear skies in some areas and the return of German aircraft to attack the columns of Allied trucks. As the rain abated and the skies cleared, these attacks continued across the long Allied line of retreat. Vehicles carrying weary fighting troops moving south were locked in traffic snarls with supply trucks heading north and fleeing civilians clutching the few belongings they could carry. As Gavin Long writes the congestion and air attacks during daylight hours tested the nerves of army drivers: “The machine-gunning of vehicles on the 14th and 15th [of April] had made many drivers nervous, and the appearance of an aircraft in the distance – sometimes a Greek or a British machine – would cause a convoy to halt while drivers and passengers jumped from the trucks and ran off the road to temporary cover in the fields.”3 On the morning of the April 18 the road at Farsala was then rocked by 2

Patrick Leigh Fermor, Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece, Penguin, 1985, p. 92.

Long, p. 105.

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a great explosion that was heard six miles away at Australian Corps Commander Mackay’s Headquarters. German aircraft had hit a truck loaded with explosives, creating a massive crater some 25 feet in diameter and sixteen feet deep, the devastation blocking the road south with up-rooted concrete and destroyed heavy vehicles. Australian sappers and Cypriot Pioneers set to work repairing the road. Photographs from the time record the devastation resulting from this explosion (see AWM 007486 and AWM 0044636). It was on this very day at Farsala that Felix demonstrated the bravery that would earn him posthumous honour.

Text Image 7.4 - Private Felix Craig’s grave at Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

As over a dozen German dive bombers attacked the Allied column of trucks, Felix showed great courage in firing at the attacking planes with a machine gun. Shooting down a number of enemy planes, Felix’s diversion allowed most of the convoy to escape. Yet drawing the enemy’s fire made Felix a target. And so he was killed. Felix’s death can be seen as an echo from Greece’s past for it was during the battle fought at Farsala two millennia before that the Roman centurion Crastinus fell in a not dissimilar act of a solitary bravery. In his history of the Roman Civil War, Julius Caesar refers to this Centurion addressing the assembled Roman Army and charging forward to attack Pompey’s troops. He was killed during the battle, Caesar erecting an altar in his honour. Mentioned in dispatches for his bravery, the historian Neville Lindsay argues that a recommendation for a Victoria Cross would have been more appropriate and indeed should have been awarded. Without the dedication and courage of drivers like Felix working to transport the Anzac’s south, many thousands of diggers would certainly not have made it to the evacuation beaches.

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The local Nambour newspaper recorded that Felix “… had gone out like the crusaders of old and had stayed by his gun until the end.” 4 According to Commonwealth War Graves records, Felix was aged 26 when he was killed and was initially buried at nearby Volos and subsequently re-buried in Plot 2 A 19 at Phaleron War Cemetery on March 24, 1945 (see Text Image 7.4). The vital role of the Australian Army Service Corps to the withdrawal and evacuation of Australian troops from Greece was acknowledged by 49-yer-old Morwell-born Brigadier Stanley Savige (Service Number VX13), commander of the Australian 17th Brigade, in his post-campaign report. He wrote in conclusion: “It is my considered opinion that the evacuation of the A.I.F. from GREECE was made possible by the magnificent skill and endurance of the AASC and Unit Drivers, the splendid discipline displayed by all ranks, and excellent leadership of Officers and N.C.O.’s, despite their exhausted condition.”5 The danger to Allied troops of enemy air attacks as they were transported across Greece would see other Victorian soldiers demonstrate the bravery shown by Felix. On one occasion, the middle of the night of April 16-17, a troop train carrying the 2/6th and 2/7th Battalions had been marshalled into a rail siding near Larissa. As a result of a prolonged enemy air attack they soon discovered that their local train crew had abandoned the train. The glow of the open fire box of a nearby abandoned train soon attracted the attention for enemy aircraft. A number of 2/7th Battalion volunteers with railway experience were able to drive their abandoned train “under an incessant bombing attack” to an area where the troops could safely disperse before entraining and continuing their journey. These brave men were led by 33-year-old Scots-born Corporal Douglas Roy “Jock” Taylor (Service Number VX5449), a labourer from Melbourne who had been born in Aberdeen, and 36-year-old Scots-born Corporal Adam Hogg Melville (Service Number VX4699), a green keeper from Merbien in Victoria who had been born in Greenock, along with Private Allan Kenneth Naismith (Service Number VX4838), a 26-year-old tobacco grower from Gunbower near Bendigo, were able to drive their abandoned train “under an incessant bombing attack” to an area where the troops could safely disperse before entraining and continuing their journey. 4

-, “Window dedicated to Young Men”, Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, Friday 12th January 1945, p. 1 (report reprinted from the Ararat Advertiser of Tuesday 19th December), NLA.

Brigadier Stanley Savige, commander 17 Aust. Inf, Bde., “Report on Campaign in Greece and Crete, dated 15 July 1941,” 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, Reports Greece and Crete, War Diary, AWM52 8/2/17, p. 17.

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In a remarkable example of understatement, 40-year-old Carrum-born Major Henry Guinn (Service Number VX33), writing in the Battalion War Diary states that this “simple strategy saved the Battalion considerable trouble.“6 Corporal’s Taylor and Melville would again come to the aid of their fellow troops during another bombing attack on the railways, this time on the return journey, the episode again recorded by Major Henry Guinn in the Battalion War Diary. On the morning of 19 April the Corporal’s led seven other volunteers in the movement of an ammunition train that had been abandoned in a railway siding at Sophiades (modern day Sofades), north of Domokos. While driving the ammunition train out of the siding and presumably away from the troop train, a German aircraft apparently noticed the smoke and proceeded to bomb and machine gun the ammunition train. As a result at 2.50am the ammunition train exploded, Corporal Taylor who was driving the train was blown from the engine cabin. Fortunately he and all the other volunteers survived unscathed to re-join the Battalion.7 Corporal Taylor’s bravery had already been noted during his service in North Africa, with the Australian official war historian writing that he had already shown himself to be “an outstandingly cool and intrepid leader”.8 By April 19, most Allied troops had successfully retreated south of Larissa.9 The fighting retreat continued taking many of the Australians and other Allied troops to Crete, others continuing on to return to Egypt. The story of Private Felix Craig, his brave stand at Farsala and his memorial in Ararat should remind us how the Anzac story connects communities across Greece and Australia. For me it is appropriate that his tragic death in the valley of the monasteries of Meteora has been reflected in the stained-glass window of his local church. This window stands testimony to Hellenic link to Anzac. Felix’s death greatly saddened his family back in Australia. A few years ago Fiona journeyed back to Greece on her own pilgrimage to visit the places where Felix served and where he died. It was a privilege of mine – along wish Paul Sougleris – to assist her in planning her visit. 6 Major Henry G. Guinn, Acting Commander 2/7th Battalion (25 June 41), Entry for 16th April 1941, War Diary - 2/7 Bn - 1 Apr-4 Jun 41”, 2nd AIF, 2/7th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April- July 1941, AWM 52 8/3/7. 7 Major Henry G. Guinn, Acting Commander 2/7th Battalion (25 June 41), Entry for 19th April 1941 entitled “19 Apr 41 – Air Raids – Cpl Taylor Volunteers Again, War Diary - 2/7 Bn - 1 Apr-4 Jun 41”, 2nd AIF, 2/7th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April-July 1941, AWM 52 8/3/7. 8

Long, p. 106.

Mark Johnson, The Proud 6th, Cambridge UP, 2008, pp. 71-73.

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Today there is no plaque or memorial at Farsala honoring Felix’s bravery. Maybe the time will come soon when a small memorial might be erected at Farsala to honour this young Australian who came from Ararat to die defending Greece in its hour of need all those years ago. When we remember the anniversary of the Greek campaign, we should remember the sacrifice of Ararat’s Felix Craig and all the Anzac’s who came to Farsala and Thessaly in 1941.

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When the Germans marched on Lemnos, April 1941 Throughout April and May 1941 the Axis forces began their four year long occupation of Greece. This is one story of that occupation, concerning the northern Aegean Island of Lemnos. My journey to understand how the occupation affected Lemnos began as I sat in the front room of Judith Gunnarson’s Caulfield home, the daughter of a nurse who had served on Lemnos in the First World War, as we both listened to the account of Angelo Kalomiris from Kontias, who as a young boy had witnessed the German occupation of Lemnos. Later I heard the recollections of Chris Mingos also from Kontias, of Nikolaos Koutsaplis and his daughters Liza and Haroula from Tsimandria, as well as Dimitris Boulotis’ memories of his father’s experience of the German occupation (see Text Images 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3). The significance of Lemnos was not lost on many commentators as the prospect of war emerged in 1940. Ward Price, a British journalist, was reported in The Argus as pointing out that as the Italian invasion began in October 1940 the Allies would do well to occupy the Island as: “Lemnos has a splendid harbor and Mudros Bay and Mitylene would put us at a flash lamp signalling distance from Turkey.” He felt that the Allied occupation of the northern Aegean and other chief Greek Islands would prevent the coming German and Italian advance south. 1 The war came to Lemnos with the arrival of landing craft carrying a small British force on to the Island on April 4. It must have been a cold 1 -, “British Naval Aircraft Raid Italian Base”, The Argus (Melbourne), Thursday 31st October 1940, p. 3, NLA.

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April on Lemnos as one of their number – John Riggs an officer in the 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment – remembers wearing a no doubt locally-made sheepskin coat. Soon he was watching German aircraft overhead as the German invasion of Greece unfolded. After the fall of Thessaloniki on April 9, the British force withdrew from Lemnos on April 12. The Germans feared that the British where developing air bases on Lemnos which would allow them to bomb the vital Rumanian oil fields at Ploesti. The original German invasion plan was for an air assault by two battalions of the 2nd Parachute Regiment, commanded by General Wilhelm Sussman. The speed of the capture of Thessaloniki made this plan unnecessary. Photos in the archives show the first German troops making their way across the hills and through the villages that dot this beautiful Island on the April 24. Remembering Lemnos’ role in 1915, the Germans feared that the Allies would use Lemnos as a strongpoint. Preceded by an aerial bombardment, units of the German 164th Division were transported from Thessaloniki by an armed flotilla comprising a German steamer, Greek fishing craft and two Italian destroyers, landing simultaneously on April 24 at Pournia Bay on Lemnos’ northern coast and Mudros Bay to the south, both locations connected to the Anzac presence on Lemnos in 1915-16. Soon they had made their way to the capital, Myrina. The initial occupying forces were soldiers of the German 382nd Infantry Regiment, commanded by Oberst Helmuth Beukemann. The original troops planned for Lemmos’ invasion – German paratroops – were diverted to seize the Corinth Canal.

Text Image 8.2 – Chris Mingos (left) and Angelo Kalomiris (right) with the author in Melbourne. Photograph Jim Claven 2017.

Text Image 8.3 – Dimitris Boulotis at the 1941-44 Martyrs Monument, Myrina, Lemnos. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

There was resistance. Brisbane’s Sunday Mail reported on April 27 that the local Greek garrison, supported by the police, fought the invaders. The Hellenic Army’s official history of the campaign writes that the garrison commanded by Lemnos’ Hellenic Navy commander - then dispersed after withdrawing to Cape Agia Irini. Angelo and Nikolaos, both then young boys, remember that a local policeman shot at the Germans as they landed and then escaped in civilian clothes. Nikolaos remembers how the policeman was hidden in the village of Tsimandria and when the villagers refused to give him up, the Germans took all the Greek Army veterans they could find to ship them to camps in Germany. Only the intervention of Elena - the wife of the late Greek leader Venizelos - stopped their transportation and they were returned to Lemnos. Dimitris Boulotis, the former Deputy Mayor of Lemnos, told me of how his father – a soldier at the time – decided along with his comrades to go underground, hiding their weapons and blending into the civilian community. They would live to fight another day. By April 25 – Anzac Day 1941 - the Germans were in control Lemnos. Soon the Germans had occupied the rest of the northern and central Aegean. Just as Lemnos’ great bay of Mudros had been a major naval base during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, now it became the base for German ships patrolling the northern Aegean.

Text Image 8.1 - Liza Koutsaplis (left), Mrs and Mr Nikolaos Koutsaplis (second from right) and the author (right). Photograph Jim Claven 2015

Photographs survive showing the Germans marching through the capital, even sunning themselves while enjoying a drink in a café, and

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another of Germans using abandoned British vehicles.2 The Germans even erected a war memorial on Lemnos in June 1941, to the east of Myrina, where they conducted their own commemorative services throughout the occupation. The Germans made their presence felt across Lemnos. With their headquarters at Myrina, they spread out to occupy the main towns and villages of the Island. Nikolaos remembers that some of the German infantry were based at the village of Livadochori. Angelo remembers a light artillery battery was located on a hill near Tsimandria’s village cemetery, while a large heavy artillery base was established outside of the village at a location referred to then - and to this day - as “Cannonia.” Angelo recalls that from here they would fire across the bay towards the small satellite Island of Aghios Efstratios, evacuating a number of the homes in Kontias for the safety of the locals. The evacuation of the Island's population is reported in the account of Allied soldier Adrian Seligman who came there in September 1944 The arrival of the Germans had a direct impact on the locals. Angelo remembers the first Germans arriving on motorbikes in the village of Kontias. The Germans demanded billets in the villages, occupying the homes of those Lemnians who were not present on the Island – those in Alexandria for example. He also remembers that villagers were requested to provide furnishings for their new German neighbours. Villagers were also required to undertake forced labour for the Germans on a rotation basis. Chris tells of his father being whipped by a German officer while he laboured for the Germans at nearby Diapori bay. Angelo’s father Stavros – who had at one time been a waiter in Smyrna – was conscripted to cook for the Germans billeted in Kontias. The local German commander – known as “Bill” - allowed him to take the surplus food he had prepared for them, including soup, marmalade, bread and coffee. Stavros would boil up a large cartload of coffee and take it to the German troops located around the village, and the remainder – often as much as 10 litres – he would distribute amongst the locals. The local German commander loved his wine – and in return for some of the wine from the vineyard of Starvos’ uncle Aristides, the German supplied more food for the locals. The commander often turned a blind eye to Stavros’ use of the German food stores to help feed his family, friends 2 See for example photographs reproduced in the following: Aristides Tsotroudis, The German Occupation of Lemnos 1941-44, Lemmos, 2011; http://kokkinovraxos.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/25-19411941.html; http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/index.php/Attachment/115102-attachment-jpg/.

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and other locals. In the phrase of the time, Stavros’ house was so full of plenty that it was named “America.” After the war villagers recounted to Liza Koutsaplis how her grandfather saved them from starvation by giving them flour and oil that he successfully hid from the Germans. Acts of kindness by some individual Germans were not unknown. Nikolaos remembers a German soldier who brought gifts at Christmas for the children of a poor relative who had recently lost her husband to illness. As the occupation dragged on and German food supplies to the Island’s troops were disrupted, the Germans relied on taking more food from the local population. Angelo remembers local troops requiring the payment of food (a dozen eggs) for the release of family members taken for forced labour at Cannonia as punishment for using a banned kerosene lamp at night. While those in rural areas were able to produce some of their own essentials, these new exactions nevertheless made life more difficult for the local population. Angelo remembers that although no one starved to death on Lemnos – as many did in Athens and other parts of Greece – he saw many local villagers go hungry and become ill due to the lack of proper nutrition. Despite a level of initial cooperation, German repression took its toll on Lemnos as it did across Greece. Along with forced labour and food confiscations, people were arrested and some killed. Those locals of the Jewish faith – mostly former Asia Minor refugees – who could not hide were removed and murdered as part of the Holocaust in Greece. The long years of occupation saw the growth of resistance on Lemnos. As was the case across Greece, the resistance on the Island was formed around the EAM organization and its armed wing, ELAS. Its local leader on Lemnos was Andreas Noulas. The official guide to the Island – Lemnos – the Island of Hephaestus states that twenty Lemnians were executed by the Germans during the occupation.3 A memorial stands to the north of Myrina listing the names of those executed by the Germans on the island, including the names of four Lemnians as well as those from other parts of Greece, including Lesvos, Thessaloniki, and far off Zakynthos (see Text Image 8.3).4 Ordinary people disrupted the German occupation too. Angelo recounts how an attempt was made by some local youths to destroy the bridge 3

-, Lemnos – the Island of Hephaestus, Toubi Editions, 2005, p. 24.

Information from the 1941-44 Martyrs Monument, Myrina, Lemnos.

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linking Kontias to Cannonia. While they failed, it resulted in the German threat to destroy Kontias if another attempt was made on the bridge. Nikolaos remembers talk of how many of the Germans garrisoning Lemnos cried when they received their orders to move to the Russian Front, prompting a number of soldiers to defect to the resistance on the Island. This is entirely likely, given that by 1944 the German troops on Lemnos included those from the 999th Rehabilitation Battalion, a unit which included many socialists, communists and other ant-fascists who had been jailed for their opposition to Hitler. There is some evidence that some of this unit’s soldiers joined the resistance, possibly on Lemnos, such as in the account of the service of one of its officers, Lieutenant Ludwig Preller. A surviving photograph reproduced in Ronald Bailey’s book Partisans and Guerillas shows armed German deserters with their new resistance comrades having deserted to the Greek resistance. This could well have been taken on Lemnos.5 Soon the long-awaited liberation of Lemnos would commence. But that is another story.6

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When paratroops filled the sky – The Anzacs at Corinth Today the route down the freeway from Athens to Corinth and the south is a lovely easy drive, with the sun shining and a gentle breeze cooling the air. This was not the experience you would have had in 1941. There was no freeway to ease your journey. The then narrow road was known as the “Kakia Skala” (or evil stairway) as it clung to the coast. On the night of Anzac Day in 1941 the road was jammed with Allied troop trucks and other vehicles headed for evacuation beaches south of Corinth. One of those in the convoy heading south was 33-year-old Major Ernest Edward “Weary” Dunlop from Wangaratta (Service Number VX259), one of the last Australian medical officers to leave Athens. Today’s one hour drive from Athens to Corinth took more than seven hours as the convoy struggled to avoid the bomb craters, destroyed vehicles and animal carcasses left by the daytime German air attacks.

5 6

Ronald Bailey, Partisans and Guerillas, Time Life, 1978, p. 164.

For the story of the liberation of Lemnos in 1944 see the following articles: Jim Claven, “HMS Argonaut and the Lost Graveyard of Lemnos”, Neos Kosmos, 28 October 2020, https://neoskosmos. com/en/178509/hms-argonaut-and-the-lost-graveyard-of-lemnos/; Jim Claven, “Remembering the liberation of Lemnos – October 1944”, Neos Kosmos, 24 November 2017, https://neoskosmos.com/ en/44459/remembering-the-liberation-of-lemnos-october-1944/.

Amongst the throng of troops headed for Corinth were also a group of Australian nurses, along with their New Zealand and British counterparts. Amidst the destruction, one Australian nurse – Sister Margaret Barnard (Service Number NX70305) of the 2/5th Australian General Hospital, a Queenslander who enlisted in New South Wales - noted in her diary seeing “red poppies” in the fields on their route south.1 This would have been a welcome reminder of previous Anzac and Remembrance Days for many of the Allied troops. 1

Sister Margaret Barnard quoted in Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War, Oxford UP, 1992, p. 124.

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Another Allied soldier who crossed the Canal bridge was Salonika campaign veteran 52-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Casson, a First World War veteran and former Reader on Classical Archaeology at Oxford University, who had been sent to Athens as part of the Military Mission there, in the role of British liaison officer to the Hellenic Army and would take up a military intelligence role as the Greek campaign got underway. Like Dunlop, Casson and his 30 or so officers and men had joined the exodus from Athens and the long, slow convoy to Corinth and on to Nafplio. He writes of the winding road, traffic jams and regular stoppages due to bomb craters, being repaired by Allied sappers and pioneers. As they crept forward, Casson wrote that “the dark night was our friend, the gentle pine-scented breezes were our refreshment, the stars our guides” – they were free from enemy air attacks during the night.2 The drive the Corinth Canal, “seemed interminable.”3 As they finally approached the Canal, he went on to write that “All around us were troops resting off the road and lorries parked in the grass. We learned that troops for the defence of the Isthmus were placed at various points.”4 Crossing the road bridge that night Casson wrote: “The Corinth road bridge is a single track bridge, and when you are on it seems to be suspended in mid-air. Slowly we drove over it among the other vehicles of the convoy. The road sloped down to Corinth and was now fairly clear. At Corinth itself … all was silence.”5 Another British soldier who made the journey over the Corinth Canal on the night of April 25-26 was Lieutenant Robert Crisp of C Squadron, British 3rd Royal Tank Regiment. As he passed through Megara on his way to Corinth he wrote of “its inhabitants waving a last, sad gesture of friendship.”6 After the slow drive along the hillside road, the Corinth Canal finally came into view, “there was the deep cleft of the Canal and the gleaming metalwork of the bridge.”7 As he approached the bridge he noticed that: “Troops were digging themselves in or seeking rockprotected positions. As we passed over the bridge we saw the 2

Stanley Casson, Greece Against the Axis, Hamish Hamilton, 1942, pp. 178-179.

Stanley Casson, Greece Against the Axis, Hamish Hamilton, 1942, p. 181.

Stanley Casson, Greece Against the Axis, Hamish Hamilton, 1942, p. 180.

Stanley Casson, Greece Against the Axis, Hamish Hamilton, 1942, p. 181.

Robert Crisp, The Gods were neutral: A story of the Greek campaign 1941, Muller, 1960, p. 203.

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Text Image 9.1 - The Corinth Canal, looking east, with the site of the former bridge destroyed in the battle in the middle distance. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

demolition charges in position. We stared down at the ribbon of sea over 200 feet below. What a tank trap.”8 This comment resonates when one looks down today into the deep blue ribbon of water at the site of the former Corinth Canal Bridge, framed by the golden yellows of its stone sides (see Text Image 9.1).

The Defenders of Corinth The soldiers Casson and Crisp saw digging themselves in would have been Australians of the 2/6th Battalion’s A Company commanded by Captain Henry Dean (Service Number VX140), a 27-year-old farmer from Geelong. Along with their B and C Company comrades, these 2/6th Battalion troops would form the main Australian component of the Allied defence of the Corinth Canal. These tired, hungry and exhausted Australians had not slept for three days. They had been headed for the embarkation beach at Moloi near Argos but had been ordered off their trucks at the Canal around 1.30am 8

Robert Crisp, The Gods were neutral: A story of the Greek campaign 1941, Muller, 1960, p. 203.

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in the morning to take part in its defence. Fate had chosen them for the coming battle. The 2/6th Battalion’s A company comprised Lieutenants Athol Hunter (Service Number VX3439), a 27-year-old South African tourist who had enlisted in Melbourne, William Mann (Service Number VX3933), a 25-year-old clerk from South Yarra, and George Richards (Service Number VX394), a 27-year-old watchmaker and jeweller from Wonthaggi, each commanding one of the company’s three platoons, along with 99 other ranks. They established defensive positions immediately north of the Corinth Canal Bridge, their exact positions being recorded in the postbattle report of Lieutenant John Daish (Service Number VX13850), an A Company officer from Caulfield in Melbourne. Further north, 24-year-old former shepherd Corporal Fred Woollams of the New Zealand 19th Battalion heard the incessant noise of the traffic.9 As the convoy crossed the narrow bridge, they would have been waived on by Lieutenant George Richards and his A Company soldiers. Standing near the site of the former bridge in 2018, I gazed east and west along the canal, musing on the throng passing over that night many years ago. The Australians posted at the Canal were probably unaware of the other Australians who had preceded them there many years before. Photographs in the Australian War Memorial show the sailors of the HMAS Parramatta sailing the canal, headed for the occupation of the defeated Ottoman Empire in late 1918 (see AWM J03212). Other Australian warships had also taken the Greek leader Venizelos to London via the Canal earlier that year (see AWM EN0367). The story of the Isthmus and the famous Canal takes us back into classical history. This was a vital crossing point between east and west, north and south – a trade that made Corinth and its residents wealthy. Before the canal, goods and even ships were transported by land between its ports on the east and western ends of the Isthmus. Plans for a canal go back to Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. It would be the Roman Emperor Nero who brought Jewish prisoners from Palestine to commence the first attempt to build a canal across the Isthmus. But it would be under an independent Greece that the project would be recommenced and completed. As the convoys of troops passed south and through a silent Corinth town in the early hours of the April 26, their truck lights may have seen the 9

Fred Woollams, Corinth and All That, Reed, 1945, p. 10.

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fleeting images of other Australian troops completing their construction of a road by-pass around the town begun during the day under German air attack. This work was being undertaken at the direction of the New Zealand General Freyberg with the aim of creating this detour to avoid possible traffic jams as the planned withdrawal of troops made their way south. Commanded by 25-year-old Ballarat-born textile manufacturer Captain John Stanley Jones (Service Number VX181/VX700043), these men of the 2/6th Battalion’s B Company finished their roadwork detail and then moved off to dig slit trenches at their defensive position on a ridge running parallel to the south side of the canal. B Company comprised three officers and 104 other ranks. Amongst his men were Jones’ second-in-command Lieutenant Wilfred Sherlock (Service Number VX3561), a 32-year-old farmer from Coleraine in Western Victoria, Lieutenant Phillip Hayes (Service Number VX5101), a 29-year-old grazier from Birregurra in Victoria, 32-year-old Toorak-born Lieutenant Dudley Challingsworth (Service Number VX18860), 32-year-old Corporal Edward Robert St John (Service Number VX4456), a salesman from Elwood, 25-year-old Corporal Tasmanian-born Henry Marsden (Service Number VX7586) from Melbourne, Kyneton-born 24-year-old labourer Private Robert William McLeod (Service Number VX4505) from Frankston, 29-year-old Beeac-born farm hand Private John Alexander Peart (Service Number VX6620), 35-year-old Castlemaine-born Private Francis Mather (Service Number VX3920) from Caulfield – just over two weeks away from his 36th birthday - and 21-year-old Private George Young (Service Number VX4438) from Parkdale. These men are representative of the 2/6th Battalion in that it was mostly made up of Melburnians and Victorians, with a few officers from other states. A number of other units were positioned to the south of the Canal. Two sections of the New Zealand 6th Field Company, commanded by Major Rudd, were positioned two miles south of the Canal at the time of the attack. And at about 2.30 a.m. on April 26, C Squadron New Zealand Divisional Cavalry Regiment (commanded by Major Harford) came through from the Mazi area along with the carrier platoons of the New Zealand 22nd and 28th (Maori) Battalions. While the New Zealand 22nd Battalion carriers had missed a turn-off and gone south of Corinth and out of the area in which the paratroops were soon to land, the cavalrymen and remaining carriers halted in the olive groves on the terraces between Corinth and the Canal bridge. Further to the south, the 28-year-old bank officer from Colac Captain

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Keith Carroll (Service Number VX57) led the 13th and 15th platoons of the 2/6th Battalions C Company in defending the two airfields at Argos against parachutist assault. Here they were joined by a squadron of the British 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, the men of the British 2nd Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment (their guns having been destroyed) and two anti-tank guns. By the evening of April 25, the Allied defence force was assembled, the various infantry units supported by artillery and armoured vehicles strung out from Loutraki in the north to Argos in the south, with its focus centred on defending the Canal Bridge itself. Along with those already mentioned, these included a detachment of 40 men and four tanks of the British 4th Hussars, a company of the New Zealand 19th Battalion, some British and New Zealand engineers as well as the anti-aircraft guns of the British 122nd Light Anti-Aircraft Battery and 16th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery. Despite all these forces a major deficiency of the defence would be the lack of air support, a deficiency that plagued the Allied defenders throughout the whole Greek campaign. Fatefully the official New Zealand historian states that overall command of the hastily assembled thousand or so strong force was confused.

Operation Hannibal - The Germans Attack The German plan was given the name Operation Hannibal. German aerial reconnaissance determined on April 24 and 25 that two complete Australian Brigades and a large number of support elements were crossing the canal bridge. The assault force comprised two battalions of the 2nd Fallschirmjager Regiment commanded by Oberst Alfred Sturm, as well as paratroop pioneers and artillery and other ancillary units. They would be landed by a combination of troop transports and assault gliders. The airborne assault was preceded by enemy air attacks, focusing on the Allied anti-aircraft artillery. As a result by the evening of the April 25 German aircraft had silenced some of the Allied anti-aircraft guns. Lieutenant Daish reported that at 7.00pm three German fighters (ME110s)“… hedge-hoped and strafed all troop positions, then bombed the A.A batteries. One heavy AA gun was put out of action.”10

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hit and destroyed a heavy anti-aircraft gun on the slopes south-east of the Canal. About 7.00am a force of some 120 enemy dive bombers as well as fighters arrived overhead and began a thunderous attack, the dive bombers leisurely circling to find their targets – chiefly guns and groups of vehicles – and then diving on them. Throughout the attack the fighters systematically machine-gunned the area, strafing the surviving gun crews. The effect was devastating, nearly all of the defending antiaircraft guns of the British 122nd Light Anti-Aircraft Battery near the bridge were destroyed and the men stunned by the attack. Lieutenant Daish wrote of the effect on the defenders north of the bridge: “Most men took cover in shelters. … [Stukas] bombed and staffed all positions. All AA [anti-aircraft] guns out of action. The suddenness and intensity of the attack left most men stunned.11 The German force that would now descend on the defenders had made their departure earlier that morning from the captured former Allied aerodrome at Larissa, some 120 miles or 200 kilometres north of the Canal. First came the gliders at about 7.15am followed by paratroops streaming from the troop carriers in the sky. One New Zealand soldier recalled the “sky was black” with paratroopers.12 Another New Zealand soldier - Corporal Fred Woollams - defending the area north of the bridge found the experience futuristic, the German air attack suggesting scenes from a novel by H.G. Wells: “They came in waves of three, and wave followed wave, hundreds of them, dropping paratroops, the first we had seen. The sight of them brought back memories of H.G. wells and Things to Come, especially when they started dropping their supplies, motorcycles, heavy machine guns and equipment, all distinguished by different coloured parachutes.13 Lieutenant Crisp viewed the scene from slopes to the south of the Canal, leading up to the archaeological site of Ancient Corinth, where they had paused on their journey south. From this vantage point the whole violent battle began to unfold before him: The bombers had passed on their way, and the air space over

As the first rays of sunshine broke on the morning of April 26, the defenders were woken by a sustained German bombing and machinegun attack. At 6.30am a flight of bombers approached flying low and

11 Lieutenant J.L. Daish, “Narrative Record of Events – 26 April -1st June 1941 – Proforma for Unit War Diary”, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6.

12 Steve Plowman, son of Sapper Arthur Plowman, 2NZEF, account, http://www.stalag18a.org/greece. html.

Lieutenant J.L. Daish, “Narrative Record of Events – 26 April -1st June 1941 – Proforma for Unit War Diary”, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6.

Fred Woollams, Corinth and All That, Reed, 1945, p. 10.

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Corinth was filled with wave after wave of troop-carrying planes though which the fighters and the Heinkels swooped with chattering guns to keep the defences occupied. The great transports came swooping down from the mountains over the Isthmus, disgorging hundreds of parachutists, so close to the ground that some of the parachutes could not open and we could practically see the twirling bundles bounce…. The din was terrific. In between the noise and the planes, the shells and the bullets and the slow columns of smoke, the many coloured blossoms of the parachutes burst into full bloom for the quick spring of their descent to earth.”14 Australian troops estimated the attacking force at 2,000. While as Crisp noted some troop carriers were destroyed and paratroops killed as they descended, the Germans who landed near the bridge had soon overwhelmed the Allied troops and anti-aircraft guns at both ends in hard fighting. The bridge was now in German hands. Yet as German troops dismantled the explosives placed by Allied engineers, they made the fatal error of gathering the explosives together on the bridge itself. A rifle shot from two British officers - Captain Phillips and Lieutenant Tyson located nearby - at around 8.30am detonated the charges, sending the bridge to the canal below and killing the Germans on the bridge. One of those killed was Ernest von der Heyden, a German war photographer whose photographs of his final moments crossing bridge survived the blast. Both British Officers were awarded the Military Cross for their bravery. With paratroops landing all around them, the Australians north of the bridge were soon heavily outnumbered and platoons became isolated, the leadership of one by Warrant Officer Ernest Stevenson (Service Number VX3501), a 37-year-old brewery worker from Preston, would see him Mentioned-in-despatches. Private Cyril Coulam (Service Number VX3838), a 35-year-old shoe salesman from South Yarra, would be injured and awarded the Military Medal for throwing back German grenades. The Company’s commander Captain Dean would be awarded the Military Cross for his leadership at Corinth. Lacking ammunition, the remaining diggers to the north of the bridge surrendered just after 11am. Half an hour later those remaining New Zealanders to their north attempted to escape to the east, many being captured but others making their escape 14

Robert Crisp, The Gods were neutral: A story of the Greek campaign 1941, Muller, 1960, pp. 203-204.

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with the help of local Greek supporters. New Zealand Corporal Fred Woollams would be helped by local Greeks until he was finally captured in a village near Athens in October 1942, after more than 20 months on the run. Other New Zealand escapers were sheltered by locals after the battle, remaining hidden until 1944 and the liberation of Greece. The situation to the south was much the same. Most Allied troops were soon overwhelmed, suffering many casualties. Some surrendered and others dispersed as small groups. By early morning Corinth itself had fallen. Yet surrender could be dangerous. One Australian participant reported after the battle that two Royal Artillery gun crews, south of the Canal, were shot by a party of German paratroops to whom they had already surrendered. The Australians defending the ridge south of the canal fell back further south under sustained air attack, many led by B Company’s Lieutenant Wilfred Sherlock. As they withdrew from their original positions, Sherlock’s group were subjected to machine-gun fire from the advancing paratroops as their previous positions were being occupied by the enemy. During the withdrawal Private George Young from Parkdale was severely wounded.

Defeat and Retreat Lieutenant Daish later summed up the battle in his report to the 2/6th Battalion command: “There was no British organised resistance – individuals used up the ammunition available, whilst others were immediately taken prisoner. The suddenness of the attack and the unpreparedness of the British Force left only one alternative – “Every Man for Himself”.”15 As historian Dr Peter Ewer has noted, this had been Australian troops first experience of an airborne paratroop attack. One of the detailed postbattle accounts recorded by the Australians is that by the commander of the 2/6th Battalion’s B Company Captain Jones who sought to explain to Allied Command the German paratroop tactics – in terms of the phases of attack and the weapons used - and suggestions for the effective defence against these in the future – tactics that would soon be employed by the Germans again, but this time in their assault on Crete. 15 Lieutenant J.L. Daish, “Narrative Record of Events – 26 April -1st June 1941 – Proforma for Unit War Diary”, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6.

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The summit of Acrcorinth commands one of the most magnificent views in all Greece. On a clear day one can see far-off Athens and the Cyclades, distant Mount Parnassus with Delphi below and across to the mountains of the Peloponnese and the sea. Looking across the plain of Corinth today, I imagine the scene of smoke and carnage that one would have beheld on April 26, 1941. As the survivors retreated south many passed the ancient ruins of Mycenae, Tyrins and Argos, locations rich in allusions to wars centuries past. These were the citadels of a kingdom that had once dominated the region, the home of Homer’s great Agamemnon who launched the fleet that would destroy Troy and who would be murdered in his own palace. Herodotus wrote of the men of the region fighting at Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea. The former Oxford Classics academic Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Casson in a reference to the Dorian invasion and destruction of the region in antiquity remarked as he passed Mycenae and its Lion Gate as he made his way south that as in antiquity “death and fire” had come again “to the peaceful plains of Argos.” 16 As the sun set on the April 26 the battle of Corinth was now over. The Germans had overwhelmed the defenders but failed to secure the Canal bridge 16 Stanley Casson, Greece Against the Axis, Hamish Hamilton, 1942, p. 183.

Text Image 9.2 - Gravestone of Parkdale’s Private George Young, Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Text Image 9.3 - Banner of the 2/6th Battalion, Anzac Day Parade, Melbourne. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Text Image 9.4 – New Battle of Corinth Canal Memorial plaque, created by the author and Melbourne’s Pankorinthian Association, to be unveiled in Corinth. Photograph Jim Claven 2020.

and suffered over 280 casualties. Over 900 British and Commonwealth troops were captured, nearly 200 of these Australians. In the course of the action 10 men of the 2/6th Battalion’s A Company were killed and two officers (Lieutenant’s Mann and Hunter) and 11 men wounded. By the end of the evacuations from the Greek mainland at the end of April the 2/6th Battalion – many of whose men had tried in vain to defend the Corinth Canal on the April 26 - had suffered 28 killed, 43 wounded and 217 captured - many at the battle of Corinth Canal. Those who went into captivity included Lieutenants Dean, Hunter, Richards and Mann, along with Warrant Officer Stevenson and Private Cyril Coulam. The severely wounded Private George Young of B Company was also captured but died in captivity on May 27, 1941. He is buried at Phaleron War Cemetery in Athens (see Text Image 9.2). While the Germans repaired the ferry at the eastern end of the Canal, they were unable to effectively exploit their advantage and halt the massive Allied evacuations that would continue over the coming days. The service of the 2/6th Battalion men at Corinth would earn them another battle honour in their Greek campaign, ensuring that the campaign would be proudly stitched onto their Battlion banner and

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carried every Anzac Day in Australia (see Text Image 9.3). The Anzacs from suburbs of Melbourne and the Western District of Victoria to Wonthaggi in the east, from New South Wales and New Zealand – the farmer and the shepherd, the shoe salesmen and the lawyer, the brewery worker and jeweller - had all experienced their first airborne assault. Some of those who were there quickly wrote detailed reports on the German tactics involved. But would they be learnt before the great airborne assault on Crete in a month’s time. In 2019 it was my pleasure to work together with Melbourne’s Pankorinthian Association to create of a new commemorative plaque honouring those who served at the battle of Corinth Canal (see Text Image 9.4). This was unveiled in Melbourne in 2020 and will soon be erected at Corinth.

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To Argos, Nafplio and Tolo they came – With the Anzacs in the Argolis Walking through Argos– the mighty Argos of Homer’s Agamemnon – I came across its little cemetery, lined with trees providing shade from the early summer sun (see Text Image 10.1). Holding my copy of a photograph from Australia’s War Memorial, I am taken back to April 24, 1941 when a convoy of 160 Australian and other Allied nurses stopped here in the midday sun on their journey from Athens to the evacuation beaches of the south. Map 9 shows the area traversed by these Australian nurses and the rest of the Allied force as they withdrew from Greece, heading for the various evacuation beaches designated across the Peloponnese. New Zealand historian McKinney writes that they stopped their journey at 11am and sought cover under trees of the cemetery to avoid enemy air activity overhead. Two photographs in the Australian War Memorial collection show these young Australian nurses resting amongst the gravestones and trees of the cemetary (See AWM 087662 and AWM 087663). They are smiling and happy, showing no hint of fear, despite the incessant air raids they faced on the road. As Australian nurse Rosemary “Mollie” Nalder (Service Number NX34831/NX34851) wrote of the stop in Argos “… this was fortunate for we had raid after raid, and it would have been impossible for us to travel in safety, and we were really quite hidden if we crouched by the gravestones, and there were lots of trees growing round about. It all seems funny now, but at the time it wasn’t, I can tell you.”1 1

Sister Rosemary Nalder quoted in Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War, Oxford UP, 1992, p. 124.

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These nurses were part of a group of 44 Australian nurses and other Australian medical personnel - along with over 100 other New Zealand and British nurses – which were in an eight-truck convoy heading for Argos and the evacuation beaches beyond. Standing in this quiet peaceful cemetery, I reflected on how it protected these young nurses from Australia all those years ago. Another who travelled this way in 1941 was the Australian medical officer Major Edward “Weary” Dunlop (see Chapter 9). Biographer Sue Ebury writes how he was tired and exhausted, pulling over and resting in the early hours of the April 26 under an olive grove. Continuing their journey in the early hours of the next morning, “Weary” and his driver soon became lost in the dark, dangerously delaying their arrival in Naflplio. As they headed for their destination, they had to make regular stops to take cover as enemy aircraft scoured the area for targets. The road south is safe now but in 1941 nothing could have been further from the truth. As night fell on the April 26 some of the troops moving south were harassed by German paratroops sent in pursuit of the Allied convoys after the battle of Corinth Canal. And as 52-year-old British Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Casson experienced on his journey south, there was the constant danger of daylight air raids, craters and destroyed or abandoned vehicles littering the roads. A truck carrying the nurses overturned, injuring all aboard. After receiving medical attention, they continued their journey south in two Australian ambulances. The journey south revealed one of the dangers that faced the retreating Allied troops, German “fifth columnists.” Australian troops had been warned about English-speaking German troops, dressed in either civilian or Allied uniforms, sent behind the lines and used to collect information or to misdirect or entrap Allied troops. While some reports may have been imagined, this tactic appears regularly in Australian unit War Diaries and other first-hand accounts2 This is reported to have happened to the men of the 2/6th Battalion as they made their way south to Monemvasia in transport vehicles. At crossroads just south of Argos their convoy were misdirected by what appeared to be an Allied military policeman. Captain Carroll in the lead vehicle, checking the maps as they went, noticed a mistake had been made. They doubled back, confronted the “military policemen” who 2

See for example the following report by Brigadier Savige: Brigadier Stanley Savige, “Report on Campaign in Greece and Crete, 15 July 1941”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, Reports on Greece and Crete, AWM52 8/2/17.

Text Image 10.1 - Argos Cemetery. Argos, Greece. Photograph Jim Claven 2013.

confessed to being a German soldier in disquise.3 Former Melbourne journalist London-born Sergeant Henry (Jo) Gullett of the 2/6th Battalion’s D Company (Service Number VX3511) from Toorak recorded how this one was caught and dealt with by one of the Company‘s respected and tough officers: “Carroll picked the error up after a few miles and we went back. … This (German) was unlucky. Captain George Warfe shot him.”4 Other drivers got lost in the night, taking the wrong turn and having to double back as happened to Major “Weary” Dunlop. But thousands would reach their destinations and be evacuated. According to historian Gavin Long it is estimated that over 11,000 Allied soldiers were evacuated from Nafplio and the beach at nearby Tolo. Nafplio today is one of the quiet gems of Greece (see Text Image 10.2). As you arrive in the town, admire its parks and statues, the lovely harbour with the Island of Bourzi, all under the shadow of the imposing Venetian castle on the Palamidi that towers over the town below. The statues in the town celebrate its connection with some of the most famous heroes 3

Henry “Jo” Gullett, Not as Duty Only, Melbourne UP, 1976, p. 59; Peter Charlton, The Thirty-Niners, Macmillan, 1981, p. 159.

Henry “Jo” Gullett, Not as Duty Only, Melbourne UP, 1976, p. 59.

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trees by the roadside. And how appropriate that these weary soldiers waited now beneath the Palamidi, named after the mythic Palamedes, son of the founder of the city, whose prowess before the walls of Troy earned him the praise of Ajax and Achilles and who invented the game of dice as a pastime for soldiers at rest. I wondered if any of the Allied soldiers played dice as they waited in the shade at Nafplio.

Text Image 10.2 - Nafplio and its harbour, from the Palamidi. The Island of Bourtzi and its Venetian fortress in the centre foreground. Photograph Jim Claven 2012.

of Greece’s war of independence – Prime Minister Capodistras, General Kolokotronis and Prince Ypsilanti. And it was here too that the tragedies of Capodistras’ assassination and the imprisonment of Kolokotronis took place. Making your way through its lovely lanes, many trellaced with sweet smelling flowers, you arrive at the town’s main square (see Text Image 10.3). Enjoying a Greek coffee here could not be more peaceful. But on April 24 the town was flooded with Allied troops, many without their officers or units, the street clogged with abandoned vehicles and equipment. The plan had been for 5,000 Allied troops to assemble at Nafplio, however by April 24 some 7-8,000 men had made their way into the town, all hoping for evacuation. It would be a few Australian officers led by a 36-year-old former law clerk from Richmond that would help restore order to the chaos. Within hours of their arrival, Major Bernard O’Loughlin (Service Number VX130) and his men had moved the troops outside the town to holding areas within citrus groves or to caves at the base of the Palamidi. Australian soldiers of the 2/2nd Field Workshop Company removed the vehicles from the town. On the outskirts of town, Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Casson reported that some soldiers sat silently under the scented eucalyptus

Some soldiers were offered accommodation, food and water by the local residents, leading Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Text Image 10.3 - Streets and lanes of old Casson to write that he had “never Nafplio. These would have thronged with Allied soldiers and their vehicles in April 1941. seen any hospitality compare with Photograph Jim Claven 2013. what the women and children of Nauplia gave us …. without hesitation they gave us all they had.”5 Casson goes on to write that the soldiers waiting at Nafplio (and nearby Tolo) did so under constant daily air attacks, the German planes bombing the town and machine gunning its streets and harbour. Every hour bombers came in ones and twos, sometimes in sixes, and fighters coming in low to machine-gun. Soon the town itself was littered with ruins and broken glass, the inhabitants gone, ships in the harbour bombed. Many local residents hid in the cave church at the base of the Palamidi. The attacks were so constant and the fear of the soldiers such that one mistook a flock of distant crows for German Messerschmitt aircraft. One who was not deterred by the attacks was Major “Weary” Dunlop. While others hid in an olive grove, Dunlop insisted on continuing to write a note to his fiancée Helen back in Australia while sitting on a dangerously exposed seawall, as German bombs and bullets exploded around the harbour. Others were not so lucky. Historian Jan Bassett writes that as the 5

Stanley Casson, Greece Against the Axis, Hamish Hamilton, 1942, p. 184.

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Australian nurses arrived to embark from the harbour, they saw nearby the bodies of dead soldiers killed in an earlier air raid and burning ships in the harbour. As the evacuation ships arrived out in the bay after dark, groups of troops received their orders to move down towards the quay, silently marching in groups of 50 “through the narrow, desolate streets”.6 All along the quay stood hundreds of men in an orderly column completely silent, waiting for the order to embark. While they waited they were instructed that on no account were they to leave their positions on the quay, even if subject to air attack. As Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Casson and his men waited, he wrote that the whole scene was illuminated by the smouldering hulk of a bombed Allied ship, glowing against the velvet dark. This ship was most likely the transport Ulster Prince which been grounded and then bombed in the harbour, leaving it a smouldering wreck throughout and after the evacuation. Troops boarded hundreds of small vessels, often Greek fishing caiques or barges, and moved out to embark on the warships and transports in the bay. This process could be a dangerous task. Gavin Long writes that a number of troops were washed overboard and drowned by the choppy seas as they made their way out into the harbour. One estimate gives a figure of 100 men having drowned during the evacuation at Nafplio. On reaching the side of their transport or warship, the troops would scramble up net ladders to the deck of the ship. The caique transporting the approximately 150 Australian, New Zealand and British nurses from the jetty to HMAS Voyager was smelly from a full day’s catch of fish and boarding the large ships in a sea swell and in mid-length skirts was difficult. This led one British nurse to fall into the bay. She was saved by the brave action of the HMAS Voyager’s 26-year-old Able Seaman Cyril James “Spider” Webb (Service Number PM2347) from Broken Hill. Seeing the nurse fall between the caique and the warship, fearing she would be crushed as the sea rose and fell, Cyril dived in and grabbed the nurse, with both being hauled aboard by a rope to safety. Tended by the other nurses who had already boarded, fortunately the British nurse had only suffered shock.

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Australian nurses who had hidden in the cemetery at Argos would hear familiar Aussie accents as they boarded the HMAS Voyager in Nafplio Bay. Other Allied troops boarded HMAS Stuart, whose crew had served in the Allied naval battle at Cape Matapan on March 28-29, 1941. Once aboard many evacuees mentioned the warm welcome they received from the sailors – a smile, a sandwich, a biscuit, a hot drink and a place to rest after weeks of fighting and retreat. The nurses were also given towels, soap and toothbrushes. Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Casson was so exhausted once he got aboard that he fell into a sleep “like a coma”7 and biographer Sue Ebury recording that Major “Weary” Dunlop fell asleep with a welcome tankard of beer on his chest. The official Anzac historians recorded that by 3am on April 25 over 6,500 soldiers and nurses had been evacuated from Nafplio to Crete and Alexandria, and a further 2,600 on the night of April 26-27. By the morning of April 29 German troops entered Nafplio and around 700 Allied soldiers were captured. However successful evacuation itself did not necessarily end in safety. The Allied convoys had to run the gauntlet of enemy air attacks during daylight hours as they made there way from the Greek mainland. The terrible fate of those aboard the troop carrier HMT Slamat, HMS Diamond and HMS Wryneck stands testimony to the dangers at sea. The whole convoy – two transports and four Royal Navy warships - had left Nafplio late in the early hours of April 27. The HMT Slamat, HMS Diamond and HMS Wryneck were all attacked by German aircraft and sunk off the coast of the Peloponnese throughout the morning, few surviving the attack, with an estimated loss of nearly 1,000 service personnel and civilian crew. A similar evacuation organisation took place at the nearby seaside village of Tolo. Above the beach at Tolo is the site of Ancient Asini. This archaeological site contains Mycenaean era fortifications, with their great walls. Roman era baths are there too. The site also contains the remains of Second World War gun emplacements, built by the Italians who occupied Tolo after the end of the invasion (see Text Image 10.4).

The arrival of the nurses on board the evacuation ships were a surprise to some sailors, with one reported to have exclaimed in Aussie slang “strewth, women!” as he grabbed one of the boarding figures. The

Standing on the beach today, looking out to the small islets in the bay, it is a peaceful scene (see Text Image 10.5). But on the night of the April 26-27 some 3,300 troops crowded around the village and in the hills that sheltered the bay, under the command of British Lieutenant Colonel J.H. Courage from Yorkshire. Accents from Melbourne, Auckland

Stanley Casson, Greece Against the Axis, Hamish Hamilton, 1942, pp. 190-191.

Stanley Casson, Greece Against the Axis, Hamish Hamilton, 1942, p. 191.

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and Birmingham would have mingled with that of the local Greek population. One of those was 23-year-old Private Ralph Churches (Service Number SX5286) from South Australia. In his post-war handwritten memoir, Ralph described how the troops awaiting evacuation would rest in nearby “olive groves and shallow gulches” during the day, moving each night down to the harbour to form into ordered ranks. The Australian warships HMAS Stuart and HMAS Perth (both of which had served at the battle at Cape Matapan) were sent to Tolo to take off as many troops as they Text Image 10.4 - Remains of Italian Second could. The embarkation process at World War machine gun emplacement, Tolo comprised the men wading Ancient Asini. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. out into the bay to board landing craft which then took them to the waiting warships further out. The whole process was made more difficult by the presence of a sand bar about 30 metres from the shore, on which many of the landing craft became grounded, requiring time to dislodge them so they could continue their journey. Not more than 500 could be boarded on the craft, half of its capacity, the whole process of delay and reduced evacuation capacity characterising the Tolo evacuation. The last boatload of evacuees departed at 4am on April 27. Some 2,000 troops had been evacuated from Tolo, including four officers of the Australian embarkation staff. This left some 500 troops remaining ashore at Tolo who were soon joined by 800 other Allied troops, all crammed into this little seaside town and its surrounds. Along with them were four Australian officers, responsible for organising the embarkation at Tolo – Major Bernard O’Loughlin who was mentioned earlier, 34-year-old Glasgow-born Major Frank Willis McLean (Service Number VX129) from Greensborough and Captain’s Harry Otton Bamford (Service Number NX4543) from Bowral in New South Wales and Bryce Grieve (Service Number WX6) from Mount Lawley in Western Australia.

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In the vain hope of further evacuation the next night, a small Allied force established a defensive perimeter around Tolo. Meanwhile on the Tolo waterfront some Allied soldiers were so desperate to leave that they tried to make their own way off the embarkation beach. My local guide and researcher Aristides Thomas - who has been Text Image 10.5 - Tolo Bay, early evening, as it must have looked to the Allied troops as they awaited researching the Anzac trail at evacuation. Photograph Jim Claven 2018. Asini and Tolo - informed me of the local account of one Allied soldier who was injured but made his way to the small Islet of Koronisi that sits in Tolo Bay. Locals could hear him crying for help for three days, until he finally expired. The Germans who by this stage occupied the town had ordered all sailing vessels to harbour and refused local Greek appeals to be able to go to the Islet and help the stricken soldier. Mr Thomas informed me that locals George Skordilis and Thanasis Kefalas have found human remains they believe could be those of this poor soldier. They hope to put their evidence to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to have his remains finally put to rest in an appropriate war grave. But I am getting ahead of myself. As the dawn broke on April 28 advancing German forces were closing in on Tolo and the Allied embarkation beach. These were German paratroops who had fought earlier at the Battle of Corinth canal. According to the historian Kurowski they referred to themselves as the Argonauts. It was here that the second last battle on the Greek mainland in 1941 took place, the battle of Asini-Tolo. In the early hours of April 28 the Allied defenders were in place. These comprised 130 soldiers, overwhelmingly Australians from the Australian Composite Battalion organised from troops that had been in the Athens area. They were led by Australian officer’s 37-year-old Sydney-born Major James Miller (Service Number NX124) and 23-year-old Brisbane-born Captain Douglas Jackson (Service Number QX36396/Q9668) and took up position across the hills of the narrow pass that leads from the nearby village of Asini to Tolo itself (see Text Image 10.6). Major Bernard O’Loughlin who was stationed at Tolo reported hearing the rearguard open fire at about 3am, signalling the

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of the different national groupings or units from which the defenders were drawn, including the Anzac Rising Sun. After the battle, the Germans advanced on Tolo itself. Most of the estimated 1,300 Allied soldiers at Tolo were forced to surrender. One of those captured was 22-year-old Private Arthur Raymond Evans from Western Australia (Service Number WX2422), serving with the 2/2nd Army Field Workshops, 5th Recovery Section. His unit were responsible for repairing damaged military equipment in the field. He came to Tolo beach but never made it off. Arthur and nine other members of his unit were captured, including their commanding officer Oakleigh’s Lieutenant Robert Mace Webber (Service Number VX28662). They would spend the rest of the war in German POW camps, including Stalag 18A at Wolfsberg (in modern day Austria).

Text Image 10.6 - View across the battlefield of Asini-Tolo, the Asini-Tolo road visible in the foreground. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

commencement of the battle. As the German paratroopers advanced into the pass the Allied defenders fought them to a standstill in two spirited engagements, inflicting serious casualties, even wounding the German commander. German accounts tell of fire raining down on the advancing German troops from behind cliffs and olive groves. The intensity of fire temporarily halted the German advance but after a fight lasting some three hours the remaining Australian troops were forced to surrender. On a walking tour of the battlefield, Aristides points to the hills where the Allied soldiers set up their defensive positions. A number of Allied soldiers were killed here and others on the beaches during the incessant German air attacks. Those killed in the battle were left where they fell by the Germans, who removed their own dead for burial. Aristides tells me that it was the local villagers of Asini who buried these Allied soldiers after the Germans left. After the war they were reinterred at the Commonwealth War Cemetery at Phaleron, Athens. It is at the site of this battle that Aristides along with local volunteers and researchers are hoping to erect an Anzac memorial to those who fought here on April 28, 1941. He points to a hill to the side of the Tolo road where they hope to erect a stone memorial, maybe featuring the badges

During one of my research trips to Tolo I met up with Arthur’s son, Phillip Evans, who is a member of the British Brotherhood of Veterans of the Greek Campaign 1940-41. It is hard not to be moved, thinking of those desperate days, as Phil’s father and hundreds of other Allied soldiers saw their hopes of escape fade as the Germans entered the town. As the Germans approached Tolo, the senior Allied commander Lieutenant Colonel J.H. Courage advised that officers and men were free to make their own escape, as he himself intended. And so many Allied soldiers at Tolo attempted to evade capture, helped as they were by local Greek supporters, with food and shelter. Aristides and his sister are recording the testimonies of many local people who remember or were told as children the stories of the day the Anzacs came to Tolo and Asini. One told of how they hid an Allied soldier in a well, returning with food each day, until it was safe for him to move on. This soldier then formed one of the first resistance groups in the area, before successfully returning to the Middle East. Aristides tells me that locals remember him returning to the area after the war. Another who attempted escape was Private Ralph Churches. Along with four other Allied soldiers, Ralph obtained a heavy sixteen-foot dinghy from the local Greek coastguard aiming to make their own way by sea across to Crete. They managed to row and sail for eight days and nights, assisted by many friendly locals, as they made their way south along the coast to Cape Maleas. However resting there in a cave, they were discovered and captured by German troops. One of those who successfully escaped was Richmond’s Major Bernard

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O’Loughlin, one of the Allied beach masters at Tolo. He recounted the story of his escape to the Australian war correspondent Kenneth Slessor. Along with one of his Australian comrades, Bernard made his way on foot across the Argolid to Kranidi village, then occupied by the Germans. They would sail in a local boat to Milos and on to Crete. He said of his journey that it was the most intense period of his life (see Chapter 18). Those who were evacuated from Nafplio and Tolo included some of those who had fought to defend the Corinth canal on April 26. Men of the Australian 2/6th Battalion like Ballarat’s 25-year-old Captain John Jones, Coleraine’s 32-year-old Lieutenant Wilfred Sherlock and Caulfield’s 24-year-old Lieutenant John Daish would thus survive to provide accounts of the German tactics at that battle. Looking down on peaceful Nafplio and its bay from high up on the Palamidi today, I wondered at the thousands of Allied soldiers who had made their escape from captivity from this little harbour and the beaches of nearby Tolo. The Anzacs had come as volunteers from across Australia and New Zealand. Two thousand soldiers had been captured but over 11,000 had been saved from the waterfronts of Nafplio and Tolo. But hundreds were now on the run in the hills of the Argolis. The events at Asini, Tolo and Nafplio – the evacuations, the battles, those captured and those who escaped as well as the locals who helped and supported the Allied troops - deserve to be honoured with fitting new memorials, marking places of commemoration, linked together as a heritage trail. I look forward to the day when memorials commemorating the role of Asini and Tolo are erected as part of this trail to stand alongside those already at Kalamata, Pylos, Methone and the many others across Greece.

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A Hero of Kalamata - Red Cliffs’ Captain Albert Gray It has been an honour for me to participate in the annual Battle of Kalamata commemorative service held each year at Kalamata not far from the town’s beautiful waterfront. The service is held at the Greek Campaign Memorial, erected in 1994 by the British Brotherhood of Veterans of the Greek Campaign 1940-41. Wandering down to the quay, I have taken in the view as people promenaded along the esplanade or enjoyed their frappe or ouzo as they gaze out into the waters of Kalamata’s great bay (see Text Images 11.1 and 11.2). But as I stood there I often imagined the dark days of late April 1941 when this same esplanade was choked with tired and weary Allied troops. They had made their way from across the length and breadth of Greece – by truck, train and on foot – some fighting a desperate rearguard against the advancing German invaders. And they did so to safeguard the evacuation beaches that would take the troops to Crete to continue the fight. And the last of these evacuation beaches was the waterfront of Kalamata. By the evening of the April 26 between 18,000 and 20,000 Allied troops had made their way to Kalamata hoping for evacuation. Along with Australians, those assembled at Kalamata included mainly British, New Zealand, Greek, Cypriot, Palestinian and Yugoslav troops. Disembarking on the outskirts of town, most of the Allied troops marched through Kalamata, along Aristomenos Street. Photographs from the time show the Anzacs and other Allied troops marching along Kalamata’s main thoroughfares, watched and welcomed by the local

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residents (see AWM 069884 and AWM 069885). I have been able to identify some of the streets in these photographs with the assistance of local researchers Panayiotis Andrianopoulos and Sotiris Theodoropoulos. Diggers recounted later of women offering them chicken, cakes and local wine. Passing a cottage near the evacuation beaches at Kalamata, a tearful old lady stood at her door offering “sliced cake and glasses of Retsina” to the retreating Australians of the 2/3rd Battalion, the soldiers responding with “Never mind Ma; we’ll be back and make up for all this”.1 Historian Dr Peter Ewer recounts the story of one of the Australian 2/6th Battalion, 22-year-old Northcote-born Private Don Stephenson (Service Number VX11640), who was given a piece of chicken by an old lady as he marched through Kalamata and remarked how while all he was worried about was getting away, here was this old lady giving him some food.2 Captain Charlie Green of the Australian 2/2nd Battalion, who had fought at Pinieos Gorge on April 18, recalled their response as he passed through villages on their way to evacuation: “Some of our wounded still trudged along as best they could. Greek women in tears would do what they could to relieve the pain. Other times they would mend torn clothing, cook food for us and always bid us “Thias Kalos” or “Goodbye, Good luck” as we got to our feet to wearily continue the trek ... Frequently the Greeks insisted that we stay with them and that they would guard us should the Germans enter the village.”3 Archival photographs and written accounts reveal that the troops were sent on to camp sites located outside the town itself, in the surrounding hills or olive and citrus groves.4 The British Brigadier L. Parrington, who was the senior Allied commander at Kalamata, is recorded as having set up his headquarters in an olive grove four miles outside of the town itself. 1

This digger is unidentified in Clift and Reid but the quote appears to identical to that of Bill Jenkins of the 2/3rd Battalion quoted in Ewer. Quoted in Ken Clift, War dance: A Story of the 2/3 Inf. Battalion A.I.F., P.M. Fowler and 2/3rd Battalion Association, 1980, p. 151; Richard Reid, Greece and Crete – Australians in WW2, Department of Veterans Affairs 2011, p. 51; Ewer, p. 269.

Ewer, p. 269.

Captain Charlie Green, quoted in Peter Charlton, The Thirty-Niners, Macmillan, 1981, p 160.

See AWM 069884 and AWM P01166.015 as well as the following: Entry for 27th April 1941, Private Kevin Byrne, “The Klagenfurt POW’s – In The Bag, written 2015, http://klagenfurtpow.blogspot.com. au/2015/12/kevin-byrnes-memoir.html; Corporal George Foot, VX5845, 2/7th Battalion, “Report by Corporal G Foot VX5845 on Escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/2/17; Lieutenant H.G. Sweet, VX7562, 2/5th Battalion, “Report by Lieut H.G. Sweet on Escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/2/17; Lieutenant H. Wrigley, Commanding 2/6 Aust inf Bn, “Report of 2/6 Aust Inf Bn’s participation of the Grecian Campaign covering the period April 1st-29th 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6.

Text Image 11.1 – View of the Kalamata Bay from the waterfront, with the pier in the middle distance and the coast stretching down to the Mani in the far distance. Photograph Doug Beckett 2018.

Some of the olive groves can still be found to the east of the town. Here the troops waited for evacuation, resting and recuperating while they attempted to avoid exposure to the constant daily German air attacks. The various units and men camped around the town were organised into multiples of 50, and a serial number allocated to each of these groups. Troops were to march to the beach or quay, report to the control post, where a ship would be allotted to them. A sketch map drawn up by an officer of the Australian 17th Brigade in the unit’s War Diary shows clearly the order with which the various Australian units were to line up on the Kalamata waterfront as they awaited their turn to board the evacuation vessels. One witness described the men lined up in queues, standing still, not talking or smoking. Order was maintained on the waterfront by senior commanders, such as Gallipoli veteran Brigadier Stanley Savige, assisted by Australian soldiers acting as provost marshals. Plummer and Atkins record that the embarkation process was so orderly that one digger recounted later that it was “like the Sydney Ferry Service.”5 As they marched down to their embarkation points the locals showed the same support to the Allied soldiers as when they’d arrived. The 5 Colonel H.S. Plummer and Captain E.L. Atkins, Black and yellow triangles 1939-1946: the 2nd Machine Gun Battalion AIF official history, pp. 127-129, Unpublished manuscript, AWM Collection AWM MSS955.

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even smoking was not permitted. The commander of the 2/6th Battalion, 42-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Wrigley (Service Number VX171) from Sale wrote in the unit’s War Diary of a suspected “fifth columnist” claiming to be Greek having been arrested and handed over to Australian military police on April 26, who “somewhat roughly handled him in an effort to extricate the truth from him.”7 As soldiers of the 2/5th Battalion rested in Kalamata, they were approached by a civilian who wanted to know how many troops would be embarked that evening and from which unit they were from. He said he was a naval officer. When confronted by a Sergeant from an Australian machine gun battalion (most likely the 2/1st), he “drew himself up and gave a Nazi salute and a Heil Hitler.” The Australian Sergeant then shot him as a spy.8

Text Image 11.2 - Kalamata Bay, close up of the pier. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Australian 16th Brigade War Diary records that on the night of April 26 local civilians living nearby showed their friendliness to the Allies, offering food and water, and expressing the hope that “some day you will come back.”6 Troops spent their time on shore destroying essential equipment to make sure it didn’t fall into the hands of the advancing Germans - artillery guns were spiked, troops were ordered to damage and bury their kit and vehicles were destroyed (either by draining oil and water and letting the engines run and seize up, or by slashing the tyres and smashing the vehicles with axes and hammers). Just as had been encountered earlier in the campaign, Allied sources reported troops at Kalamata encountering German “fifth columnists” operating behind Allied lines to obtain information and to disrupt the Allied withdrawal. No doubt the Allied troops were on edge but the details in the Australian accounts are difficult to ignore. The 2/6th Battalion’s 31-year-old Corporal William Harrison (Service Number VX6858) from Bendigo wrote of a mysterious officer giving orders to different units on the Kalamata waterfront on the night of April 29 and using a torch when -, “Kalamata, 26th April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16.

One of the Australian soldiers who marched through Kalamata was a young man from north-western Victoria. 28-year-old Captain Albert William Gray (Service Number VX180) had been born in Melbourne’s Kensington but by the time he enlisted in 1939 the family had moved to Red Cliffs on the Murray River. By this stage in his life Albert was married – to Hazel – and working as a salesman. Albert’s leadership potential saw him promoted to Lieutenant prior to his departure from Australia on October 13, 1939. By the time he arrived in Kalamata, Albert was a Captain in the 2/6th Battalion.

Albert Arrives in Greece Albert and the 2/6th Battalion had arrived at Piraeus from Alexandria on April 12 and by April 15 had moved north, first to Larissa and Orphana, only to fall back. They occupied various defensive positions as they took part in the Allied withdrawal. Along the route Albert and the battalion suffered casualties due to enemy air attacks. As they crossed the Corinth Canal during the night of Anzac Day some of the battalion was detached to take part in its defence. Many of these men would be subsequently captured. Albert and the remainder of the battalion finally arrived at Kalamata at 6.45am the next day, camping in an olive grove. As we have noted the evacuation was a planned affair, with designated areas along the waterfront, with troops assembling every nightfall, 7

Lieutenant Hugh Wrigley, Commanding 2/6 Aust inf Bn, “Report of 2/6 Aust Inf Bn’s participation of the Grecian Campaign covering the period April 1st-29th 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6. 8

Recollection of Cam Bennett, a. soldier in the 2/5th Australian Infantry Battalion, in Cam Bennett, Rough Infantry: Tales of World War II, Warrnambool Institute Press, 1984, p. 90.

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awaiting their turn. Like all other units assembling for embarkation, Albert’s Battalion was divided into groups of 50 men led by an officer, with an allotted serial number designating their place in the order of evacuation. As the 2/6th Battalion waited late into the evening of April 26, Albert was ordered by Brigadier Savige to oversee the destruction of Allied vehicles to deny their use by the enemy. Early in the morning of April 27 he was dispatched to locate the Australian drivers who had failed to assemble for embarkation. On the night of the April 26-27 over 8,000 Allied troops were evacuated from Kalamata. In the estimation of historian Gavin Long, this represented the largest number taken off one beach on single night of the entire evacuation from Greece. No evacuation ships would come the next night. By the morning of the April 28 some 8,000 Allied troops remained in Kalamata, 1,600 of which were Australians, the remainder mainly British, New Zealand, Greek, Cypriot and Palestinian troops. Of these only some 1,200 soldiers were available in organised units that might be able to defend Kalamata from attack – 800 New Zealanders, 300 British and 70 Australians.

Albert and the Battle of Kalamata Waterfront Throughout the next day (April 28) 22-year-old Albury-born Private Max Holbrook Wood (Service Number VX3459) of the 2/6th Battalion reported that 40-50 German bombers at a time continued to attack the troops at Kalamata from dawn until dusk. Twenty-three-yearold Horsham-born Private Syd Grant (VX6699) of the Australian 2/8th Battalion remembered years later the situation of the troops waiting to be evacuated from Kalamata: “The worst of all I think were the Stukas that screamed straight down at you and they were so close that I remember seeing the whites of the pilot’s eyes on one occasion.”9 On the same day, the 300 men of the British 4th Hussars had been ordered north of the town to search for the advancing enemy. While they reported at 4pm that they had made no contact with German forces on their reconnaissance 25 miles north of the port, it appears that as this news was being received in Kalamata the German advanced 9

Private Sydney Carney Grant, Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, supplied to the author.

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guard attacked the Hussars. Armed only with light weapons and facing a mobile armoured unit, soon the 4th Hussars were overwhelmed, many successfully retreating back across the mountains into the Mani further south and to the east of Kalamata. A sad end for men who had fought with the Anzacs in northern Greece. It was after this in the early evening of April 28 that all hell broke loose in Kalamata. Two companies of the German 5th Panzer Division with two field guns made a daring raid into the centre of Kalamata, capturing the Customs House and the Allied officer in charge of evacuations. One of the defensive posts established by the Germans was on the waterfront. Here they set up a machine gun and artillery post to defend the Customs House from any attack from the Allied troops camped to the east. The exact location of this post at the corner of Navarino and Koroni Streets is identified by combining field research with the details provided in Map 10.10 Initially the Allied troops were unaware of the German position and were fired on as they marched down Navarino Street expecting to be evacuated. Private Max Holbrook Wood of the 2/6th Battalion reported that as he and the rest of the Battalion moved down to the beach from their bivouacs ready to embark they were met by heavy machine gun fire. Thirty-four-year-old Camdenborn Captain Philip James Woodhill (Service Number NX12261) of the Australian 2/2nd Battalion reported that “heavy machine gun and artillery fire opened up from the direction of the docks” as the column of Australian troops reached the beach road at about 8pm.11 24-year-old Indian-born Private George Bowler (Service Number Text Image 11.3 - The final approach of VX14802) from Horsham of Albert’s the Australian attack on the German battalion was wounded here.12 Soon position, led by Captain Albert Gray. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

10 I am indebted to the assistance of two residents of Kalamata for helping me identify the locations associated with the battle of Kalamata - fellow researchers Panayiotis Andrianopoulos and Sotiris Theodoropoulos – on a field trip around the city on May 25, 2016. 11

Captain P.J. Woodhill, NX12261, 2/2nd Battalion, “Report by Capt P.J. Woodhill, Julius Camp, 4th May 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16.

12 Corporal Willam Charles Harrison, VX6858, Statement to Australian Red Cross Society, 21 July 1941, Service File of Private George Bowler, NAA.

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furious fighting had erupted around the quay, tracers lights could be seen by the evacuation ships assembling in the bay. Soon a combined force of mostly Australian and New Zealand troops engaged the Germans to retake the port.13 It was now that Albert’s courage and leadership shone through. Gavin Long writes that while he was in command of some four hundred Australian troops from various units, only around 70 could take part in the engagement due to a shortage of weapons and ammunition. Albert split his force into two platoons. One platoon joined the 30 strong New Zealand force which would move along the streets parallel to the waterfront with the aim of attacking the Germans from a flanking position and in the rear. Albert and his group would move along Navarino Street, attacking the Germans head-on. Map 10 depicts the routes taken by the Allied attackers. Gavin Long writes that the counterattack began at 8.15pm and was over by 9.30pm. The 2/6th Battalion’s Corporal William Harrison (VX6858) wrote that under constant enemy fire Albert’s force first occupied defensive positions in a ditch running at right angles to the beach near Navarino Street. Albert and his men then made a frontal assault on the German position on the waterfront. Australian war correspondent John Hetherington wrote of the attack being an intense fight, of “mad confusion” and of the men fighting “like wildcats.” The only thought in the digger’s minds was “to get the Jerries from that quay at all costs.” At one point the Australians drove a truck, full of Australians “yelling, shooting and swearing” straight towards the 13 This account of the battle is drawn from the accounts in both Long and McClymont, as well as the various other Australian first-hand reports (Harrison, Sharpin, Simpson and Wood), an Australian army journalists report after the battle as well as Heckstall-Smith & Baillie-Grohman’s account, British veteran's accounts in Horlington and details contained in the Wikipedia entry on Jack Hinton. Corporal George Foot, 2/7th Battalion, “Report by Corporal G Foot VX5845 on Escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 Item Number 8/2/17; Corporal William Charles Harrison, VX6858, “Report of Movements of 2/6th Aust Inf Bn Rear Party”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Dairy, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; Corporal Willam Charles Harrison, VX6858, Statement to Australian Red Cross Society, 21 July 1941, Service File of Private George Bowler, NAA; J.A. Hetherington, “Miraculous Escape of Australians from Greece”, AIF News (Middle East), No. 62, Saturday, 17th May 1941; Antony Heckstall-Smith & Vice-Admiral Baillie-Graham, Greek Tragedy ’41, Anthony Blond, 1961, p. 201-202; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Jack_Hinton; Long, p 180; McClymont, p. 456-457; Driver Edmund Sharpin, R.A.S.C., “Statement”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 172-175; Lieutenant E.H. Simpson, 22nd Battalion, N.Z.E.F., “Some Experiences at Kalamata, April 1941”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 19401941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 86-89; Private Max Holdbrook Wood, VX3459, 2/6th Battalion HQ, “Report of Escape of British Troops from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Dairy, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6.

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German position.14 One soldiers account – that of 21-year-old Oakleighborn Corporal George Foot (Service Number VX5845) of the 2/7th Battalion – refers to a German machine gun firing from a boat in the harbour which was the last to be silenced by the Allied attackers. Walking the battlefield today, in the footsteps of Albert and his men, what is clear is the exposed nature of their frontal attack, underlining their bravery in the face of danger as they advanced on the German position (see Text Image 11.3). At the same time the combined Anzac force led by Sergeant Hinton of the New Zealand 20th Battalion – pistol in hand – moved along the streets running parallel to Navarino (probably Santarosa Street) and attacked the Germans from the north, making good use of a Vickers machine gun. Hinton led the assault on a number of German positions, hurling grenades and capturing one of the artillery pieces. In the attack he was severely wounded in the stomach and would later be captured. And meanwhile another combined British and Anzac force led by the British Major Geddes of the Royal Army Service Corps engaged and defeated German troops in the northern part of the city, driving them out and taking some 150 prisoners. The battle of Kalamata Waterfront had lasted about an hour. But in the end the Germans had been overwhelmed by the Anzac-led combined attack and the port re-taken. Over 100 German soldiers were killed or wounded, and another 100 captured. The whole attack was witnessed by Voula Pierakou-Vounelakis, a young girl in Kalamata during the war. Interviewed by the author in 2016, Voula recounted how at the time her father was a local baker and she was working in the large three or four storey flour mill at the harbour near the Customs House when she saw the fighting below. She would go on to be a prominent member of the resistance in Kalamata and the surrounding area. Many war stories have their humourous aspects. Just before the Allied attack on the Customs House, an officer from the British 4th Hussars – George “Loopy” Kennard - whose unit was defending a position north of the city had come into Kalamata to assess the situation. He was quickly surprised and captured by a German officer – someone he had known from the pre-war years! The German invited him for a beer and as they sat reminiscing, the Allied counterattack took place and the tables 14 J.A. Hetherington, “Miraculous Escape of Australians from Greece”, AIF News (Middle East), No. 62, Saturday, 17 May 1941.

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were turned, the German taken prisoner and the British officer released!

Victory then Capture Captain Albert Gray was Mentioned-in-Dispatches and awarded the Military Cross “for exemplary conduct and leadership at Kalamata.”15 Private Max Wood of the 2/6th Battalion was awarded the Military Medal “for high courage and devotion during the evacuation from Greece.”16 Major Geddes was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Sergeant Jack Hinton received the highest accolade and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery in the action on that night. On the night of April 28-29 a small Allied flotilla - comprising the four destroyers HMS Hero, HMS Kandahar, HMS Kingston and HMS Kimberley – was able to remove over 300 more troops from Kalamata. One of those evacuated was Kevin Price of the Australian 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiment, who had been in the first action at Vevi and was now one of the last men off Greece. Carrying his heavy Boyes rifle, into the neck deep water to scramble aboard a boat taking

Text Images 11.6 and 11.7 - Greek Campaign Memorial, Kalamata (left), with detail (right). Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

troops to HMS Kingston, where he enjoyed a hot mug of cocoa. He thought this was “the best drink I’ve ever had” and fell asleep until the ship arrived at Crete the next day.17 By 3am the destroyers had completed their embarkations and departed Kalamata. This was the last evacuation from Kalamata.

Text Images 11.4 and 11.5 - Red Cliffs War Memorial (top) and detail with Albert Gray’s listing (bottom). Photograph Craig Tolson 2018.

15 Captain Albert Gray, citation detailed in Honours and Awards (Recommendations) Card for Albert William Gray, AWM Collection, Reference RCDIG1068961 and award promulgated 25th September 1947 in Supplement to London Gazette, No. 35396, p. 4515. 16 Private Max Holbrook Wood, citation detailed in Honours and Awards (Recommendations) Card for Max Holbrook Wood, AWM Collection, Reference RCDIG1068964, award promulgated 26th December 1941 and published in Second Supplement to London Gazette, No. 35396, 30th December 1941, p. 7338.

When these ships departed, Albert was one of the Australian soldiers remaining in Kalamata, as an officer he woild not abandon his men. There were now some 8,000 Allied troops remaining at Kalamata. As there would no more evacuations and the Germans would soon enter the town, British Brigadier Parrington, the Allied commander at Kalamata, addressed the troops at the waterfront and advised them of his intention to surrender at 5.30am on the April 29, any troops wishing to evade capture should leave by 5am. The Allied defence of Kalamata was at an end. Albert now entered captivity, one of the over 200 men of his Battalion to be captured during the Greek campaign on the mainland. One who did escape capture was Private Max Wood who made his way down through the villages of the Mani and was evacuated by an Allied warship two days later. 17

Ewer, p. 283.

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south to Crete. And I wonder if the water – with its silvery reflections – took him back to earlier days on the banks of the great Murray River as it bent its way through his home town. Standing on Navarino Street there are few reminders of the battle of Kalamata. In 1994 the British Brotherhood of Veterans of the Greek Campaign 1940-41 erected a fine memorial to this the last Allied engagement of the Allied campaign on the Greek mainland in April 1941 (see Text Images 11.6 and 11.7). In 2019 it was my pleasure to work together with Melbourne’s Pammessinian Brotherhood Papaflessas to create a new commemorative plaque honouring the service of Captain Albert Gray and the other brave Allied soldiers who defeated the German forces in Kalamata on that terrible night in April 1941 (see Text Image 11.8). This will soon be erected at Kalamata.

Text Image 11.8 – New Kalamata Waterfront Memorial plaque, created by the author and Melbourne’s Pammessinian Brotherhood Papaflessas, to be unveiled in Kalamata. Photograph Jim Claven 2020.

Albert’s bravery did not end there. He made no less than four escape attempts from German POW camps and assisted in many more. After the long night of incarceration and liberation, Albert returned to Australia after the war – first to Black Rock and then to his beloved Red Cliffs. His name is proudly etched on the local war memorial (see Text Images 11.4 and 11.5). It was due to the bravery of Albert and the other troops who took part in the battle that the evacuations at Kalamata had been able to continue for another night. The delay in the German capture of the town no doubt also assisted the further evacuations that took place from locations around Kalamata and into the Mani in the days that followed. As historian Gavin Long estimates, by the night of April 28-29 April a total of nearly 9,000 troops was evacuated from Kalamata, the vast majority of which were Australians. More, smaller evacuations and escapes would take place in the days that followed, including those from the Mani (see Chapter 19). I wonder what went through Albert Gray’s mind as he contemplated capture by the dreaded invader all those years ago. Maybe he would have gazed out across Kalamata Bay as the last evacuation ship made its way

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From Lefkada to St Kilda, Brallos Pass and Crete - In the wake of Homer’s Odysseus and Gunner James Zampelis Text Image 12.1- The fields of Marantochori. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Across April and May each year we commemorate the anniversary of the Greek campaign, honouring the service and sacrifice of those who served there in 1941. One of those we honour is Gunner James Dimitri Zampelis. Among the estimated 2,500 Australians of Hellenic heritage who served in the Second World War, James is the only one who was killed in action in the Greek campaign. His story is the story of the thousands of other Australians who also fought in that campaign. It is the story of an ordinary man, who once walked the streets and enjoyed life in his home town of Melbourne, the city where his Greek-born father had made his new home. A man like so many others who sailed overseas into harm’s way, leaving a worried family and young son behind. And like so many others their fears would be answered by his sad death on the beautiful but suddenly dangerous Island of Crete.

From Lefkada They Came Born in Melbourne, James’ heritage stretches back through his father Gerasimos to the village of Marantochori on the Island of Lefkada. Recently I had the good fortune to visit Lefkada and follow the trail of the Zampelis. The road to village winds along the western coast of the Island, dotted with seaside resorts and hotels. But as I turn north into the centre of the Island, I see a different Lefkada – one of trees, farms, vineyards and lush gardens.

The village sits nestled in its valley with high mountains towering above (see Text Image 12.1). I am told by locals that in the past the lack of water made it difficult for many villagers to make a living. A photograph from 1901 taken by the German archaeologist Wilhelm Dorpfeld reproduced in Nikos Thermos’ book shows a hardy village home but the struggle to escape poverty is obvious. It is from this Marantachori that Gerasimos and his brother left at the turn of the century. Today the village is green, abundant and productive. The variety of local honey, olives and herbs on offer at the roadside booths as well as its award-wining wine is testimony to its productivity. This is reflected in the magnificent cottage garden which is maintained by Gerasimos’ relatives who still live in the village. It is a garden that anyone would be proud - full of tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce herbs, all sorts of fruits, chicken and sheep – as well as olive trees and grape vines. The hard-working Katy is justly proud of her garden. As we sit and talk with James’ relatives, the discussion turns to Lefkada and the Second World War. The withdrawal of the Italians brought the Germans to Lefkada. Just as in Crete and elsewhere in Greece, many villages contain moving memorials to the deadly reprisals carried out by the Germans on the people of Lefkada. Katy’s mother Panorea Zampelis was 94 when I met her. She told me

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of how twelve local villagers were murdered by the Germans in retaliation for the resistance of the local people to the occupiers. She tells of other villages who suffered a similar fate. As I travel across the Island – from Lefkada town itself to that in Marantochori’s neighbouring village of Kontorena – marble memorials stand testimony to the resistance of the ordinary Greek civilians. Dressed in her traditional Lefkadian dress Panorea poses with her gun as she tells me of the time the Germans came to Marantochori! Her resistance is palpable and one that any Cretan or Maniot would be proud (see Text Image 12.2). Lefkada is indeed a beautiful Text Image 12.2 – The author with one Island – as are many of the Ionian of James’ relatives Panorea Zampelis, Marantochori. Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Islands that can be seen from its coasts and mountains. Not far from Marantochori the famous beaches of southern and eastern Lefkada dot the coast. Many of these are tiny inlets, like Afteli and Ammoussa. Katy’s partner Costas tells me of how a famed resistance fighter would attack the Germans from the sea, only to withdraw to caves along Lefkada’s coast out of reach of the enemy. Sitting on one of these beautiful beaches, with their turquoise water, one can imagine the andartes finding safety in the myriad of inlets that dot the coast, many difficult to reach by land. As I drive along the west coast there is much evidence of a recent earthquake suffered by the Island. The roads are strewn with rocks and cracked in many places, making the drive a slow and arduous one. One of the most tragic images I have is that of the Church and cemetery in the little village of Athani. The power of the earthquake is shown in the collapsed Church building and broken gravestones. Yet the Church tower remains somehow erect while the Church beneath has been reduced to rubble.

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When the Ionian Islands – and especially Cephalonia - suffered a worse earthquake in the early 50’s the devastation was catastrophic. During this time of need, some of Greece’s erstwhile Allied defenders came to her aid. Patrick Leigh Fermor, philhellene and a former SOE agent who had fought in Greece in the Second World War, came to the Ionian Islands to promote British aid for the locals. As I travel further up the coast – to the beautiful beaches of Kalamitsi and Kathisma – and enjoy a bathe in the Ionian Sea, I imagine what the Australian sailors who came to this sea in the First World War thought of the Islands they passed. It is not well known that six Australian warships defended the Ionian and Adriatic Seas, based at Corfu and Bari in Italy. They sailed the region for three years, calling in to ports and no doubt interacting with the locals. I wonder if they ever made a port of call at Lefkada.

James and the Zampelis Odyssey Lefkada and the nearby Island of Ithaki share a connection to Homer’s great tale of the warrior Odysseus and his voyage to and from war. Archaeologists have argued that Odysseus’ ancient Ithaka was in fact modern day Lefkada; various locations on the Island were placed in Homer’s story. As Odysseus and the Anzacs sailed these waters, so would James’ father Gerasimos as he made his way to distant Australia. But unlike the wily Odysseus he was never to return. When James’ father decided to migrate to Australia in 1900, he is said to have been the first to have done so from his village.1 Lefkada – along with Ithaka and Kastellorizo – share the honour of being the sources of some of Australia’s first Hellenic migrants. From the late nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century many Greek villagers from these islands made their way to distant Australia to make their fortune. After short stints in Kalgoorlie and Sydney, Gerasimos finally settled in his new home of Melbourne in 1903. At the time Melbourne had only a small Hellenic community, with the 1901 census listing only 181 Greeks living in Melbourne. James’ mother was Louisa Elizabeth Sievers, who had married Gerasimos in Melbourne’s Greek Orthodox Church in 1910. Louisa and her husband would have three children – Helenea arrived in 1911, followed by 1

Details from the life of Gerasimos Zampelis have been sourced from the following: Gerasimos Demetriou Zampelis, File of Papers, Department of Immigration, Commonwealth of Australia, NAA; Merrilynne Hayes, “Gerasimos Zampelis”, Immigration Place Australia website, https:// immigrationplace.com.au/story/gerasimos-zampelis/.

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Dimitri (or James as he would be known) in December 1912 and finally Harold Andrew in 1916. Sadly, when young James was only seven years old his mother passed away at only twenty-eight years of age. Like many Greek immigrant families, Gerasimos was not long in establishing a new business for his family in Melbourne. After sponsoring his cousin Nicholas to follow him to Australia in 1924, they opened Nick’s Café at St Kilda’s big intersection, the then St Kilda Junction. Young James was soon working as a waiter, as he would record on his enlistment papers. And so began the Zampelis family’s long association with Melbourne’s hospitality industry.

From St Kilda to War The Second World War broke out in early September 1939. Barely four weeks later, James went to the Army Recruitment Centre at the No. 7 Drill Hall in Chapel Street, East St Kilda, and joined up as Gunner Zampelis (VX989). He was 26 years old. Amongst the other recruits who enlisted into the 2/2nd Field Regiment at East St Kilda were Corporal John McAllister Vincent (VX659) a 24-year-old clerk from West Brunswick, Gunner Richard Wilfred Mitchell (VX768) a 30-year-old labourer from Richmond, Gunner Sydney Mitchell (VX18306) a 32-year-old council employee from Northcote and Gunner Angus Kennedy (VX1088) a 33-year-old draughtsman from Windsor. But more of them later. By this time, James had started a family of his own, adding his son Peter James Zampelis to the Zampelis presence in St Kilda. By the time of his enlistment, James had separated from his wife Doris, James listing his son Peter as his next of kin on his enlistment papers. It’s no surprise that when he was enlisted into the 2/2nd Field Regiment he was given the job of mess steward – a job he was eminently qualified for given his employment and family history! James’ first experience of army life was months spent at training camps at Broadmeadows and Puckapunyal, near Seymour. On April 14, 1940 James departed from Port Melbourne as part of the second convoy of the Second AIF – following in the wake of the Anzacs of the First World War. The 2/2nd became one of Australia’s famous fighting units in the Second World War. With it, James would take part in some of the major engagements fought by the Australian Army in the Middle East, as well as Greece and Crete.

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The unit was commanded by 43-year-old Hampton-born Lieutenant Colonel William “Bill” Edward Cremor (Service Number VX86) who took a keen interest in the conditions experienced by his men. A former schoolteacher, he was affectionately known as “old bugger and blast” by James and his fellow diggers.2 One of the other officers in the unit was 28-year-old Parkville-born Captain William Dudley Refshauge (Service Number VX220), the Regimental Medical Officer, who would come to know James personally during the unit’s campaign on Crete.

James’ First Battle Honour - Bardia James arrived at the Kantarra Army camp in Egypt on May 18, the unit having been incorporated into the artillery component of the Australian 6th Division commanded by Major General Iven Mackay. The unit’s routine of artillery training was ended with the Italian declaration of war on June 11. The 2/2nd took part in the defence of Egypt against the initial Italian invasion and in the famous Allied counterattack led by Major General Richard O’Connor. The campaign resulted in the rout of enemy forces in Libya. One of the battle honours of the unit was its role, with the rest of the Australian 6th Division, in the battle of Bardia in Libya. This battle took place over three days in early January 1941, with the twenty-four guns of the 2/2nd taking part in the artillery bombardment of this heavily defended port and supply base. It was famously reported that some of the diggers advanced at the attack singing an Aussie parody of the popular song of the time – “South of the border, down Mexico way”.3 The Australian success was hailed in Australia, often compared to those of the First AIF in the First World War. Recruitment surged back in Australia in the wake of the news of the victory. Gavin Long noted the vital role of the artillery to the victory, its effectiveness and planning having “subdued the enemy’s fire at the vital time”.4 While the battle was followed up by a rapid advance, often referred to as the “Benghazi Handicap”, James and the 2/2nd took no part in these fruits of the victory at Bardia. They were off to defend the land of his father – Greece. 2

Thompson, p. 247.

The soldiers’ version was a rowdy version referring to sex workers in Rushcutters Bay Sydney. Craig Stockings, Bardia: Myth, Reality and the Heirs of ANZAC, New South, 2009, p. 161. 4

Long, p. 205.

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James – An Anzac in Hellas With the decision to send Allied troops to help in the defence of Greece, James’ unit embarked for Greece on March 28, 1941. The arrival of what would become over 17,000 Australians in Greece in 1941 would see Australian soldiers and nurses set foot on Greek soil for the second time in less than thirty years. For James was following in the footsteps of those Australians of the First World War who had served on Lemnos during the Gallipoli campaign, the sailors of the Corfu flotilla as well as the soldiers and nurses who served in the four-year Salonika campaign. The Australians received a warm welcome on their return to Hellenic soil. Photos of Greek civilians waving and welcoming them, enjoying a celebratory drink with their Greek solider comrades and even tours of the ancient Acropolis – stand as testimony to this welcome. But the time for celebration was short. In late April, the Germans joined their Italian and Bulgarian allies in invading Greece. Along with many of the other Australian fighting units, James and the 2/2nd were transported north from Piraeus all the way up the length of Greece to the Servia Pass in northern Macedonia. It was here that the Australians would confront German forces for the first time since 1918. The story of James’ campaign in mainland Greece is that of the Second AIF. Short, dogged defensive actions, followed by strategic withdrawals through the mountains and valleys of central Greece. The guns of the 2/2nd started their campaign in Greece on April 16 at the Servia Pass, continued as they withdrew across the Aliakmon River defence line, then through Zarkos and Lamia – James and the 2/2nd were positioned to defend the withdrawal of the Allied troops (see Map 8).

Brallos Pass and the Thermopylae Line Brallos Pass and the coastal plain at Thermopylae now formed the new Allied defence line across the road to Athens and the south (see Map 8). It was at Brallos pass – with New Zealand infantry and artillery defending the coastal plain at Thermopylae to the east below – that the 2/2nd made a stand. Like the famed 300 Spartans of Classical Greece, the Australian artillery stood at the mountain pass in the way of the massive German onslaught, keeping the way clear for the thousands of troops and civilians on their way to the south (see Text Image 12.3).

Text Image 12.3 – Brallos Pass. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

The defence of the pass in 480BC would give rise to the famous epitaph attributed to Simondes, etched in stone, “Go tell the Spartans, passerby, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie”, and recorded by the historian Herodotus.5 Now in April 1941 the Australian commander at Brallos, 46-year-old Malvern-born Brigadier George Vasey (Service Number VX9) would urged his men to defend their positions with a not dissimilar exhortation:”Here we bloody well are and here we bloody well stay.”6 The pass would be defended for four days by the guns of the 2/2nd Field Artillery Regiment, aided by those of the 2/1st Field Artillery and 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiments as well as Australian infantry units from the 17th and 19th Brigades. The Australians would endure aerial and artillery bombardment as well frontal attacks. The battle commenced on April 21 and would end with the Anzac withdrawal on April 24. Ordered to place two guns forward to direct fire on to the Germans as they advance from Lamia across the Sperkios River, Lieutenant Colonel Cremor was able to position them on a narrow ledge just off the road, two thirds of the way up the escarpment. Their observers would be perched 400 yards farther up the slope and they would be supported by a British crewed anti-aircraft machine-gun. The rest of the 2/2nd Field Regiment was digging in as Sergeant Henry “Jo” Gullett (Service Number VX3511) from 5

Quoted in Paul Cartledge, Thermopylae: The Battle that Changed the World, Vintage, 2007, p. 226; Herodotus, The Histories, translated Aubrey de Selincourt, revised by John Marincola Penguin, 1972, Book 7, paragraph 228, p. 446.

Brigadier Vasey quoted in Long, p. 143.

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Toorak, passed with his retreating comrades of the 2/6th Battalion. After the war he remembered passing the gunners noting their “digging in and camouflaging their guns, obviously getting ready for battle, under the exacting eye of their burly, bristling red-faced old Colonel Cremor.”7

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mechanical failure, Anderson and his men manhandled it in to position and continued to fire more than 50 rounds directly into the enemy vehicles as they began to unload troops at the foot of the escarpment. Taking shelter during a German barrage, the Australian crew found their remaining gun destroyed. By 4pm the Australians had been engaged in action and sustained artillery attacks for eight hours. An estimated 160 enemy rounds had hit their position, exploding ammunition supplies, destroying trucks and one of their guns. Text Image 12.4 – Lieutenant John Anderson, 2/2nd Field Regiment. Courtesy Dr Peter Ewer.

The two guns placed on the ledge were commanded by 26-year-old Lieutenant John Richard Anderson (Service Number VX587) from Brighton in Victoria (see Text Image 12.4). Along with Lieutenant Anderson, many of the diggers from the 2/2nd at Brallos may well have been aware of James, and no doubt would have been swapping stories of their lives back in Melbourne’s inner southern suburbs. Diggers like Sergeant Leonard Shields Ingram (Service Number VX562), a 25-year-old former physical culture instructor from Albert Park, who was killed at Brallos. One of the surviving gunners of that engagement was Sergeant James Horace Lees (Service Number VX809), a 27-year-old butcher from nearby Prahran. And so on the April 21 the guns of the 2/2nd commenced their engagement with the advancing Germans across the Sperkios River in the valley below the Pass. On the evening of the first day the gunners saw trucks moving forward from Lamia and three rounds stopped the lead truck and sent the column back where it came from. Overnight the Australians observers saw the lights of the German transports arriving at Lamia. Daylight would bring the first of many artillery attacks on the Australian positions, hitting Allied supply trucks and setting fire to the surrounding scrub. Shells were landing only a few feet from Lieutenant Anderson’s gun pits. The shelling made life dangerous and exhausting for the artillery’s signallers who were forced to brave the steep snow-covered slopes of the pass to lay and relay communications lines, often being straffed from the air by enemy aircraft. The Australian guns were soon engaged in a dangerous exchange of barrage and counter barrage. Even when one of their guns suffered a 7

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Henry “Jo” Gullett, Not as a Duty Only: an Infantryman’s War, Melbourne UP, 1976, p. 53.

The gunners were ordered on April 22 to form a rearguard with the Australian 19th Brigade infantry to hold their positions for a further 48 hours to enable the orderly withdrawal of the Australian 17th Brigade. The unit’s War Diary for the next two days tells of continuing enemy shelling. During the night of April 23-24 Lieutenant Colonel Cremor had withdrawn the guns further into the pass, following enemy air attacks on April 23. As they departed the gunners disguised the empty gun pits with nets and camouflage, successfully fooling the 65 enemy dive-bombers the next day who conducted 125 attacks on the empty sites. The War Diary entry for April 24 notes that this gave the gunners some cause to chuckle. But the gunners were not laughing for long for throughout April 24 they continued firing in support of the withdrawing infantry, the War Diary reporting that they were “in action constantly” as they targeted concentrations of advancing enemy infantry on their left.8 Up until now the gunners had suffered no casualties. In a final act of defiance, Lieutenant Anderson went back with Sergeants Ingram and Lees and the remaining gun crew to try to get the remaining damaged gun back into action. As they worked on the gun the German artillery opened up and ended their hopes, with the enemy continuing to shell the gunners as they abandoned the guns and withdrew. Five gunners were killed and three wounded, one fatally, at the gun pit, while further up the hillside another gunner was killed and another wounded. One of those killed was Sergeant Ingram from Albert Park. Eight men survived unharmed, including Sergeant Lees from Prahran. The wounded were withdrawn and Lieutenant Anderson, along with 32-year-old Coburg-born Gunner Eric Stanislaus Brown (Service Number VX932) – a Melbourne tram conductor in civilian life - returned to finally disable the guns and retrieve the paybooks and discs of the dead. 8 Entry for 24th April 2nd AIF, 2/2nd Field Regiment War Diary, October 1939-December 1945, AWM52 4/2/2/16.

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Both Anderson and Brown would be awarded bravery medals for their actions at Brallos, the latter the Military Medal for “Coolness, courage and endurance BRAILLES 22 April 41”9 and the former the Military Cross for “Great courage & disregard for own safety at BRAILLOS”.10 Anderson’s full citation reproduced in his service file captures the brave action of the exposed gunners at Brallos: “At Brallos on 23rd April, despite intense fire from an enemy medium battery, he commanded his two forward guns with such accuracy that the German advance across the plain leading to Brallos was held up for 31 hours. When finally his guns were shelled out and the personnel killed or wounded, he took one of the wounded men up the hill to safety under observed enemy fire. He then returned to the gun position, and as our own ammunition was exploding sent the wounded troops to cover and himself fired the gun for some time afterward. When the gun was finally damaged by enemy fire he personally removed the sights and brought them back.”11 As evening fell on April 24 the 2/2nd Field Regiment withdrew from its positions taking its remaining guns with it, the War Diary recording that the some of the unit didn’t leave their positions at Brallos until the enemy was a mere 400 yards away. To avoid the congested road winding through the pass, the gunners withdrew over a three-mile track over rough country created for them by the men of the 2/1st Field Company. Later these same men would demolish their own roadwork to deny it to the enemy. As I headed south following James’ trail, I came upon the dead of another war buried in the soil of Brallos Pass. Just to the southwest of their position lies the Bralos War Cemetery (see Text Image 12.5).

Text Image 12.6 - The grave of Gunner Herbert Robbins, Bralo War Cemetery, Brallos Pass. Photograph Jim Claven 2018

This contains the remains of over 100 service personnel, many died of the diseases that struck the soldiers fighting on the Salonika Front such as malaria and the influenza epidemic that struck towards the end of the First World War. Nearby had been a British Military Hospital treating the sick and wounded, being transported to or from Salonika. The graves include those of a number of gunners; including 22-year-old Herbert Robbins of the Royal Field Artillery, from Coventry in the United Kingdom, who died of malaria on November 13, 1917 (see Text Image 12.6). The remains of the young Australian gunners who died in April 1941 were not alone. James and the 2/2nd now headed for the evacuation beach at Megara,

Text Image 12.5 - Bralo War Cemetery, Brallos Pass. Photograph Jim Claven 2018

south-west of Athens, arriving there during the afternoon of Anzac Day 1941. After spending the day resting under olive trees, James embarked during the night on Allied transports headed for Crete. But despite having

Brown, Eric Stansilaus, Citation Card, AWM Collection, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ R1570621; -, Third Supplement to the London Gazette, Number 3533, Published 4th November 1941, p. 6358.

dragged their guns and ammunition over the length of Greece, they were

Anderson, John Richard, Citiation Card, AWM Collection, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ R1571088; -, Third Supplement to the London Gazette, Number 3533, Published 4th November 1941, p. 6357.

evacuated troops. James and his unit would face their next battle without

Regiment suffered 11 killed in action, 10 wounded and 23 were captured.

Captain John Richard Anderson, Service File, NAA.

forced to destroy their armaments and vehicles to make room for more their artillery. During its campaign on the Greek mainland, the 2/2nd Field

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the harbour became littered with the wreckage of Allied shipping. James and others from the unit were soon assigned to help at the harbour. The daily bombing had made it too dangerous for the local civilian labourers, so James and his unit joined in on May 4. Working

alongside

Australian

engineers, they did a great job only stopping to unload during air-raids. The 2/2nd Field Regiment even successfully salvaged several Bren Gun Carriers from a sunken

Text Image 12.8 – The birthplace of Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, Mournies. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

ship in the harbour with its upper deck under several feet of water. Text Image 12.7 – Souda Bay, from the Suda Bay War Cemetery. Photograph Jim Claven 2016

Without their guns, James and the other men of the unit were given rifles and would now serve as infantry. Over coming days, as the German

An Anzac Death on Crete James Zampelis and the other 553 officers and men of the 2/2nd Field Regiment arrived in Crete’s Souda Bay (then known as Suda Bay), at 11.30am on April 26 (see Map 11 and Text Image 12.7). On the following day, James and his regiment were ordered to bivouac seven miles from Souda Bay west along the coast road, near the village of Kalyves (then known as Kalibes). As James marched around Souda and surrounds he would have witnessed an island readying for war and on May 2 he would have witnessed the New Zealand commander of the Allied forces on Crete, General Freyberg on Crete address the 2/2nd Field Regiment and other troops assembled at Kalyves. The large harbour at Souda Bay was full of Allied shipping – warships, troopships and supply ships. Already the Germans were preparing the ground for their coming invasion with bombing raids on this important harbour and other key installations. The 2/2nd Field Regiment War Diary for early May records regular German bombing raids on the Allied shipping at Souda, day and night. Allied searchlights were machine gunned, an oil tanker and other ships exploded. Eight of the fifteen Allied ships that landed supplies between April 29 and May 20 were damaged or sunk,

attack unfolded, James and his unit would form part of what was designated the Suda Bay Force, commanded by the 2/2nd Field Regiment’s commander Lieutenant Colonel Cremor. The role of the Brigade was to defend the inner ring around Souda Bay and to act as a reserve. This lay along a stream which flowed through the village of Mournies, famous as the birthplace of the famed Greek leader Venizelos (see Text Image 12.8). James and his unit’s war on Crete would now centre on this little Cretan village (see Map 12). The battle of Crete commenced with German paratroops landings over Maleme airfield on the morning of May 20 and it raged over the Island until the end of the formal evacuation of Crete by the Allies at the end of May. Crete and its population then endured a four-year occupation, giving rise to the spirited Cretan resistance. The Germans attacked Mournies on a number of occasions in the days following their landings but were repulsed. Their initial attack on May 20 failed due to the defence of the town by Captain Forrester of the British Queens Regiment, along with men from the Greek 6th Regiment and local civilians. A New Zealand soldier who witnessed the defence spoke of “a most inspiring sight”:

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“Forrester at the head of a crowd of disorderly Greeks, including women; one Greek had a shotgun with a serratededge bread knife tied on like a bayonet; others had ancient weapons – all sorts. Without hesitation this uncouth group, with Forrester out in front, went over the top of the parapet and headlong at the crest of the hill. The enemy fled.”12 On May 24 further engagements occurred in the region around Mournies. The Australian 2/8th Battalion, another part of the Suda Bay Force, undertook active patrolling and became involved in minor skirmishes. And they were also subject to German air attacks. They also supported a local attack by the Greek 2nd Regiment against two hills near a former Turkish Fort. The New Zealand official historian reports that: “Fighting was very fierce and many Germans were killed by Greek grenades and bayonets. Greek casualties were severe. At five o’clock that evening the fighting was still going on.”13 Davin writes that New Zealand Major H.G. Wooler reported that a number of civilians also took part in this attack, with the result that later the Germans took reprisal on the village of Mournies, shooting all male civilians that they could catch in the area. The defenders established a new defence line for the Souda area along the line of the river that runs south through Mournies on May 24. The line was to be held by the Souda Bay Force; with the 2/2nd Field Regiment stationed around Mournies itself, their position detailed in a sketch map contained within the 19th Brigade War Diary.14

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the Regimental Aid Post on the morning of the May 24.15 Refshauge describes the location of the Regimental Aid Post as near a 50-yard-long brick fence not far from the regimental headquarters at the village crossroads. It would appear the brick fence or wall was most likely to have been located in a field, as he said he didn’t know why there was a fence there. He also noted that not only was the fence itself a visible target and the area crowded with troops, but it had already been subject to enemy air reconnaissance and was therefore likely to attract enemy air attack. Indeed the Post had already been strafed and bombed by German bombers the day before, injuring Captain Refshauge in the shoulder and neck. After the war Captain Refshauge expressed regret at not heeding his inclination to move the Post to a safer location. He even woke his senior orderly Corporal Vincent at 4.30am to discuss moving it. But Vincent felt it would be disruptive to the sick to move them so close to their 6am medical parade. Fatefully Refshauge agreed. And so it was that as the sick and the Post staff assembled for the parade at 6.30am on May 24 they were bombed by 15 German Stuka dive bombers. Whether this was in response to the attacks of the nearby 2/8th Battalion or merely an attack on the Allied forces in Mournies itself is not clear. As Captain Refshauge writes the Regimental Aid Post didn’t have a Red Cross sign, so there was nothing to indicate that they were a medical post: “We were bombed because there was a concentration of troops at a cross-roads and a big fence, and it was obviously a Headquarters. The fence, a brick wall, was absolutely demolished and a lot of debris flew about. I didn’t know until I got back to Palestine that I was so badly bruised because I couldn’t see my back. … So it was quite a difficult period for me. Well it was the worst period in the war for me ... the lowest point …”16

Around this time James Zampelis was transferred to the Regiment’s Aid Post as a mess orderly. By the morning of May 24 the Regimental Aid Post of the 2/2nd Field Regiment was located near the village of Mournies. The medical officer in charge was Captain William Refshauge, with Corporal John Vincent as senior orderly. It would be while at this location that James and a number of his comrades were killed in an enemy air attack. Captain Refshauge has provided two detailed accounts of these days and the ensuing attack on 12

Unnamed New Zealand soldier quoted in John Hall Spencer, The Battle for Crete, White Lion, 1976, p.162. 13 14

Davin, p. 282.

- “Canea” [map], 2nd AIF, 19th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, May 1941, Appendices, Part 2 of 2, AWM52 8/2/19.

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15 One is a written account by him entitled “Crete 26 April – 31 May 1941” and dated 27th August 1991. The other is an interview conducted by Terry Colhoun for the National Library of Australia in 2000: William Refshauge, “Crete 26 April – 31 May 1941”, mimeo, 27th August 1991; William Refshauge interviewed by Terry Colhoun [sound recording], 9 February 2000 in Canberra ACT, NLA, Tape 2, timed 12.21-18.22 minutes, Bib ID 1897835. 16

William Refshauge, “Crete 26 April – 31 May 1941”, mimeo, 27th August 1991.

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Text Image 12.9 - The Athens Memorial at Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Text Image 12.10 – Gunner James Zampelis listing on the Athens Memorial at Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Text Image 12.11 - Stained glass memorial window (detail) for Corporal John McAllister Vincent, Anglican Christ Church, Brunswick. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

James and five others were killed and several wounded. Twenty-eightyear-old James was killed as he lay next to Refshauge in a shallow ditch, no doubt seeking protection from the air attack. Four of the others killed had enlisted with James at the St Kilda Recruitment Centre – Corporal John Vincent – Refshauge’s senior orderly - and Gunners Angus Kennedy, Richard Mitchell and Sydney Mitchell. Two medical orderlies – 21-yearold Gunner John Donovan (Service Number VX10677) from Prahran and 29-year-old Corporal Donald Findley (Service Number VX852) from Northcote – were awarded the Military Medal for their work with the wounded survivors after the attack. Despite being badly concussed by flying debris, Captain Refshauge continued to tend the injured and dying. He was Mentioned-in-Dispatches for his bravery. Years later the now knighted Sir William Refshauge remembered James

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Text Image 12.12 – The old, damaged farm wall outside Mournies. Photograph Arthur Bregiannis 2017.

“as a good fellow who had been most helpful in tending wounded comrades at the parade which cost him his life.” 17 Lieutenant Colonel Cremor, the 2/2nd Field Regiment’s commander wrote to James’ family on July 1, 1941: “… Jim was known very well to me personally, as he had been with the Regimental Head Quarters since the Regiment was formed. He was always cheerful and reliable and did his job courageously. He was popular with us all because of his pleasant disposition, and we feel his loss intimately.”18 James was first declared missing in action but was later posted as having been killed in action. The Army Service File for James and those for his four other comrades record that they were buried “500 yards south west of Mournies village”.19 James was one of the nearly 600 Australians killed in action during the campaign in Greece. The remains of many who were killed during the 17 Sir William Refshauge quoted in Hugh Gilchrist, Australians and Greeks Vol 3: The Later Years, Halstead Press, 2004, p. 42. 18 Lieutenant Colonel Cremor, Letter to Gerasimos Zampelis, 1st July 1941, original in possession of Lisa Zampelis and family. 19 Service Files of Corporal John Vincent and Gunner’s James Zampelis, Sydney Mitchell, Angus Kennedy and Richard Mitchell, NAA.

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battles on Crete could not be located after the war. This was despite the best efforts of the Australian Graves Registration Units who undertook this task on Crete. The names of these diggers are memorialised on the Athens Memorial to those who have no know grave at the Phaleron Military Cemetery in Athens (see Text Images 12.9 and 12.10). These deaths in war had their reverberations back in Australia. The death of Corporal John Vincent caused widespread grief amongst the parishioners of Anglican Church in Brunswick where he had been an organist before the war, according to the historian of the Parish, Paul Nicholls. Some years later a stained-glass window in the nave of the church was dedicated in his memory, which can still be seen today (see Text Image 12.11). A commemorative plaque to John’ memory was also installed at Melbourne University where he had worked. Meanwhile James’ father became a proud Australian citizen on April 9, 1947 – six years after his son gave his life for Australia. Recently an effort has been made to clarify exactly where James and his comrades were killed and possibly where they were buried. Drawing on the archival evidence detailed above, a team of volunteer field researchers – including Eva Gaganis Gotsis, Arthur Bregiannis, Paul Sougleris, New Zealand documentary filmmaker John Irwin and the author – has been able to identify an old, damaged wall, in a field on the outskirts of Mournies which could be the site where James and his comrades were killed (see Text Image 12.12). Further field research, including interviews with local residents, has narrowed the possibilities as to where the remains may lie. We hope one day to be in a position to finalise our research and present our findings to the appropriate military and civl authorities proposing the conduct of the necessary forensic investigations leading to the retrieval of the remains and their re-interring at Suda Bay War Cemetery.

Anzac Legacy The remains of these Australians who died at Mournies on May 24 lie unfound in the soil where their comrades buried them in the lull following the heat of battle. James would be the sole Australian soldier of Greek heritage or birth to be killed during the Greek campaign of 1941. It would be a fitting testimony to Australia’s honouring of its Anzac heritage and its connection with Greece if a renewed effort was made to locate the remains of these diggers – including James - buried southwest of the Cretan village he died defending. Modern technology has delivered amazing results in the battlefields of Western France, such as Fromelles, delivering recognition and remembrance to lost diggers and

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their descendents. While we hope that James’ remains – and that of his other comrades buried with him - will someday be found and given a proper burial, we should ensure that his service and sacrifice is not forgotten in Australia and Greece. And to this end in 2019 a commemorative plaque honouring the service of James and his four comrades was installed at Mournies by Melbourne’s Battle of Crete and Greece Commemorative Council and the local authorities. James’ story is in many ways quintessentially Australian. The son of migrants, he joined up to defend Australia but paid the ultimate sacrifice in the land of his father – a symbol of the enduring link between Australia and Greece.

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Archive Images The Greek Campaign Photographs Portraits

Lost Victory at Heraklion 1941 – Templestowe’s Gunner Leonard Hodgson and the Battle of Crete The German invasion of Crete is often coloured by the withdrawal of the Allied defenders and the ultimate victory of the invaders. But there were victories over the Germans in their campaign to subdue Greece and Crete. One of them took place at the seaside town of Heraklion. Heraklion and its surrounding hinterland is one of the most beautiful and historic regions of Crete. The land rises from its Venetian harbour through the town’s historic houses and walls and up into the surrounding hills and mountains. One of these hills was chosen as the resting place of the great Cretan writer, Kazantzakis. The view of the city from his grave is not to be missed. Driving along the road north you might notice a ridge immediately to the east, north of the modern airport, with two small hills on top. This feature was given a humorous nickname by its Australian defenders in 1941 – “The Charlies” – an allusion to the female form. Further on we pass the amazing archaeological site of Knossos on your left – and your right the Villa Ariadne, the residence of one the chief excavators of Knossos, Sir Arthur Evans. The Villa served as the location for one of the German Headquarters during the occupation of Crete in World War Two. Drive further on into the mountains and you will come to an intersection beneath a major east-west highway over-pass. As the memorial erected at the intersection records, this is where the Cretan andartes and their Allied comrades kidnapped General Kriepe (see Text Image 13.1). So Heraklion is steeped in history.

Archive Image 1.1 - Private Sydney (Syd) Carney Grant (VX6699). Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.3 - Australian Driver Kevin Byrne, Australian Army Service Corps. Kevin Byrne Collection, Photograph reproduced courtesy of Michael Byrne.

Archive Image 1.2 - “Beyrouth.” Triple exposure photograph of Sergeant Alfred Huggins (NX22277). Beirut, Lebanon, c1941-43. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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To Greece

Archive Image 1.4 - “HMAS Perth”, Postcard. Alfred and the 2/3rd CCS sailed aboard the Perth on their initial arrival in Greece in March 1941. The Perth took part in the naval aspects of the Greek campaign, including the evacuation of Allied forces from the Greek mainland, including Nafplio. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.5 – “Transport boat getting ready for Greece, March 1941– ‘HAV’ from Oslo.” Alexandria, Egypt. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.6 - “Two taken on one neg – warship convoy leaving for Greece, Alexandria [Egypt], March 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Piraeus and Athens

Archive Image 1.7 – “Heading for Greece, March 1941.” Aboard the transport HAV. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.8 – “Going into Port Piraeus, Greece, March 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.10 - “Acropolies.” Acropolis, Athens. Three Australian soldiers with the Acropolis in the rear. Probably comrades of Alfred, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.11 - “Greece.” Acropolis, Athens. Three Australian soldiers (Alfred at left) with the porch of the Caryatids of the Erechtheion apparently superimposed at rear, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.12 - Untitled. Photographic Postcard, with Alfred’s portrait inserted, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.14 - “Parthenon.” Athens. Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.13 - “Greece.” Acropolis, Athens, from below. Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.15 - “7 Virgins Acropolies.” Caryatids, Parthenon, Athens. Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.17 - “Pythons Greece.” Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.16 – “Athenes, Les Propylaea”, Acropolis, Athens. Postcard possibly bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.18 - “Greece.” The Acropolis in Athens can be seen in the background. Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.19 - “Greece.” Ancient Corinth with Acrocorinth in the distance. Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.21 - “Sentry Greece.” Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.20 - “Peasant Women Greece.” Possibly photographs bought in Athens, March-April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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To the front

Archive Image 1.22– “Just past Larissa towards Ellason [Elassona], Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.24 - “Mt Olympus, Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.23 – “This was taken on the way up out of the back of a truck before the fun started. This is very typical. You can gather in a small measure the magnificent scenery in Greece. Note [illegible] place for prayer that the Greeks have all along the roads.” Taken as the 2/3 CCS advanced through Greece, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.25 – “Looking from one of our old camps to Mt Olympus, Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.26 – “Looking towards Mt Olympus, Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.27 – “Greek soldiers carrying pontoons up to Serbia [writing unclear] passing Mt Olympus, Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.28 - “Greece – Ellisona [Elassona] by Olympus.” This most probably depicts the 2/3rd CCS camp site, located behind Allied lines, near Elassona, central Greece, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Images 1.29 to 32 - “Ellisona [Elassona] – in stages of bombing.” Elassona, central Greece, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.40 - “At this particular time our respective insurance companies would have been as frightened as we, were out this chap didn’t care if they dropped bombs or tram cars – a very enviable condition.” Somewhere in mainland Greece, given its location within the album, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Images 1.33 to 1.39 – “Stick of bombs.” Greece, April 1941. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, PHO221 to PHO227, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.41 - “Operation – Greece.” Members of the 2/3rd CCS operating on a wounded soldier during the Greek campaign, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.42 - “Greece – Burial Service.” Taken behind Allied lines, during the Greek campaign, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.44 - “In Greece and as cold as hell. Eating of course the customary bully and biscuits.” April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.43 - “Greece.” April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.45 - “Lamia.” The note on the back states that this depicts the last 2/3rd CCS camp site, located behind Allied lines, near Lamia, central Greece, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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The Germans Occupy Athens

Archive Image 1.46 – “Vola where the first Australian 16 Brigade were evacuated near Lamia, Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.47 – “The R.E. dump alight from German [writing unclear] Lavardia [Livadia], Greece, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.48 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. As Alfred writes on the back this photograph depicts German troops in Athens following in its capture, April 1941. Note the use of horse transport on the right. Alfred Huggins Collection.

Archive Image 1.49 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. As Alfred writes on the back this photograph depicts German troops in Athens following in its capture, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Naflplio

Archive Image 1.50 - “Nafpleon [Nafplio]– where we evacuated.” Nafplio, Greece, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.52 - “Greece – Wreckage – Woman Pilot.” This downed German airplane appears to have been piloted by a female, Nafplio, April, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Kalamata

Archive Image 1.51 - “Greece – Wreckage.” With the Germans exercising effective air superiority, troops were subject to German air attack wherever they were located, Nafplio, April 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.53 – “Greeks, Serbian officers and Australian soldiers Kalamata, 28 April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.54 – “Kalamato [Kalamata], Greece, April 1941.” A gathering in Kalamata of locals and Allied soldiers. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.56 – “Trachila [Trahila] where we were picked up by destroyers on May 1st at 2.30am south of Kalamata, 35 miles or so, April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Trahila

Archive Image 1.55 – “A view of the country at Drachilia (Trachila) [Trahila] Greece where we were evacuated from, 30th April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.58 – “Two fishing boats and Greek boy at Drachilia (Trachila) [Trahila] we were unable to get these going, Greece, 30 April 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

To Crete

Archive Image 1.59 – “A few of the lads on HMS Kimberley returning from Greece, 1 May 1941 – Max Woods [top second from right], Geo Knight [top right].” At sea. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.60 - “A few Palestinians aboard HMS Kimberley”. At sea, returning from Greece, 1st May 1941. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.61 - “Bill Demster and Taffy Phelps coming back from Greece, May 1941.” Probably taken aboard HMS Kimberley on the voyage from Trahila to Crete, May 1, 1941. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Crete

Archive Image 1.62 - “Lunch – Crete.” May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.64 – “Crete, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.63 - “Communion Service – Crete.” May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.65 – “Suda [Souda] Bay Crete, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.66 – “British War Cemetery, Suda [Souda] Bay, Crete, May 1941, 5 kms east from centre of Chania [Xania].” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.68 – “Old ruins of “Turkish church [sic], Crete, May 1941.” Refers to a Greek Orthodox Church from the Ottoman or Byzantine era Crete. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.67 – “Bomb crater in cemetery, Crete, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.69 – “Village of Neon Corinth [Neo Chorio], Crete May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.70 – “The village well Neon Corinth, [Neo Chorio], Crete, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.72 - “One of the many very cold snow streams near Neon Corinth, [Neo Chorio], Crete, May, 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.71 - “Mess Parade at Neon Corinth [Neo Chorio] using any old tines for gear, Crete, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.73 – “Another snow water stream near Neon Corinth, [Neo Chorio], Crete May, 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Crete to Egypt

Archive Image 1.74 - “The old [writing unclear] a real terror for the plonk at Neon Corinth, [Neo Chorio], May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.76 – “The first lot to leave Crete from Suda [Souda] Bay, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.75 – “Listening into the news in Crete – [writing unclear] Marriott, Sid Stein, Sgt Jack Davies with cap, Spud Murphy, Indian Jack Roberts [writing unclear] Jarrett with hat and pipe, May 1941.” Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.77 - “Marching down to the Lossybank.” Presumably taken from aboard MV Lossiebank after Alfred boarded, May 14, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.78 - “Lossybank – Leaving Crete.” Taken from aboard MV Lossiebank on voyage from Crete to Alexandria, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.82 – Untitled. Possibly taken from MV Lossiebank, during voyage from Crete to Alexandria, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.79 – Untitled. Probably taken as the MV Lossiebank leaves Crete, depicting the coast of Crete, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.80 – Untitled. Possibly taken from MV Lossiebank, during voyage from Crete to Alexandria, possibly view of Crete coast, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.81 – Untitled. Possibly taken from MV Lossiebank, during voyage from Crete to Alexandria, possibly view of Crete coast, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.83 - Untitled. Possibly taken from MV Lossiebank, during voyage from Crete to Alexandria. May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.84 – Untitled. Possibly taken from MV Lossiebank, during voyage from Crete to Alexandria, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.86 - “Lossybank”. May 14-16, 1941. Taken aboard MV Lossiebank on voyage from Crete to Alexandria. This photograph was reproduced in Allan S. Walker’s volume 2 of the Australian official medical history of the Second World War – Middle East and Far East - under the title “Evacuation from Crete on S.S. Lossiebank” and attributed to J.C. Belisario (AWM 043237). Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.85 – Untitled. Possibly taken during voyage aboard MV Lossiebank from Crete to Alexandria, May 14-16, 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.87 - “In the hold Lossybank.” Taken during the 2/3 CCS evacuation from Crete to Egypt, May 14-16, 1941, aboard MV Lossiebank. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.88 - “Arrival back in Palestine from Crete.” May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.90 - Troops at Port Said Egypt after evacuating from Greece, May 1941. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.89 - “Feeding us at Port Said after the evacuation of Greece quite a mixture of troops Aust, Greeks, English, I can be seen behind the chap in shorts, singlet and hands in his pockets by the copper tin, returning from a refill of tea, Jack is sitting down on a box with his back to the camera, 2nd May [sic] 1941.” The actual date of this photograph would have been sometime in May, following Syd’s departure from Trahila and time spent on Crete. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.91 - Feeding troops Port Said Egypt after Greece, May 1941. Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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German Airborne Attacks

Archive Image 1.92 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops being addressed by an officer in Greece, prior to the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.93 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops in Greece, prior to the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.94 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict a German paratroop camp in Greece, prior to the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.95 - A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops about to embark on their air transport plane, prior to the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Archive Image 1.96 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops about to embark on their air transport plane in Greece, prior to the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Archive Image 1.98 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops landing taken from the ground, taken during the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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But history was not on the mind of the people and defenders of Heraklion in May 1941. They were about to take part in one of the most memorable defences of the whole Greek campaign. Among the over 6,500 Australians who served in that defence was Leonard Hodgson. Leonard was a young orchardist Text Image 13.1 – Greek Resistance and Kriepe Kidnapping Memorial, south of Heraklion. and truck driver living in Photograph Jim Claven 2016. Templestowe when war broke out. Born in Heidelberg on June 9, 1915, Leonard was the son of James and Mary Hodgson of Main Road, Templestowe. He went on to enlist at Templestowe on June 20, 1940 and was soon serving with the 2/3rd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, as a gunner (Service Number VX32860). After training in Australia, Leonard and his unit sailed from Australia aboard the troopship Mauretania on December 29, 1940 and disembarked in the Middle East on February 19, 1941. On April 22, 1941 Leonard and the unit embarked for Crete aboard the transport Ulster Prince. Leonard and his unit bolstered the anti-aircraft defences of the Island. This was an essential part of the Allied defence against the coming German airborne assault. By the beginning of May 1941, the artillery of the Leonard’s unit – which was the only Australian anti-aircraft artillery on Crete at the time - were split up and distributed across the Allied defences at Heraklion, Maleme and Souda Bay.

Archive Image 1.99 - Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.28 titled - “Greece – Ellisona [Ellasona] by Olympus”, This most probably depicts the 2/3rd CCS camp site, located behind Allied lines, near Ellasona, central Greece, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Given his eventual evacuation from Heraklion after the coming battle, Leonard was most likely stationed with the eight bofors guns of B and C troops of the unit’s 7th battery commanded by 42-year-old Major John Alexnader Hipworth (Service Number VX48009/81763) of Kerang in country Victoria. Attached to the 2/4th Battalion, Leonard’s unit was part of an Allied defence force at Heraklion commanded by British Brigadier B.H. Chappel which included the British 14th Infantry Brigade as well as a Greek Brigade, comprising the 3rd, 7th and Garrison Battalions. The British units included battalions of the Black Watch, the Leicesters and the York and Lancasters. During the battle these would be reinforced by a battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, as well as a small number of tanks and aircraft.

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“In those five hours of hell the AA gunners stuck to their guns while four hundred enemy machines dived and swooped, spraying deadly bullets and bombs … suddenly out of the haze hanging low over the Mediterranean more than one hundred and fifty German troop carriers flew slowly into view … Every gun opened fire as the parachutists started to jump, and within five minutes sixteen huge machines … were blazing furiously and rapidly losing height.”1 The Australian war correspondent George Johnston reported that the Australian gunners brought down many enemy aircraft including transports, as did other Allied anti-aircraft batteries at Heraklion. Those German paratroops that landed successfully to the east and west of the town (see Map 13) were soon engaged by Allied ground forces. Local civilians armed themselves, some with captured German weapons and joined in the defence.

Text Images 13.2 and 13.3 – Seaforth Highlanders Memorial, Suda Bay War Cemetery, Crete. Photograph Jim Claven 2013.

In a curious twist of history, the forebears of the Argyll and Sutherland highlanders at Heraklion had come to Crete’s defence at the turn of the century, some of their number being buried at the other end of the island, in the Suda Bay War Cemetery (see Text Images 13.2 and 13.3). There you will see the distinctive stags head at the top of the memorial to these earlier highlanders who came to Crete. Softening up air raids by German aircraft began May 12, with German airplanes bombing and strafing the defenders. The Australian AntiAircraft battery shot down one bomber during raids on May 13 and a German reconnaissance aircraft during attacks which took place on May 16 and May 18. On May 19 a German air attack comprising between 40 and 50 German dive-bombers and fighters attacked the defenders. May 20 began with another aierial bombardment and two hours later German air transports appeared in the sky over Heraklion. The antiaircraft guns of the 2/3rd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment had remained silent during the initial bombing, deluding the German attackers that they had been put out of action. As the air transports appeared they fired into action. Major Hipworth described the assault:

The fighting was particularly intense within Heraklion town itself, as Allied forces engaged the German paratroops seeking to enter the city from the west. The bitter house to house fighting in the streets of the town, the destruction of communications, led one gun crew positioned at the harbour to believe that the town had in fact fallen to the Germans. This group of nineteen gunners led by 30-year-old Lieutenant William Kelly (Service Number VX46220) from Albert Park decided near midnight on May 20 to take to the sea in a rowboat, heading east to their former position near the airfield. As they rowed out to sea they were instead taken aboard HMS Kingston and transported to Alexandria. In the end, despite fierce fighting and continued air bombardment the German forces failed to take Heraklion and its airfield by force. The success of the defenders is evidenced by their burial on May 22 of more than 950 German troops killed during the fighting. Many German prisoners were taken; a photograph held in the Imperial War Museum depicts a line of them under Allied guard in a Heraklion street (see IWM E3066E). All but 17 officers of the German prisoners captured by the Allies at Heraklion would eventually be freed after the Allied evacuation. But the German success on the western side of Crete, including the capture of Maleme airport, resulted in the Allied decision to evacuate Crete. The Allied force at Heraklion received the order to evacuate by sea on May 1

Major Hipworth quoted in George Johnston, Australia at War, Angus and Robertson, 1942, pp 223-224.

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“Lieutenant Jim Mann of B Troop was an inspiration to all on board because of the soldierly way in which he helped organize the “abandon ship” and saw that men had something to keep them afloat. He was one of the last to leave and was drowned. When his turn came all the floating material had been used. In the water we were strafed and bombed by a Stuka for a short while. Later an Italian Red Cross plane arrived and kept the Stuka away by circling around the men in the water. Italian motor torpedo boats took survivors to Scarpanto and later an Italian destroyer took us to Rhodes.”3

Text Image 13.4 – The waters off Heraklion harbor, Heraklion. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

27. This would take place from the town’s substantial harbour, protected by its stone mole (see Text Image 13.4). At 11.30pm on May 28 nine British warships including the Orion, Ajax, Dido, Hotspur and Hereward arrived in the harbor. Some 4,000 men were embarked and sailed from the harbor at 3am on May 29. At 6am as the ships sailed into the Kasos Strait 100 German divebombers attacked the convoy. The destroyer Hereward was hit, beached and the survivors taken prisoner. The Orion was hit three times – killing 100 and wounding 200. Dido was hit once, killing 103 British soldiers on board. The attacks continued for eight hours, with an estimated 400 individual dive-bombing attacks on the convoy. The 2/4th Battalion’s 24-year-old Corporal Norman Milson Johnstone from Taree (Service Number NX6036) wrote later of the terrific noise as the Hereward’s defences were unleashed on the attacking planes and that “a lot of our boys had their Brens mounted on deck and were doing their best to add to the row…”2

South Yarra-born Lieutenant James Gilbert Mann (Service Number VX14000) was a 27-year-old barrister and former Rhodes Scholar, the son of Victorian Supreme Court Chief Justice Sir Frederick Mann. Accounts of survivors contained in James’ Service File tell of the desperate attempts by men in the water, clinging to wreckage, and of how James himself declined offers from other men in the water to join them in clinging to floating wreckage, for fear of its sinking or capsizing. One survivor from the 2/3rd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment who thought he was possibly the last to see James alive in the water – 40 year old Canadian-born Warrant Officer John “Jack” Bartlett (Service Number VX37285) from Armadale in Victoria – wrote to James’ father from his POW camp in Italy that no one could have survived the heavy seas without support. Not unsurprisingly, James’ death was a great personal loss to the family back in Melbourne, according to his father’s biographer. Another of Leonard’s comrades who survived the ordeal was 21-yearold Phillip Island-born Malcolm Webster (Service Number VX23397), who escaped from the ship and swam ashore, only to be captured by the Italians. By 2pm on May 29 the remaining convoy reached the Egyptian coast, the German air attacks ceased and by 9pm they reached Alexandria. It is estimated that a fifth of the Allied defenders at Heraklion were killed during the evacuation.

It was reported that about 48 Australians from the 2/4 Battalion and 2/3rd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment were killed in these air attacks. Most of Leonard’s unit from Heraklion was on the Hereward. One of the gunners wrote of the attack:

During the Crete campaign the Australians lost 274 killed, 507 wounded and 3,102 prisoners. These casualties accounted for almost three complete Australian infantry battalions – the 2/1st, 2/7th and 2/11th. Leonard’s 7th battery of the Australian 2/3rd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment suffered heavily. Those at Heraklion lost 40 killed and 66 prisoners out of

Corporal Norman Milson Johnstone quoted in Long, p. 292.

Unnamed Australian Anti-Aircraft gunner quoted in Long, p. 292, Note 2.

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a total of 176 gunners. Those at Maleme lost 2 killed and 41 captured out of 76 gunners. Templestowe’s Leonard Hodgson was one of those killed. It is most likely that Leonard was one of those killed as a result of the German air assault on the Hereward as it tried to evacuate these young diggers back to Alexandria. In the confusion and terror of these air attacks, Leonard was initially reported as missing and later presumed dead. His Service File records his being reported missing in action on 7 June and then missing “believed killed” on January 3, 1942. For seven long months Leonard’s family would have waited hoping that he had survived. And then on December 23, 1942, Leonard was reported as having “drowned” as a result of enemy action on May 29, 1941 - the day of the attack on the Hereward. Like another Gunner from Melbourne - James Zampelis – Leonard’s body was never found. One can only imagine the impact of the news of Leonard’s death would have had on his family back in Templestowe. No doubt the initial confusion as to his fate would not have lessened his family’s anguish. Leonard was one of the over 600 Australians killed in action during the Greek campaign. Over 300 are identified and buried in the Commonwealth War Text Image 13.5 - Gunner Leonard Hodgson listing on the Athens Memorial at Phaleron Cemeteries, 172 at Phaleron in War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Athens and 140 at Souda Bay on Claven 2013. Crete. Along with another 326 missing diggers presumed dead, Leonard’s service and sacrifice is recorded on the Athens Memorial at Phaleron War Cemetery in Athens, whose panels honour all those missing presumed dead in the Greek campaign. He is recorded on Panel 10 (see Text Image 13.5).

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Remembering the Kondomari Massacre and Franz-Peter Weixler A few years ago I made the journey to the village of Kondomari on Crete. It is a beautiful drive up into the low hills to the west of Chania, accompanied by my friends Bruce Mildenhall and documentary filmmaker John Irwin. As we drive past the low stone walls and olive groves the sun breaks through the trees and the scent of flowers fills the air. Soon we pass a bend in the road and we have arrived. In the distance below, down towards the sea, lies Maleme. The little village is quiet when we arrive, it is the middle of the day, the sun is high and all are most likely inside enjoying a customary siesta. But I am on a pilgrimage. It was on Monday June 2 in 1941 that four German trucks loaded with paratroops drove along these roads and stopped in the village. The previous weeks had brought the German invasion of Crete. The villagers would have had a ringside view of the battles around Maleme and Chania (see Maps 11 and 12). They would have seen the paratroops dropping, they would have heard the valiant defence by Allied troops and they would have witnessed the see-saw of battle as it finally tipped to the German’s advantage. Some would have joined with other Cretans in fighting alongside the Allied troops. German paratroops had landed around nearby Platanias as well as Kondomari. Local fighters are known to have assisted the New Zealand troops in their defence of the area, inflicting severe losses on the enemy.

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As the Allied soldiers retreated, rumours spread among the German troops that some of their war dead had been mutilated by civilians. And so it was that the German Air Minister, Herman Goering, ordered the German commander on Crete, General Kurt Student, to institute an inquiry and commence civilian reprisals without formalities. However as historian Antony Beevor writes, the inquiry followed the reprisals, in typical Nazi fashion. This inquiry rejected the vast majority of these rumours, finding that many of the “mutilated” dead bodies had in fact been affected by the extreme heat and prevalence of carrion birds on Crete. But the wave of brutal reprisals had already commenced. Thirty or so paratroopers came to Kondomari on June 2. Blaming the whole village for the deaths of a few German soldiers whose decaying bodies were found near the village, the commander Oberleutenant Horst Trebes directed the troops to gather the villagers in the village square. Importantly, Trebe’s unit was accompanied by a German war photographer, Franz-Peter Weixler. What followed is drawn from Weixler’s written testimony and his unique photographic record of this terrible day in the history of Kondomari. A search of houses produced a paratrooper jacket with a bullet hole in the back. Trebes immediately order the house burnt to the ground. One of the villagers volunteered himself as having killed a paratrooper. Despite Weixler’s direct appeals to Trebes that there was no evidence against anyone else in the village and that the reprisal action should be abandoned, the commander ordered the selection of a number of village men for execution. As the village men were being led to a nearby olive grove, Weixler made it possible for nine men to get away. The remainder were then led to the place of execution and shot. Estimates vary, but between 23 and 60 villagers are reported to have been executed that day. Weixler could not believe it and asked Trebes if he knew what he had done. The murders at Kondomari would be repeated across Crete and Greece, the destruction of the village of Kandanos taking place on the next day. And so began the reign of terror on Crete that would see thousands of civilians murdered and villages destroyed. What is also significant about the Kondomari massacre is that prior to entering the village Weixler had argued with two of the paratroop officers concerning the allegation of mutilations of the dead, the purported reason for the reprisals. He told them that he had seen dead soldiers whose bodies were “partially destroyed” by the heat and

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“vultures” picking at the corpses. As he said, carrying out Goering’s reprisal order would amount to “outright murder.”1 The presence of Franz-Peter Weixler at Kondomari ensured that the whole terrible action was captured in a series of photographs – from the arrival of the German troops to the assembly of the villagers in the square, the separation of the men and their walk to the olive grove, the executioners forming a semi-circle and the killing of the civilians (see Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-166-0525-03 to Bild 101I-166-0525-39). The German Army in the Second World War committed many atrocities at the behest of its Nazi leadership – from Poland to France, from Russia to Greece. But the actions of Franz-Peter Weixler on that hot day in June 1941 ensured that the murder of these civilians could not be forgotten. Many will have seen these shocking photographs but may not be aware of how and why they were taken and the steps the photographer took to ensure their survival. Directed to surrender his film to his superiors, Weixler was able to send copies to a friend in Athens. He was soon dismissed from the German Army and later accused of high treason for having leaked his photographic record of the Kondomari massacre and for helping some of the villagers to escape. Arrested by the Gestapo, Weixler was court-martialed. Condemned to death, Weixler remained in prison from early 1944 until the end of the war. But he would not rest. Weixler went on to provide a written testimony of the massacre and Goering’s role in ordering such actions during the trial of the former Nazi leader at Nuremberg after the war. While Goering committed suicide before he was to be executed, Horst Trebes – who was awarded the Knights Cross by Goering for his “bravery” in Crete - was later killed following the Normandy landings. Former General Student was never tried for crimes against civilians. Why did Weixler take the action he did? We know that he was not the only member of the German armed forces who protested at the reprisals ordered on Crete. But Weixler’s action went beyond disapproval. We know that he was a committed Christian, having been a member of various pre-war Catholic associations and after the war he became active in Germany’s Christian Social Union Party. He had joined the Nazi Party and the SS in 1933 but was soon expelled and briefly arrested in 1934, becoming active in various German anti-Nazi resistance groups, using the evidence of his photographs to encourage opposition to the regime. 1

Franz Weixler, Goering case: Information Supplied by Franz Weixler, 11th November 1945, http://lawcollections.library.cornell.edu/nuremberg/catalog/nur:00816.

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And so we stand before the Kondomari Massacre Memorial on the outskirts of the village. The names of those murdered are listed to the left of the classical-style stele standing behind the ceremonial stone grave site. And beyond the entrance is another stele depicting the Cretan resistance to the German occupation of their island (see Text Images 14.1 to 14.3).

Text Image 14.1 - The Kondomari Massacre Memorial. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Text Image 14.2 - Cretan resistance stele at the entrance to the Kondomari Massacre Memorial. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Text Image 14.3 - John Irwin and Bruce Mildenhall at the Kondomari Massacre Memorial. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

After the war Weixler returned to Kondomari and was given a customary welcome in the local café. It is recorded that the welcome was brief, no doubt the sense of loss being felt intensely by the surviving villagers. Later Weixler’s photographs were finally brought to a wider audience through the investigative research of two Greek journalists, Vassos Mathiopoulos and Kostas Papapetrou.

What touches me is the fact that this is no sterile memorial, rarely visited and alone. This memorial – like so many others across Greece – stands in the village where these terrible events took place. It is a living memorial; many local residents being related to those remembered here. These were ordinary civilians, with their lives ahead of them, struck down in their prime by a ruthless force, acting contrary to the laws of war. This was murder pure and simple. And on that day Franz-Peter Weixler was outraged. He protested. He helped some escape and he ensured that this crime was documented and would not be forgotten. It is fitting that the memorial includes a mural reproducing some of the photographs taken by Franz-Peter Weixler on that terrible day.

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The Greek Campaign – Prisoners, Evaders and Escapers

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With the end of the battle for Crete, the Allied campaign in defence of Greece in 1941 came to an end. While estimates vary, the Australian official historian of the campaign Gavin Long states that some 62,000 British and Empire troops served in the mainland and some 31,000 on Crete, not to mention the significant Greek forces involved in the campaign. At the end of the campaign in the mainland over 50,000 troops were evacuated, and after the battle of Crete about 16,500 were embarked and brought to the Middle East. Many soldiers had been killed and wounded. But thousands were now in captivity – over 11,000 captured both on the mainland and Crete. There were now over 22,000 Allied prisoners of war held by the Germans and over 5,000 of these were Australian, 2,000 having been captured on the mainland and over 3,000 on Crete. This chapter recounts the experience of these thousands of Allied prisoners. It tells of their initial capture and the beginning of their long journey through the series of prisoner of war camps that would lead them to Germany. Their experience of the camps in Greece was awful, with poor food, accommodation and unhealthy conditions. Violence and worse was suffered by many. Those who survived would long remember their experience of capture and incarceration in Greece. Yet other Allied soldiers were able to evade capture or escape from their captors. While establishing exact numbers are elusive, the Australian official historian of the campaign, Gavin Long estimates that hundreds were in this position on the mainland and thousands on Crete after the last evacuation ships departed. These soldiers would recount their stories of being on the run in occupied Greece, of being helped by local civilians at great risk, some joining the resistance fight and the many who made their way with local help across land and sea to return to Allied lines in the Middle East to continue the fight. This is the story of capture, evasion and escape in wartime Greece.

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Captured – The Anzac prisoners in the Peloponnese As the Allied campaign in the defence of the Greek mainland came to an end with the last evacuations from the harbours and beaches of the Peloponnese, thousands of Allied soldiers were captured by the advancing German forces. They would all be brought to Corinth and its Prisoner of War (POW) camp. For a few months Corinth would become one of the major POW centres in Greece and notorious for its dreadful conditions. As I drove out over the hills and plains south of Corinth, I tried to imagine the lonely columns of tired Allied prisoners trudging north that would have been a common sight in late April and early May 1941. The 700 Allied soldiers who were captured at Nafplio were held initially in the fenced enclosure of the local school grounds near the harbour (see Text Image 15.1). They were soon joined by the 1,300 other Allied troops captured at Tolo on April 28 who were marched the few kilometres to Nafplio, arriving the next day. A German photograph survives, showing Allied soldiers milling around the school yard at Nafplio (see Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L26106). One of those held here was Frankston’s 24-year-old Private Robert William McLeod (Service Number VX4505) of the 2/6th Battalion’s B Company who only days before had defended the Corinth Canal. Separated from his unit, Robert made his way south to Nafplio but failed to be evacuated. After a few days those held here were moved north, some transported in the closed carriages of a narrow gauge railway went directly to Corinth. Others marched on foot; some stopping at Argos (see Map 9).

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Text Image 15.1 - Nafplio school grounds, the location of the former prisoner enclosure in April 1941, Nafplio. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Text Image 15.2 - Corinth refugee centre, location of the former German POW camp in 1941, Corinth. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

One of those at Argos was Toorak’s 21-year-old Gunner Ian Ramsay (Service Number VX10100) of the 2/2nd Field Regiment. He wrote of 200 soldiers being crammed into a dark warehouse cellar near the town square, with no sanitation, windows or fresh air. Held here for a day or two, the prisoners were once fed a meal of “synthetic margarine and sausage.” 1 The prisoners were called out early each morning to stand for hours in the yard outside.

As they moved north they were given no food or water and little rest by their guards. Ian remembered the soldiers in his column comparing the dusty road to those of Australia, noting that the only thing lacking were gum trees and flies - or “sheilas” as one wag added! Marching through the night they passed through silent hamlets, beside olive groves - with only the sound of a barking dog or goat’s bleat disrupting the silence. By sunrise Ian and his comrades had reached Corinth and its POW camp. Here they would join the 900 Allied soldiers captured at the Corinth battle on the April 26.

He remembered the brutality of the guards, Ian himself being beaten by an officer for no reason. Any civilian – no matter age or gender – who made any effort to assist the prisoners, such as trying to throw them food, were violently dealt with. That made him all the more grateful to those who did help, like the young girl who he could never forget who quickly thrust a packet of cigarettes into his hand before safely disappearing along a lane – unseen by his German guards. As he later wrote: “The girl had risked horrible and painful reprisals in showing her loyalty to the Allies and her sympathy for the prisoners. The Greek’s were fine allies, loyal, brave and sympathetic.” 2 1

Ian Ramsay, POW: A digger in Hitler’s prison camps 1941-45, Macmillan, 1985, p. 11.

Ian Ramsay, POW: A digger in Hitler’s prison camps 1941-45, Macmillan, 1985, p. 12.

A few years ago I had the privilege to stand before the walls of the former Corinth camp – some parts of the wall showing its age - with descendents of some of the Jewish Palestinian soldiers and pioneers, who were captured and held at Corinth (see Text Images 15.2 and 15.3). Through late April and early May Allied prisoners streamed into Corinth’s prison camp from across the Peloponnese. By May 6 the camp was overcrowded with some 8,000 Allied prisoners, including between 900 and 1,000 Australians as well as 1,000 New Zealanders. According to the German census conducted in the camp cited by the historian Yoav Gelber there were 1,907 Palestinian soldiers and 2 officers in the camp. There were also 1,600 Yugoslav soldiers as well as a few hundred Indian

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civilians who were said to have been brought to Greece to look after mules and donkeys. Their presence was noted by 23-year-old Newcastle-born Lance Corporal Bernard Ryan (Service Number NX13243) of the 2/1st Battalion. Gelber gives a total of 11,110 prisoners eventually being held at the camp. Another strange group of inmates were some 4,000 Italian POW’s captured by the Greek Army in Albania. The Germans temporarily returned their Italian allies to the camp after they were caught looting in the surrounding area.

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remembered being given two servings of a tightly rationed diet of thin potato soup. Twenty-five-year-old Warrant Officer Milton Boulter (Service Number VX13678) from Frankston described being offered a single meal per day of rice, macaroni or lentils and a hard biscuit as “enough to keep a fit man going but it was hardly the diet to assist a man out of condition to recover.”6 The typical diet amounted to little more than 800 calories per day, leading prisoners to suffer constant hunger pains and weakened health. Twenty-two-year-old Albury-born Private Kevin Byrne (Service Number VX47857) of the Australian Army Service Corps remembered feeling hungrier and hungrier. Many prisoners suffered “starvation blackouts” due to the lack of food.7 Text Image 15.3 - On the trail of the Corinth Anzacs and Palestine soldiers – me with my fellow researchers, from third left – Talya Klayner-Dayagi, Yehiam Sharon (at rear), Ori Avigour, the author, Yossi Solomin and Tova Michal Solomin, Corinth Canal. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

A former disused Greek Army barracks, the camp’s perimeter enclosed a 15-acre area of sandy soil. The barrack huts were described by inmates as old verminous structures, filthy and primitive, alive with bedbugs, lice, spiders and rats. The smell of animal and human faeces hit you as you entered. One prisoner remembered the internal latrine was awash with urine and faeces, up to the top of his army boots. As the Australian Ian Ramsay remembered “the filth was unspeakable.” 3 The deplorable condition of the barracks led many prisoners to dig foxholes in the sandy soil, covering them with whatever scraps of material they could find. One prisoner – the Palestinian Sergeant Yosef Amogi – thought they looked like “rats” as they scuttled about their holes.4 The open area included a 70-metre-long open trench latrine as well as a couple of wells from which the prisoners could draw their water ration for both drinking and washing. The rations provided by the Germans were meagre and described as “terrible.”5 Historian Peter Monteath recounts that 23-year-old Private Ralph Churches (Service Number SX5286) from South Australia

A lifeline for the prisoners was a visit from the International Red Cross as well as the regular supplements to their diet provided by the local Greek community. Some would throw food over the perimeter enclosure – despite the threat of violence by the guards. For a time the Germans even allowed the operation of a kind of food market, most likely just inside the camp perimeter, from which prisoners with drachmae could purchase dried fruit and other food items. Some would supplement their diet by using “shanghais” to kill and bag sparrows, others were so desperately hungry that they slaughtered and ate a dog. Yet due to the generally poor diet, the prevalence of lice and the proximity to open latrines, with their army of flies in summer, many prisoners rapidly become debilitated with malaria and dysentery. Treatment was attempted by captured Allied medical officers, although as Private Ralph Churches wrote medical supplies were practically non-existent. With 20% of the prisoners infested with lice, the Germans organised guarded trips to the nearby waters of the Gulf of Corinth. Both British Driver Alfred Adams and Private Kevin Byrne noted these trips, with Kevin remembering his embarrassment as he and the other prisoners were marched naked through Corinth in broad daylight – to the amusement of their guards! On one such occasion Lance Corporal Bernard Ryan recounts how a Greek woman attempted to distribute bread to the prisoners and was roughly handled by the Germans for her pains. 6

Ian Ramsay, POW: A digger in Hitler’s prison camps 1941-45, Macmillan, 1985, p. 18.

Yosef Amogi, Total Commitment, Cornwall Books, 1982, p. 42.

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A. Tegla Davies, The Friends Ambulance Unit: the story of the F.A.U. in the Second World War 1939-46, George Allen & Unwin, 1947. http://www.ourstory.info/library/4-ww2/Friends/fau03.html#2a.

Warrant Officer (2nd Class) T.A.M. Boulter, “AIF, Headquarters, 1 Aust Corps 19 Aug 41., Report of Prisoner of War [WOII T.A.M. Boulter, 17th Australian Infantry Brigade, HQ], Personal Narrative”, 2nd AIF, 6 Australian Division General Staff Branch, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 1/5/12. 7

Mason, p. 57; Ralph Churches, St George Exercise Book, handwritten memoir, c 1945, copy supplied to the author by Neil Churches.

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The German camp authorities generally expressed little regard for the mass of humanity under their care. As in other camps in Greece, historians Wynne Mason and Yoav Gelber recount that former prisoners remembered being assaulted and “a good deal of unnecessary shooting” by the young SS troops and older unfit soldiers who replaced the frontline troops who were the initial guards at the camp.8 According to Warrant Officer Milton Boulter while some guards – parachutists and Austrians - had “generally speaking, treated our men quite well, the young Nazi guards were extremely cruel.”9 As to the latter Milton reported: “These people took an unwholesome delight at firing their tommy guns into a crowd without provocation. Men suffering from diarrhea and dysentery while attempting at night to reach slit trenches, which served as latrines, were frequently fired upon. These guards, apparently being no respecter of their noble ally, fired upon a group of Italians.”10 Private Ralph Churches had similar recollections, of the guards as hectoring, bullying and tyrannical; assaulting the prisoners with rifle butts and shooting them if they approached the perimeter wire or the latrines at night. Some prisoners volunteered for labour gangs for extra food, loading bombs on aircraft or even defusing bombs and shells. Private Ralph Churches wrote of one prisoner – most probably Waverley-born 26-yearold Private Lindsay James Smith (Service Number NX6467) of the 6th Division Supply Column - being compelled to drive a truck around the Megara airfield to test it for landmines. All of which was in breach of the Geneva Convention’s prohibition on prisoners being used in war work. The war was never far away, Warrant Officer Milton Boulter reporting that prisoners watched the departure of German parachute transports headed for the invasion of Crete from the nearby aerodrome. Their spirits were raised by the sight of the planes that returned, damaged and limping back from the battle, “bullet ridden and several with wings partly destroyed”, with prisoners detailed to help unload and bury the German 8

Mason, p. 57; Yoav Gelber, “Palestinian POWs In German Captivity”, Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. XIV, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1981, pp. 89-137.

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dead.11 Private Ralph Churches had similar recollections, adding that the camp authorities threatened to shoot five prisoners for every German soldier whose dead body had been mutilated during the battle of Crete. Yet one other positive – in addition to the supplements of food – was the work of the Salvation Army and YMCA inmates, who according to Warrant Officer Milton Boulter made the camp conditions “more pleasant” by raising the prisoners’ spirits with three to four concerts a week.12 Private Ralph Churches reported that regular and well-attended Sunday Church Services arranged by two captured Australian Army padres were good for the morale of the inmates. After nearly two months, the camp finally began to close from June 5 with the departure of the first prisoners on the long journey north - by rail and by foot, first to what would be referred to by its inmates as the “hell-camp” at Thessaloniki and then on to permanent prisoner of war camps in Germany. Some Allied soldiers would escape from the Corinth camp and a few as they journeyed north. Readers of the Perth Sunday Times on Sunday 26th April 1942 would have been glad to read the welcome news of the escape in June from the Corinth prison camp of 33-year-old Waratahborn Corporal Lew Bailey (Service Number NX3109) of the Australian Army Service Corps and a Sergeant J. Phillips from Sydney, along with two British soldiers, Corporals Yates and Lambert of the Royal Army Service Corps. One New Zealand soldier – a Trooper Connelly – escaped and made it all the way to Thessaloniki, where after hiding there for a week or so was hidden in a village to the north of the city, before making his escape to Imbros with the help of the monks of Mount Athos. We also know of at least three Palestinian soldiers who escaped and for a few weeks joined up with New Zealand Corporal Fred Woollams north of Megara. Others – like Warrant Officer Milton Boulter – made their escape during the marches north (see Chapter 17). Corinth was also the location of a hastily organised medical facility for the prisoners, operated by captured Allied medical personnel and local women, located at two hotels in Corinth (one of these was the Ionian Palace Hotel). One of the Allied medical officers was New Zealander John

11 Warrant Officer (2nd Class) T.A.M. Boulter, “AIF, Headquarters, 1 Aust Corps 19 Aug 41., Report of Prisoner of War [WOII T.A.M. Boulter, 17th Australian Infantry Brigade, HQ], Personal Narrative”, 2nd AIF, 6 Australian Division General Staff Branch, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 1/5/12.

10 Warrant Officer (2nd Class) T.A.M. Boulter, “AIF, Headquarters, 1 Aust Corps 19 Aug 41., Report of Prisoner of War [WOII T.A.M. Boulter, 17th Australian Infantry Brigade, HQ], Personal Narrative”, 2nd AIF, 6 Australian Division General Staff Branch, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 1/5/12.

12 Warrant Officer (2nd Class) T.A.M. Boulter, “AIF, Headquarters, 1 Aust Corps 19 Aug 41., Report of Prisoner of War [WOII T.A.M. Boulter, 17th Australian Infantry Brigade, HQ], Personal Narrative”, 2nd AIF, 6 Australian Division General Staff Branch, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 1/5/12.

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most likely have been taken to the medical facilities set up here for the care of wounded and sick Allied soldiers. When they closed on the May 10, George was still ill and would have been moved to the prisoner medical facilities at Kokkinia outside Athens. It was while here that he died on May 27, 1941. Commonwealth War Grave Commission records show that he was initially buried at the Kokkinia Civil Cemetery and subsequently moved to the Commonwealth War Cemetery at Phaleron in February 1945. After the war the site of the Corinth prison camp was returned to the Greek Army and fully renovated. For some time, it served as the base for the Greek Army’s 6th Infantry Battalion. For the 8,000 or more Allied prisoners held at Corinth it would be a time they would find hard to forget. For Kevin Byrne, Ralph Churches, Ian Ramsay and Bernard Ryan and the other nearly 900 Australians held here, Corinth would feature in their memoirs and recollections.

Text Image 15.4 – New Corinth POW Camp Memorial plaque, created by the author and Melbourne’s Pankorinthian Association, to be unveiled in Corinth. Photograph Jim Claven 2020.

Borrie of the 1st New Zealand General Hospital who wrote an account of his experiences. The facility at the Ionian Palace Hotel had some 120 beds, most of the Allied patients suffering wounds and infections. Due to the care provided here only four patients died. These life-saving facilities were opened due to the efforts of a 70-year-old Greek Red Cross worker, Miss Ariadne Massautti. Historian Wynne Mason reports that after the war she was awarded the George Medal for her efforts. One of the Australians who received medical treatment here was Private George Young (Service Number VX4438) of the 2/6th Battalion from Parkdale in Melbourne. Seriously wounded as a result of an air attack on the retreat south of Corinth most likely on the April 26, George had to be left behind by his retreating B Company comrades. His Battalion’s Lieutenant Sherlock reported that George suffered “a severe wound to his stomach.”13 Captured by the advancing Germans at Corinth he would 13 Lieutenant W. Sherlock, B Company, 2/6th Battalion, “Report on Anti-parachute operations by “B” Coy 2/6 Aust Inf Bn, 26th April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Battalion, War Diary February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6.

In 2019 it was my pleasure to work together with Melbourne’s Pankorinthian Association to create of a new plaque commemorating those Allied soldiers who were incarcerated at Corinth and those locals who helped them (see Text Image 15.4). This is planned to be installed by the local authorities and unveiled at the site of the former camp at Corinth. Hopefully this is only the first of other new memorials commemorating the story of the prisoner of war camps established across Greece, those held there and their Greek helpers. The experiences of these Australians and Greeks are part of the web of experiences connecting Australia and Greece.

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To Hell and Back - Prisoners, escapers and their helpers in Thessaloniki’s Second World War POW Camp Anyone who comes to Thessaloniki is drawn to its magnificent waterfront. Its harbor and promenade have seen the march of history. The elegant buildings, churches and ancient monuments that flow down from the foot of the castle above, lead you to the sea (see Text Image 16.1). It was here, in 1941, that thousands of captured Allied soldiers marched under the watchful eye of their German captors. They had come to defend Greece – many from Australia and New Zealand – and they had been defeated. After a valiant campaign against overwhelming odds and technically superior forces, these were the soldiers who had not been evacuated. They were headed for one of the most infamous German POW camps in Greece, designated Dulag 183 on the eastern edge of Thessaloniki. This would become the largest POW camp in Greece, in which nearly every Allied POW would be held while awaiting transfer to the main camps established throughout German-occupied Europe. This chapter tells the story of the camp, the prisoners of war who were incarcerated there and those who escaped to freedom with the help of the local population. Like the story of the Greek campaign of 1941 and Greece’s long years of occupation, the story of Dulag 183, its prisoners and their helpers is one of suffering, heroism and bravery. It is a story that needs to be told.

Prisoner - Into captivity As the battle for Crete drew to a close and the Greek campaign came to an end, historian Gavin Long estimates that approximately 22,000

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British and Empire service personnel had been captured by the enemy. Some 5,132 of these were Australians, 2,032 captured on the mainland and 3,102 on Crete. This represented the largest single capture of Australian prisoners in the war to date – a number that would only be surpassed by those captured later in the Pacific theatre. For those left behind the feeling of defeat and capture could be overwhelming. Digger memoirs reveal expressions of shame and guilt, of failing their mates, of utter uselessness. The moment of capture could be a dangerous one, yet many reports from Greece reveal the opposite. In many accounts the victors took their defeated enemy into captivity without rancour. Peter Monteath’s study of Australian prisoners in Europe demonstrates this in the experience of the following young Australian soldiers. Twenty-one-year-old Carltonborn Private George Morley (Service Number VX37536) of the Australian Army Service Corps recounted how their paratrooper captors stood by and let the Australians dispose of their weapons before escorting them into captivity. 22-year-old Launceston-born Lieutenant John Peter Crooks (Service Number TX378) reported how orderly and peaceful was the gathering of prisoners after the fall of Kalamata. Twenty-twoyear-old Windsor-born Sergeant Keith Horton Hooper (Service Number VX3956) of the 2/6th Battalion (reformed into the Australian 17th Brigade Composite Battalion on Crete) remembered being given a British biscuit and some bully beef by one of his captors on Crete commenting that this was “a small act of chivalry not uncommon among front-line troops,” with other Australians recording German troops referring to them with familiarity as “Aussies.”1 The experience of capture near Monemvasia for 23-year-old Private Ralph Churches (Service Number SX5286) from South Australia and his comrades was relaxed and friendly: “Their captors displayed no ill-will towards their erstwhile quarry, indeed they offered them cigarettes to calm their nerves, motioned to the Australians to gather their few things together and escorted them to their captain, who in halting English pronounced their capture.” 2 One British officer – George “Loopy” Kennard - was captured by a German officer outside Kalamata only to discover that he was an acquaintance from the pre-war era. He was promptly invited to dinner – the next time his captor had some leave. As one New Zealand prisoner – Jack Elsworthy - recalled “they had been front-line soldiers, and had 1

Monteath, p. 85.

Private Ralph Churches quoted in Monteath, p. 73.

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broken English, “for you, das var iss ofer.”6 Forty-one-year-old Perth-born Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Le Souef (Service Number WX3326) of the 2/7th Field Ambulance was delivered the French version at Souda Bay – “Le guerre est fini pour vous.”7 In Greece and Crete, the final orders for surrender were often made on the evacuation beaches. As news of the last evacuation ships having left and with no prospect of further evacuation, orders would be issued to surrender. For example, this happened at the harbours of Kalamata, Nafplio, Tolo and Sfakia.

Text Image 16.1 - Thessaloniki waterfront from the White Tower- where the arriving Allied prisoners of war marched in 1941. Photograph Jim Claven 2015.

treated us like soldiers because they knew what it was like.”

Three

diggers captured after the battle of Vevi wrote in similar terms of their experience of frontline troops after their escape to Allied lines in the Middle East, reporting that the Germans “treated us very well, they gave us rice stew to eat, they gave us straw to sleep on in a building nearby.”4 Reading through the Army records, memoirs and battalion diaries, it seems quaint to come across those famous words, often used in TV comedies with an exaggerated German accent – “For you the war is over”– as was said in perfect English by a German soldier to two 21-year-old Australian soldiers from New South Wales - Gunners Doug Nix (Service Number NX3365) and Crofton “Teddy” Barnes (Service Number NX3317) both of the 2/1st Field Regiment - as they were surprised searching for food while on the run in a cave south of Kalamata.5 Private Ralph Churches recounts that on being captured the German officer stated in 3

Jack Elsworthy, Greece Crete Stalag Dachau: A New Zealand soldier’s encounters with Hitler’s Army, AWA Press, pp. 161-162.

Private Edward Steel quoted in Lieutenant C.T. Colquhoun, Intelligence Officer, 2/2 Bn., “AIF, HQ 2/2 Bn., A.I.F., 1 Jul. 41. – Statement from NX5097 Cpl Lane, P.A., NX3654 Pte Campbell, C.C., and NX5323 Pte. Steel, E. after returning from Greece on 30th Jun 41 is given below”, 2nd AIF, 6 Australian Division General Staff Branch, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 1/5/12.

Monteath, p. 72.

The troops were instructed to destroy or disable their weapons and a party was sent off to make contact with the advancing Germans to deliver the surrender order. Troops would often be given the option of trying to escape capture. And this would be an individual and a brave decision. For even though the Greek people should great fortitude in supporting hundreds if not thousands of Allied soldiers who took this option, often these attempts were in vain and capture soon followed. Estimates of the numbers of those on the run and those who successfully escaped vary. Historian Gavin Long estimates that “some hundreds” Allied troops were on the run on the Greek mainland after the end of the campaign there, while on Crete he estimates “thousands” of Allied troops (of which possibly 600 were Australian and 400 New Zealand) were on the run at the end of the campaign there and some 600 managed to make their way to Egypt. Research by Damer and Frazer is more precise estimating that 869 Allied evaders successfully made it back to the Middle East from Crete, including 254 Australians.8 Yet for the vast majority of Australian soldiers left behind in enemy-occupied Greece the end of the campaign was the beginning of a long night of captivity. The captured diggers were held first in a variety of temporary and illprepared camps. These were usually established near where the major concentrations of troops had been captured, such as those established at Nafplio, Kalamata, Corinth and on Crete. Some were former Greek Army barracks or camps for holding Italian prisoners. But they might also be no more than a field, a school ground or a cottage. All of these camps shared common features – poor sanitation and inadequate food. The camps were rough and ready, and not very secure. Many captured 6

Private Ralph Churches quoted in Danny Neave and Craig Smith, Aussie Soldier: POW, Big Sky Publishing, 2009, p. 24.

7 8

Leslie Le Souef, To War Without a Gun, Artlook, 1980, p. 152.

Long, pp. 185, 307, 312; Sean Damer and Ian Fraser, On the Run: Anzac Escape and Evasion in Enemy-occupied Crete, Penguin, 2006, pp. 73, 246.

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Allied soldiers escaped easily from these facilities, joining those who had evaded captured in the first place.

The Way North Gradually but steadily almost all these Allied prisoners were moved north to Thessaloniki’s Dulag 183 to await their transport to other camps in Germany-occupied Europe. Those on the mainland were sometimes moved through a series of transit camps (such as from Megara or Nafplio, to Corinth – see Chapter 15) and then on to Thessaloniki. Others from Crete were sent to Thessaloniki by sea. The journey over land was often tortuous, train jounrneys being interrupted by breaks in the railway line due to bombing and the lack of rolling stock. The weary and often sick or wounded soldiers would have to continue their journey – often across hundreds of kilometres – sometimes by truck but more often than not on foot. Private Ralph Churches remembered his long journey from Corinth to Thessaloniki, a combination of train journeys interrupted by long marches, the latter all the more difficult due to the poor health of the prisoners. One section consisted of a 25-mile march over the mountains to Lamia, day and night, some marching in cracked boots, others barefoot, with hunger constantly gnawing at the marcher’s stamina. As he remembered: “… the majority of the column were staggering in scattered groups, faces begrimed with dust washed to streakiness by perspiration, sweated out in hardship that had worsened to the limits of human endurance.”9 Only limited rations were provided, 27-year-old Morwell-born Private Llewellyn Bruce Vary (Service Number VX5731) of the Australian Army Service Corps stating that only a single biscuit per man was issued for the journey to Thessaloniki. Yet as they were moved north, many of the prisoners later recorded the kindness of the local population and their support when some made their escape. Twenty-one-year-old Gunner Ian Ramsay (Service Number VX10100) of the 2/2nd Field Regiment from Toorak, who had been captured at Nafplio, remembers how their Austrian paratrooper guards warned the local population to stay away from the prisoners as they assembled in the main square of Argos. Yet despite these warnings, Greek civilians took pity on the Allied prisoners who had come to defend Greece. And despite

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lacking food themselves, they took great risks to secretly offer food to the prisoners. Ian remembered how an elderly woman had thrown a loaf of bread to the prisoners from her window as they were being marched through Argos. The bread was confiscated, the prisoner who had caught it violently dealt with and the elderly woman led away by the German guards to an uncertain fate. Others were more successful in helping the weary soldiers, as Ian Ramsay continued his account: “A few minutes later, we were marching on again. As we went under an underpass, a young woman dashed out of a dark alleyway and forced a packet of cigarettes into my pocket. Within a second or so she had sprinted up the alley and disappeared among the narrow lanes. The guards had not seen this and later I became popular, being a non-smoker, when I distributed the cigarettes around. The girl had risked horrible and painful reprisals in showing her loyalty to the Allies and her sympathy for the prisoners. The Greeks are fine allies, loyal, brave and sympathetic.”10 At war's end Private Ralph Churches would recall with some emotion the sympathy and bravery of “those wonderful Greek peasant women” who would approach the open doors of the cattle trucks and give food to the prisoners – hard-boiled eggs, lettuces, cheeses, cakes and bread. He noted how generous these gifts were, given the locals experience of German occupation and the personal risk they faced approaching the train. He wondered at their actions: “Why were those Greek women so heroically persistant in their efforts to relieve our distress … it was the natural feeling that good people everywhere have for right suffering in the bondage of might … Kindness in another’s troubles, courage in your own … It must be surely be the fervent hope of all our men who travelled that journey that these sisters of humanity lived to see the liberation of their country…”11 A few prisoners seized opportunities to escape during the long march north. Some would merely start to lag behind the column and make a dart to freedom. This is how 25-year-old Sydney-born Sergeant Richard Sydney Turner (Service Number NX3048) of the Australian Army Service Corps made his escape after being captured at Megara. Along with another prisoner, he left the column as it crossed a hairpin bend. Others 10

Ralph Churches, St George Exercise Book, handwritten memoir, c 1945, copy supplied to the author by Neil Churches.

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Ian Ramsay, POW: A digger in Hitler’s prison camps 1941-45, Macmillan, 1985, p. 12.

Ralph Churches, St George Exercise Book, handwritten memoir, c 1945, copy supplied to the author by Neil Churches.

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hid where they could during the short halts in the march, hoping not to be missed when the march recommenced. Gavin Long drew on the accounts of three diggers from New South Wales - 22-year-old Corporal Percy Albert Lane (Service Number NX5097) and Privates Colin Charles Campbell (Service Number NX3654) and 22-year-old English-born Edward Steel (Service Number NX5323) - captured after the battle of Vevi who hid in a drain following a stop near Florina and Warrant Officer Milton Boulter (Service Number VX13678), a 25-year-old Frankston-born lawyer, who had been captured at Kalamata and who managed to leave his prisoner column heading north near Lamia to hide in a bush (see Chapter 17). Those POW’s who succeeded in evading re-capture did so only with the help of local civilians. Sergeant Richard Turner was hidden by Greek villagers in the mountains south of Thessaly. One Ioannis Kallinikos from the village of Livanatas sheltered him for a year and a half. Richard joined the Greek andartes. Gavin Long writes that the three diggers from New South Wales were helped by villagers throughout central Greece until they were taken by Greek fishermen from Volos to Skiathos, Skyros, Antipsara, Smyrna and finally to British Palestine. He goes on to recount how Warrant Officer Milton Boulter was taken in by a local farmer, working in his fields in return for food and shelter. He moved from village to village, eventually reaching Evia and from thence to Skyros, Turkey and back to Egypt. In his escape Thomas was most probably aided by Stamatios Katsatos on Evia and by a Skyriot fisherman, Emanuel Virgilou (see Chapter 17). For those who travelled by sea, there would be little opportunity for escape. The voyage took around five days, the transport and hospital vessels hugging the coast to avoid Allied submarines. Some voyages were enjoyable. Historian Wynne Mason writes of a large batch of sick and wounded that left the Kokkinia hospital camp near Athens in late August 1941 who travelled to the Piraeus docks in large passenger buses. They embarked on the Italian hospital ship Gradisca, enjoying good care and food from the Italian medical staff. For others who took the journey by sea, the voyage was far less enjoyable. After the march to the harbor, the prisoners would be battened down in the holds during the night, sometimes for the whole voyage, with no light, and sharing the space with rats. Food was insufficient to avoid hunger; if they were lucky, prisoners were issued with bully beef and dry biscuits each day. Others were thrown raw fish from the decks above – “it was like feeding the seals”, remembered 22-year-old Geelong-born Sergeant Alwyn

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“Beau” Grinter (Service Number VX5105) of the 2/6th Battalion.12 Even on the sea voyages, prisoners thought of escape. Twenty-threeyear-old Manjimup-born Private Herbert “Sam” Stratton (Service Number WX547) of the 2/11th Battalion recounted how the prisoners “were always looking for a chance to go over the side” as the transport hugged the coast on its way to Thessaloniki. 13 Lieutenant “Sandy” Thomas discussed taking control of the lightly guarded ship with its Greek crew, only being dissuaded when informed that the Germans would sink the ship – and its human cargo - if this occurred. And so they travelled north – by land and by sea - to the waterfront of Thessaloniki, the second city of Greece.

Thessaloniki As they arrived, the POW’s saw a city under occupation. Thessaloniki had fallen to the German Army in early April 1941 and remained occupied along with the rest of Greece for four long years. From its harbour, the Germans quickly moved on to occupy many of the Islands of the northern and central Aegean, including Lemnos and Lesvos (see Chapter 8). Soon the German Army was followed by the dreaded Gestapo, occupying the former Bulgarian Consulate and Club. German army photographer Theodore Sheerer’s colour photographs of the city show nothing of the dark side of life under German rule (see for example his photograph of the harbour, Bundesarchiv, Bild 244-086). But the occupation fell heavily on the city’s population. Like the rest of Greece, the local population would suffer the looting of what goods and provisions they might have by German soldiers. Another German army photographer photographed such scenes (see Bundesarchiv, Bild 1011163-0318-30/31). Soon German and other Axis occupiers began the formal commandeering of foodstuffs and essential supplies. Not only had the war disrupted the annual harvest season, but as Greece was divided into occupation zones by the Germans, Italians and Bulgarians, with different rules, regulations and impositions, normal food distribution and commerce was disrupted. Food production plummeted. In cities like Athens and Thessaloniki this soon resulted in hunger and then starvation. Added to this situation, 48,000 refugees fled to Thessaloniki from the Bulgarian zone. By October 1941 some 100,000 residents were being fed by 12

Sergeant Alwyn “Beau” Grinter, 2/6th Battalion in Clarke et al., Prisoners of War, Time Life Books, 1988, p. 34.

Private Herbert “Sam” Stratton, 2/11th Battalion, quoted in Patsy Adam-Smith, Prisoner of War: From Gallipoli to Korea, Viking 1992, p. 165.

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municipal soup kitchens. Across Greece, an estimated 450,000 civilians died of starvation and related ailments during the occupation. The German occupation of the city prompted the formation of one of the first resistance groups in Greece, under the name Eleftheria or Freedom. Its actions would see many local civilians interred in the German concentration camp that would be located at the former Pavlos Melas Greek Army camp to the west of the city centre. Many villages across Macedonia and Thrace would suffer reprisal actions by the German and other Axis occupiers – villages like Kormista, Kleisto, Ambelofyto and Kidonia. The years of occupation also witnessed the devastation of the city’s large Jewish community, the largest in Greece. A community that had existed and thrived for hundreds of years, whose forebears had been expelled from Spain in the fifteenth century, who maintained their distinctive Sephardic culture and ladino language, would be almost annihilated in the German deportations of early 1943. Prior to this they had been subjected to restrictions, confiscations and forced labour – including the infamous forced public humiliations in Plateia Eleftherias (or Freedom Square) of July 1942 – photographed for posterity by the German authorities (see Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-168-0895-07A). And the great Jewish cemetery – which had stretched over 35 hectares containing the remains of an estimated 350,000 dead – would be demolished by the municipal authorities, the headstones used for roadbuilding and other construction work in the city. From a community of 50,000 in 1943 fewer than one hundred remained hiding in the city on its liberation. Those individuals and resistance organizations who tried to help their Jewish neighbours faced the threat of German reprisals. The Jewish Museum in Thessaloniki is a welcome reminder of the thriving community that the Nazi’s sought to destory.14

Arrival The thousands of Allied soldiers who came to the city recounted in many memoirs and interviews how they arrived at Thessaloniki’s main railway station on the western edge of the city. From there, they were marched four miles, along its beautiful waterfront, passing the famous White Tower and on to the camp where they would be housed (see Text Image 16.1). As Don Turner writes in his biography of British Trooper Ernest Chapman 14 For a recent historical assessment of the Holocaust in Greece see Assistant Professor Giorgos Antoniou and Professor Dirk Moses, (eds.), The Holocaust in Greece, Cambridge UP, 2020. See also the authors review of this book: Jim Claven, “Never Again: Remembering the Holocaust in Greece – A Book Review”, Neos Kosmos, 3 August 2020.

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(Service Number 7884421) of the Royal Tank Regiment, Ernest marched from the station, with the exhausted men drawing on their reserves of pride, marching in formation as if on the parade ground. One wounded Anzac – Lieutenant W.B.”Sandy” Thomas of the New Zealand 23rd Battalion - wrote of his arrival at Thessaloniki’s harbour on the small cargo steamer Kreta in late October 1941 along with 50 Anzac patients also from the hospital camp at Kokkinia: “Soon after midday on 30th October, with snow capped Olympus on our left, we steamed up the Gulf of Salonika, to tie up in that historic port. Above the harbour the old stone city walls, the towers and fortresses standing out on the hill gave a medieval atmosphere but around the docks things were modern enough … German marines, none of whom seemed more than 18, paraded on the wharves. … everybody seemed busy … we were driven along the waterfront, past the great circular tower of Salonika, and in a few minutes were at the gates of the prison camp.”15 Another Kiwi soldier who arrived by sea was Warrant Officer Jack Elsworthy of the New Zealand 16th Light Aid Detachment. After days in the hold of the transport ship as it sailed to Thessaloniki from Athens, he recounted that many of the prisoners could hardly stand as they disembarked on the waterfront. The prisoners were forced to run along the waterfront, under the gaze of the local Greek population who had been ordered to watch the procession. Machine-gun posts were placed at each intersection. Any civilians – male or female - who made the mistake of smiling, waving or throwing some food to the prisoners were beaten by the German soldiers. Don Turner writes of British Trooper Ernest Chapman witnessing civilians being beaten by German soldiers for trying to hand prisoner’s small parcels of food as he marched away from the camp to the railway station in July 1941. British prisoner Sydney Litherland recalled nuns being assaulted for showing some favour to the prisoners. Private Gordon Squires of the British Royal Army Service Corps remembered a German guard shooting an Australian soldier who had intervened as the German had assaulted a pregnant Greek woman. When he arrived at the camp Warrant Officer Jack Elworthy and his contingent of prisoners were instructed to stand in the parade ground under the sun while the German officers had their lunch. Many prisoners collapsed. 15 W.B. “Sandy” Thomas, Dare to be free: One of the greatest true stories of WWII, Cassell, 2001, pp. 82-84.

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the minds of the Allied prisoners as they arrived and looked on their new accommodation - a collection of “dilapidated old army barracks.”16 The camp operated from May until November 1941, containing both officers and men. In May the camp held 300 Commonwealth prisoners, along with 1,600 Yugoslav prisoners. This rose to 7,000 in June as the first drafts from Corinth and the Peloponnese began to arrive. Later the prisoners captured on Crete would join those from other areas of Greece to swell the camp population until it rose as high as 12,000. Australian Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Le Souef wrote that a number of Greek policemen and civilians were also brought to the camp and kept in its dungeons, many under sentence of death for helping the Allied prisoners.

Text Image 16.2 - The War Museum at Thessaloniki, on the grounds of the former POW camp, Dulag 183. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Thessaloniki POW Transit Camp - Dulag 183 The new POW camp was designated by the Germans as Dulag or transit camp 183 and it would be one of two camps operated by the Germans in the city. The camp site lay just to the east of the central area of Thessaloniki, on the site of today’s War Museum and military base. The area has been a military zone since the Ottoman era, rising from the harbour and stretching in a large rectangle up to the hills that surround the city (see Text Image 16.2). The other camp was at the site of the former Pavlos Melas Greek Army camp to the west of the city. While this was largely used to incarcerate opponents of the occupation, it appears that some Allied soldiers were also kept here (such as for example Private Ralph Churches and his group of prisoners). The camp itself was over one hundred years old, having been erected during the Greek War of Independence as an Ottoman Army barracks and subsequently used as a Greek Army barracks following the city’s liberation in 1912. One prisoner - the 2/6th Battalion’s 23-yearold Launceston-born Lance Corporal Ivan Dudley “Skip” Welsh (Service Number VX4460) a poultry worker from Frankston - recalled being told that during the First World War the camp site had been used as an Allied military prison. By the outbreak of the Second World War the buildings had been condemned by the Greek authorities. One wonders what went through

The duration of each prisoner’s stay at the camp varied, some for three or more months, others two or three weeks and some a few hours. For example while the Australians of the 2/5th Australian General Hospital (AGH) were there for only 36 hours, New Zealand Warrant Officer Jack Elsworthy stayed for three weeks and some other prisoners from Crete were kept at the camp for three months. Don Turner writes that British Trooper Ernest Chapman’s first stint at the camp was for three months. While there are some conflicting reports of the layout of the POW camp, most agree on the following details. The POW camp was of some two hectares and comprised a clay barrack square, rows of old mostly wooden huts which were the prisoner’s accommodation and two concrete buildings that served as the camps medical facilities. Australian Sergeant Keith Hooper noted that the camp perimeter consisted of walls, buildings and a double barbed wire fence, with a concertina network between each fence. Security was maintained by searchlights, roving patrols, three guard towers and sentry's posted at the entrance to the camp as well as on the roof of one of the camp sheds. By the end of September, as the camp population was reduced, British and Commonwealth prisoners were housed in four barracks in a 300-yard by 200-yard sub-section of the original camp. Walking around the camp site today it is hard to imagine how the camps reported 12,000 prisoner inmates fared. Over the period of the camps existence it would earn for itself an infamous reputation. The conditions for the prisoners in the camp were awful. Many of the prisoners arrived suffering from battle wounds and the privations of weeks in the ill-provisioned temporary transit camps. Now they were subjected to unsanitary living conditions and a lack of 16 T. Stout T and M. Duncan, Medical Services in New Zealand and the Pacific: Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–45, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1958, p. 116.

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adequate food. Soon many would be ill and some die. In the words of one prisoner – Australian Private Herbert “Sam” Stratton of the Australian 2/11th Battalion - it was “a Hell camp.”17

Living in Vermin The POW accommodation within the camp was unhealthy to say the least. The camp authorities made little or no attempt to provide blankets or bedding on the floor of which rows of men had to lie. While some officers were given beds, most prisoners lay on the hut floors without bedding. The crowded accommodation ensured the rapid spread of vermin and disease throughout the inmates. The huts themselves were: “…thick with filth, and infested with lice, fleas and bedbugs. Swarms of flies and mosquitoes and numerous rats helped to make sleep for a newcomer almost [an] impossibility.” 18 New Zealand Warrant Officer Jack Elsworthy described his barracks as follows: “The block where we slept was a long stone building with a wooden floor, and as well as rats it was infested with every known form of insect. We slept on the floor and at night there was a constant sound of men moaning and fidgeting. Our hands were never still as we scratched our bodies or brushed our faces to get rid of bedbugs, mosquitoes, spiders and other pests.”19 Australian Corporal Reg King of the 2/11th Battalion remembered that there were so many lice in the barracks that when a British soldier died, the coat he had used as a pillow literally moved by itself on the floor. Rats bit men as they tried to sleep. Despite the infestations, it was only towards the end of the camp that prisoners reported that the Germans introduced disinfectant and the accommodation barracks were fumigated. Almost every barrack had a single water tap and four latrines for the use of its 250 or so prisoners, sometimes accommodating as many as 500 prisoners. The latrines were just two holes in a concrete floor over which prisoners had to squat, everything discharging into open drains, populated by the ubiquitous rats. Balance was difficult amongst the mess and at night even worse as no illumination was allowed. 17

Private Herbert “Sam” Stratton, 2/11th Battalion, quoted in Patsy Adam-Smith, Prisoner of War: From Gallipoli to Korea, Viking 1992, p. 165.

18 19

Mason, p. 77.

Jack Elsworthy, Greece Crete Stalag Dachau: A New Zealand soldier’s encounters with Hitler’s Army, AWA Press, p. 161.

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New Zealand Lieutenant W.B. “Sandy” Thomas remembered that the lack of proper sanitation and drainage resulted in the camp and its inmates being deluged by millions of flies, swarming around the latrines and cookhouses and forming ugly black heaps where refuse was dropped. Scores of mangy cats slunk around the barracks. Such an environment was a recipe for ill-health and disease.

Starvation Diets Added to their already weak condition and their poor living conditions the insufficient food provided and lack of water further undermined the prisoner’s health. The food provided was the worst that many of the prisoners had yet experienced. Daily rations are described as having comprised three-quarters of a hard Italian army biscuit, about four ounces of bread, sometimes mouldy, a pint of watery lentil soup with an occasional flavouring of horseflesh, and two hot drinks of German mint tea. Australian medical officer Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Le Soufe – who had arrived at the camp on October 3 by sea and remained there until his departure on November 19, 1941 - described the meat ration as “a skeleton with the meat stripped from it.”20 Mealtime was described by one prisoner as follows: “The main meal of the day was served at 11.30am in the morning. Euphemistically called soup, it came in a large open container holding about 30 gallons. The clear liquid had grease floating at the top and a few beans at the bottom. The server was constantly urged to keep stirring as he ladled it out but few were lucky enough to find many beans in their portion.”21 Prisoners became so hungry and desperate that the work details at the stables within the camp were regarded as a “plum job” as this provided the opportunity to eat some bran mash or grain – or even suck on some straw – all fodder provided for the camp horses. Private Herbert “Sam” Stratton witnessed prisoners fighting for the stale bread the Germans fed the horses. Others tried to rummage through the camp kitchen refuse bins in search of edible scraps of food. Some locals tried to sneak small articles of food, such as apples or tomatoes to the prisoners. If they were caught by the German guards, the guards would brutally beat the locals with their rifles – whether they 20 21

Leslie Le Souef, To War Without a Gun, Artlook, 1980, p. 172.

Jack Elsworthy, Greece Crete Stalag Dachau: A New Zealand soldier’s encounters with Hitler’s Army, AWA Press, p. 162

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were men or women, and no matter how old. Yet later - after October – a Mrs Riadis of the Greek Red Cross successfully petitioned the Germans to be able to distribute foodstuffs to the prisoners, and later in November as the camp was nearing closure International Red Cross parcels began to arrive. The poor diet meant that men lost weight, suffered malnutrition and the incidence of famine oedema and beriberi rose to hundreds of cases. One prisoner’s weight fell from 12 stone to just seven in a matter of weeks. Despite its prevalence the German medical officer refused to recognize beriberi amongst the prisoners. However the outbreak of malaria in the camp did force the German authorities to make a daily issue of ten grams of quinine. As for disinfectants, the camp hardly ever saw them, and the only drugs available were captured supplies left by Allied medical units. When the medical staff of the captured 2/5th Australian General Hospital arrived for a brief 36 hour stay at the camp in summer they would record the poor health conditions prevalent in the camp. They concluded that the food rations provided were “at practically starvation level of about 1200 calories”.22 This compared to the average of 2,700 calories provided to German POW’s in British camps. Many prisoners like 24-year-old Melbourne-born Sergeant Ron Phillips (VX5130) of the 2/6th Battalion felt the Germans starved the prisoners to reduce their will to resist and make them easier to control, a conclusion supported by the Australian official medical history of the war. Added to the poor diet and illnesses, many below the rank of sergeant – and even some non-commissioned officers and officers in defiance of the Geneva Convention - were required to undertake heavy work outside the camp - shifting wood in timberyards, unloading heavy sacks from railway trucks at a siding, pushing along 40-gallon petrol drums at the docks, cleaning out stables and working with pick and shovel. Commencing at the six o’clock in the morning, these work details included many sick cases. The one advantage of the work details were the additional rations (usually tins of meat or fish) and the opportunity to augment these with food (often bread or fruit) given to the prisoners by local residents.

Medical Services

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The two medical buildings were situated in a corner of the compound, surrounded by the brick wall and barbed wire fences. One hut was used as a specific dysentery ward, the other partly for surgical and partly for patients with other illnesses. These medical facilities initially accommodated 65 beds in May but as the number of prisoners grew it was expanded in June to 160 beds by incorporating the nearest barrack, a double storied building. This new building was split into two main wards on the ground floor, with six small rooms and a medical inspection room upstairs. Originally staffed by Yugoslav doctors and orderlies, these were replaced by British and Commonwealth medical staff as they arrived at the camp. Over the life of its operation the hospital attended to a large number of patients, the medical inspection room treating 400 cases daily throughout June. Some accounts report the camp having suffered a high mortality rate, with carts leaving the camp with the dead every day. Sergeant Keith Hooper remembered the distressing sight of four or five prisoners dying every day during his time at the camp. Yet the official New Zealand POW historian estimated that deaths in the camp were limited to around eighty prisoners, no doubt due to the efforts of the Allied medical officers and orderlies.

Brutality and Murder The brutality of the guards and violations of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners was a feature of the camp often recounted in prisoner memoirs. As soon as Warrant Officer Jack Elsworthy arrived at Thessaloniki he noticed a difference in the guards. Whereas those who had captured and held them in the other transit camps in Crete had been frontline soldiers who showed their prisoners the respect of fellow soldiers, the guards at Thessaloniki were either unfit or too young to serve in battle. As he said, “the guards at Salonika were second-rate scum and sadistic bullies”.23 British prisoner Miles Reid concurred with this conclusion on the difference between German frontline troops and those in POW camps. Other POW’s – such as British Private Sydney Litherland – argued that the guards when he arrived at Thessaloniki as being too old to be front line soldiers and this was why they were more vindictive.

The camp’s medical services - provided primarily by Allied medical personnel, utiltising whatever medicines they had managed to bring with them – struggled to cope with the diseases prevalent in the camp.

Australian Sergeant Keith Hooper remembered that on at least one occasion the whole camp was ordered to stand on parade from dawn to

23 Jack Elsworthy, Greece Crete Stalag Dachau: A New Zealand soldier’s encounters with Hitler’s Army, AWA Press, p. 160.

Walker, pp. 412-413.

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dusk in 100-degree heat. Those prisoners on work parties were subjected to screaming, bullying, kicking and knocking about with rifle butts. In the camp there was also much indiscriminate shooting by some of the sentries, one New Zealander being shot dead without warning and another wounded for being allegedly too near the tripwire inside the camp perimeter. Another prisoner – Australian Lance Corporal Ivan Dudley “Skip” Welsh - recorded the shooting of a thirsty British prisoner at the waterfront who sought to break ranks to drink from a water pipe. Twenty-nine-year-old Ascot Vale-born Captain Alan King (Service Number WX3356) of the Australian 2/7th Field Ambulance remembered “there was a lot of shooting going on”.24 Some officers who tried sleeping outside the huts at night found it a dangerous activity, as they were subject to indiscriminate shooting by the guards. New Zealand Warrant Officer Jack Elsworthy writes that the number of escapes had led the Germans to become “trigger-happy”, firing at any noise and anything that moved.25 The bodies of prisoners who were shot while escaping were left for up to three days as a warning to others, some moved to the parade ground in full few of the camp inmates. One night a sentry threw a grenade into a barrack latrine because someone had lit a match, and three men were seriously injured. Far from being reprimanded, the camp commandant congratulated the sentry on his action. The camp authorities placed little check on such acts of brutality and delayed granting permission for delegates of the International Red Cross Committee or a neutral power to inspect the camp.

“It was Hell” The memoirs of many prisoners abound with references to the hellish nature of the camp. Historian Margaret Barter cites that 21-year-old Gloucester-born Lance Corporal George William Blanch (Service Number NX1509) of the 2/2nd Battalion lamented that words could not describe the terrible nature of the conditions in the camp. With its poor food, poor accommodation, prevalence of vermin and disease and the brutality of the guards, he concluded that if hell was any worse than Dulag 183, he sure didn’t want to go there. Twenty-three-year-old Melbourne-born Private Reginald Lindley (Service Number WX570) of the 2/11th Battalion wrote of the camp:

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“At our concentration camp in Salonika it was hell. They were starving us we could hardly walk about. We were living like dogs you could not move around the compound at night without fear of being shot. A few boys have been shot. If we are here much longer we will be mad or dead.”26 And as New Zealand Warrant Officer Jack Elsworthy concluded his story of the camp stating that he had “not met a single person who had a good thing to say about Salonika or any of the Germans there”.27

The End of the Camp – And Escape By the end of September the camp had been practically cleared. Those who were too ill to be moved, together with the skeleton medical staff and a number of remaining prisoners - mostly recaptured escapers from the camp - were shifted to four barracks wired off in a smaller area. In November the camp closed – 12,000 captured Allied soldiers had suffered within its perimeter and at least eighty had died due to its horrendous conditions. As the camp neared closure, a new German Commandant was appointed who instituted a more favourable regime. Lieutenant Colonel Le Souef and another Australian medical officer were even permitted under guard to visit Mrs Riadis of the Greek Red Cross in her Thessaloniki flat for morning tea! Later the Commandant took him and Germanspeaking Scots-born British medical officer Captain Archie Cochrane of the Royal Army Medical Corps on a visit to the First World War Allied War Cemeteries of the city. On this tour Leslie and Archie saluted the grave of a former British prisoner of the camp who had been shot while trying to escape. Yet given the conditions in the camp it is no surprise that many prisoners sought to escape almost immediately. And many succeeded – some via the sewers, some through the gates and others on the train journeys from Thessaloniki north - aided and helped by the local Greek population. Some joined the growing resistance but most made their way south in search of boats – the famed Greek caique – to take them across the northern Aegean first to Turkey, some via Lemnos and Imbros (two Islands connected to the Allied effort in the Gallipoli campaign), and then back to Allied lines in the Middle East. An Allied MI9 organisation

Captain Alan King, 2/7th Field Ambulance, quoted in Patsy Adam-Smith Prisoners of War: From Gallipoli to Korea, Viking, 1992, p. 170.

Private Reginald Lindley, 2/11th Battalion, quoted in Denny Neave & Craig Smith, Aussie Soldier – Prisoners of War, Big Sky Publishing, 2009, p. 71.

25 Jack Elsworthy, Greece Crete Stalag Dachau: A New Zealand soldier’s encounters with Hitler’s Army, AWA Press, p. 163.

27 Jack Elsworthy, Greece Crete Stalag Dachau: A New Zealand soldier’s encounters with Hitler’s Army, AWA Press, p. 162.

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was even established by the Allies within Thessaloniki itself to aid these escapers from the camp. Escape could be easy. Biographer Don Turner wrote that one prisoner escaped on the march from the camp to the railway for the journey to Germany. During his time at the camp, British Private Ginger Rickson managed to secure a few items of civilian clothing – a civilian beret and jacket. As he marched through the city, Ginger changed his clothes and darted from the marching column of prisoners to safety out of sight of the unaware guards. Another prisoner – British Trooper Ernest Chapman - saw him wink in recognition as he casually leaned on a lamppost as the column marched on. Finding a safe place in the city required the help of sympathetic locals. Australian Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Le Souef recounts that the local Greek civilian charged with maintaining the grounds of one of the First World War Allied War Cemeteries in the city had successfully hidden camp escapers within the cemetery. He was decorated after the war by the British government for his service to the Allied war effort. Some prisoners escaped as their train left Thessaloniki on its way to other camps in German-occupied Europe. Gavin Long recounts the journey of 21-year-old Gunner Crofton “Teddy” Barnes (Service Number NX3317) of the 2/1st Field Regiment who had been captured at Kalamata. Barnes jumped from his train north of Thessaloniki and made his way with local help across northern Greece to Mount Athos and Turkey, returning to his unit. Biographer Don Turner wrote that British Trooper Ernest Chapman escaped a number of times from the trains only to be recaptured. He finally succeeded by organizing an escape team and digging a 50-metre-long tunnel from the barracks to freedom. His third attempt using the tunnel was a success and led to a wartime life with the Greek resistance in northern Greece. Every time he escaped, he was helped by local villagers, like the black moustached Christo, his wife Amalia and the villagers of Pili who welcomed him with open arms, sharing their limited food and provisions and hiding him from the Germans. Another Australian prisoner who would escape and join the local resistance was 30-year-old Yarraville-born Warrant Officer Thomas John Fenton (Service number NX7848) of the 2/1st Battalion. He served throughout the Greek campaign, both on the mainland and on Crete, where he was captured following the end of the fighting at Rethymno. Transported to Thessaloniki, somehow Thomas escaped from the camp and fought for a time with the local Greek resistance until being recaptured and transported to POW camps in German-occupied Europe.

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Thomas’ admiration for the brave locals who helped him and with whom he fought would see him return with his family to Thessaloniki and the region after the war. Others tried to escape using the storm water and other drains of the camp. Australian Lance Corporal Ivan Dudley “Skip” Welsh was part of a group of prisoners who attempted escape using the camp latrine drain, a narrow brick and cement pipe that stretched for 200 yards before exiting beyond the camp perimeter into a nearby creek. But the death of a poor Cypriot prisoner in the drain, overpowered by the fumes, blocked the drain and attracted the attention of the guards. New Zealand Lieutenant W.B. “Sandy” Thomas weakened the fastenings on a camp gate, crawled through a wire fence and scaled the outside wall to freedom. Wandering the city he was taken in and sheltered by poor locals, who shared their food with him. Sandy evaded capture for many months, being helped by various locals and eventually the monks of the Khalkidhiki peninsula until he was able to reach Turkey. Despite the regular searches by German troops on the peninsula, he was helped by the Russian Monks of Zogafrau the Holy Monastery of St Denys, the Monastery of Simon Petra and that of the Great Lavra. Along the way he was also helped by Greek boatmen, by sympathetic police and an escaped Greek Army officer who had returned to organise resistance to the Germans. Finally he was able to steal a boat and navigated his way through the dangerous winter seas to freedom in Turkey. Taking the same route was British Wing Commander Edward Howell who escaped from a German dental hospital servicing prisoners at the camp. Like the other successful escapes, Howell was helped by Greek civilians including a skipper who took him in his caique across the sea to Lemnos, Imbros and finally to Chanakale in Turkey. Two Australian escaper stories demand greater attention. They underscore the vital role of Greek civilians in helping the escapers, its often terrible cost and despite the war how an Anzac on the run could find love with a young Greek girl. Australian Lance Corporal Ivan Dudley “Skip” Welsh mentioned earlier, devised an escape that would see him simply walk out of the camp and begin his journey to freedom.28 Skip and his comrades served in the campaign on the Greek mainland and were evacuated to Crete only to be 28 For the story of Lance Corporal Dudley Walsh’s imprisonment and escapes is drawn from the following three sources, all based on his account given to the Australian Army Headquarters on his return to the Middle East: I.D. “Skip” Welsh, “escape from Greece”, in Norman Bartlett, ed., Australia at Arms, AWM 1955, pp. 151-157; Long, pp. 313-315; and, “Skip” in Patsy Adam-Smith, Prisoner of War: From Gallipoli to Korea, Viking 1992, pp. 174-183.

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captured there following the battle for the island. His first escape attempt in June 1941 saw him and another digger escape from the Skines camp on Crete and attempt to sail to Cyprus. Attacked by German aircraft, they both returned to the camp unnoticed. In early July, Skip was shipped to Thessaloniki. As he approached the city from the sea, I wonder if he compared the sight to his home town of Frankston, sitting on Melbourne’s great Port Phillip Bay. The conditions in the camp did nothing to dampen Skip’s desire to escape. A few days after his arrival he was part of the failed escape using the latrine drain mentioned above. In August, he finally succeeded. Trading his food and boots for Greek civilian clothing, Skip joined a large prisoner work party who were employed grooming horses in the camp stables near the external gate of the camp. Hiding in a forage store and then hiding behind a horse at a water trough, Skip removed his uniform, revealing his Greek workman’ clothes, and walked out past the guard who assumed he was a local. Walking free in Thessaloniki was particularly dangerous for the young escapee – if he had been caught in civilian clothes he would have risked being shot. He needed to get into a safe location and not wander the streets. On the run in the city, Skip felt he would be safer in the poorer part of the city, so he headed to the area near the railway station. Later he would explain the logic to his thinking: “I reckoned that if I went to a rich area there would be a chance of me being given up; I’ve found that the more possessions people have the more they want to protect them. On the other hand, in poor areas, the people are friendlier and happier.”29 After wandering around for two hours he approached a woman with children outside her home in a poorer part of the city. Announcing that he was an escaped Australian soldier, Skip was quickly taken inside and soon overwhelmed by the hospitality and friendship of his new hosts, pressed with drink and food, and regaled in English by one of his hosts who had returned from America. It had taken him just two hours to find protection in the city! It was soon decided by his Greek helpers to move him to a safe house, where he would be joined by four other escaped prisoners, including 29

Lance Corporal I.D. “Skip” Welsh, 2/6th Battalion, “Skip”, in Patsy Adam-Smith, Prisoner of War: From Gallipoli to Korea, Viking 1992, pp. 178-179.

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another Australian – 23-year-old Katoomba-born Private Walter Arthur Sicklen (Service Number NX3921) of the 2/1st Battalion. The house they took Skip to was the house of Enesta Costa, his sisters Despinis and Helen, and Enesta’s mother and father. The family fed the prisoners and took them out each day to avoid the random German day-time house searches. Dudley stained his face with juniper berries, grew a moustache and tried to adopt what he thought were Greek mannerisms to avoid attracting attention to himself as he walked the streets of the city. During these outings, they watched German newsreels, recorded the shipping movements at the waterfront and were even tempted to shout hello to their former fellow prisoners as they marched passed them on their way to the railway station. But as occurred on many occasions, the freedom of these soldiers was paid for by the blood of their local helpers. One of the other Allied soldiers in Skip’s group had mistakenly left behind a treasured bible as they left the house for their daily outings. A random search by the Germans discovered the bible – and its dedication to the Allied soldier with his regimental name and serial number. The Germans awaited the return of the family and arrested them. Only Helen escaped in time to warn the prisoners. But it was too late for Enesta and his family who were executed. Despite this terrible set back, their Greek helpers found other safe houses and eventually Skip, Walter and the others were taken by friendly guides south-east to Mount Athos. Here they were joined by seven other escapers and met a religious hermit called Father Savvas who helped them obtain a boat. The priest then took them to Imbros, returning to collect more escaped prisoners (see Text Image 16.3). On Imbros they were welcomed and fed, before being transported to the Turkish mainland. While in Turkey the locals took them to the Gallipoli battlefield, where Skip visited Lone Pine where his father had been wounded in 1915. Eventually, on October 10 this group of prisoners crossed into Alliedoccupied Syria and freedom. On their return they were photographed, no doubt in celebration of their escape from German captivity (see AWM 020876). On his return, Skip was recommended for the Military Medal for his bravery in escaping, citing the useful intelligence he collected concerning German coastal defences around Thessaloniki and Evia, as well as German shipping movements at Thessaloniki harbour. Sadly, the authorities determined that Skip should be Mentioned-in-Despatches instead.

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he did in September 1941.32 Slim had been born in Lancashire in England and had been living with his family in Melbourne’s Yarraville when he enlisted in May 1940. After his escape from the camp, Slim made his way safely through Thessaloniki and on to the remote village of Ritini, where he was sheltered for more than six months by the family of the school teacher, Ioannis Papadopoulos. It was while he was hidden with the Papadopoulos family that Slim noticed Ioannis’ beautiful daughter, Xanthoula.

Text Image 16.3 – The waters surrounding Imbros, with Samothrace in the distance, where some Allied escapers sailed to freedom. Photograph Jim Claven 2015.

Skip never forgot the bravery of his Greek helpers and the terrible cost some of them were made to pay, as he recounted below: “The Greeks helped us to escape from the country. They guided us over the mountains, from village to village, each village supplying a guide to the next one. They helped us with food, Greek Orthodox priests gave us shelter and food in their churches and the police warned us of any approaching Germans on the route.”30 “The Greeks were extremely kind to us. It amazed me that people who have everything to lose and nothing to gain could open their arms to us.” 31 Another Australian soldier would escape and join the resistance but in the process he would find true love. We don’t know how Yarraville’s 22-year-old Corporal Herbert “Slim” Wrigley (Service Number VX24068) of the 2/2nd Field Regiment escaped from the camp, but escape 30

Lance Corporal I.D. “Skip” Welsh, 2/6th Battalion, “Escape from Greece”, in Norman Bartlett, ed., Australia at Arms, AWM 1955, p. 156.

Lance Corporal I.D. “Skip” Welsh, 2/6th Battalion, “Skip”, in Patsy Adam-Smith, Prisoner of War: From Gallipoli to Korea, Viking 1992, p. 180.

But like Thomas Fenton, Slim didn’t just want to escape – he wanted to continue the fight against the Germans in Greece. He joined the Greek resistance in the Mount Olympus area, taking part in various military operations (see Map 6). Soon he was enlisted into the Allied Special Operations Executive or SOE. Like the other agents sent into Greece at this time, Slim liaised between the Greek resistance and Allied headquarters in Cairo, assisting in the supply of weapons and coordinating many sabotage operations, destroying bridges, roads and railways. Sick with pneumonia and malaria, Slim left Greece from Pelion on Christmas Day 1943 and soon arrived safely in Smyrna – as Slim named the city in his report. For his work with the resistance, Slim was granted the Italy Star – the Medal awarded to those Allied soldiers who served with the Greek resistance. Ioannis Papadopoulos was not so lucky. While Slim was making his way to freedom, his protector had been arrested due to the actions of a Greek informer. He was executed by the Germans on January 13, 1944, leaving his young family destitute. After the war Ioannis’ daughter, Xanthoula, began to learn English and was reminded of the tall handsome Australian who had stayed with her family years before. As she later recounted: “The year was 1949, one windy night sitting around looking at some family photos… a small piece of paper fell out. On it was a name and an address in Yarraville, Melbourne. The name was Herbert Wrigley (Slim), our special digger friend.”33 On the urging of her mother, Xanthoula began a correspondence with Slim that would lead to their marriage in Australia in 1951. Slim insisted on a Greek Orthodox wedding to honour his bride’s brave family and learned the Greek language. They enjoyed a long marriage of 45 years and had two children, Slim passing away in 1995. A number of Allied 32 This account of Private Herbert “Slim” Wrigley’s escape is based on the following: “Xanthoula and Slim: An Anzac Love Story”, Neos Kosmos, 16 November 2013; Recollection of Xanthoula Wrigley, wife of Herbert “Slim” Wrigley, Address to the Hellenic RSL, heard by author, October 2015; http:// www.shrine.org.au/Exhibitions/Stories/Sergeant-Herbert--Slim--Wrigley; - “POW, a girl and a happy ending”, The Argus, Saturday 3 March 1951, p.3, NLA. 33

-, “Xanthoula and Slim: An Anzac Love Story”, Neos Kosmos, 16 November 2013.

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soldiers married Greek women who they had met during the campaign or while on the run. As far as I know, Slim is the only escaper from the Thessaloniki camp to have done so.

Conclusion Next time you visit Thessaloniki and are enjoying its waterfront, think of the thousands of Allied prisoners of war brought there in 1941. They had fought valiantly but in vain alongside their Greek comrades. Walk along to the waterfront to the military base opposite the Byzantine Museum and think of the disease and horror that they endured for weeks within its confines. And think of those who died due to its privations. But also remember those who got away. The prisoners who against the odds refused to give up hope and made their escape from captivity. An escape impossible without the help of hundreds of local residents – from policemen and priests, to housewives and teachers and other civilians. Throughout Greece the consequences of resistance are visible even today in the memorials erected to the many martyred villages dotting the land from Macedonia and Epirus, to the Peloponnese and Crete. Despite these real threats, thousands joined the resistance and hundreds helped the Allied cause and assisted the escapers and their return to the Middle East. Sadly the location of the former POW camp bears no memorial plaque. As we celebrate Melbourne’s sister-city relationship with Thessaloniki each year, we should remember and honour the diggers who suffered in the Thessaloniki’s Dulag 183, those who escaped and the brave residents of the city who risked all to help these young escapers.

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Over the sea to Evia, Skyros and Beyond - On the run with Frankston’s Warrant Officer Milton Boulter For many Allied soldiers on the run from the Germans in Greece, the Island of Evia would be the beginning of a journey that would take them to Skyros and across the Aegean. On the journey they would be aided by many brave local Greeks, eager to help these fighters who had come to aid their country in its hour of need and hungry to continue the fight. Hundreds of Allied soldiers evaded the Germans and escaped back to the Allies in the Middle East. This is the story of Evia and Skyros’ role in this escape route – and the story of one of those young escapers. Felicia Leonardos sits in her suburban Melbourne living room recalling how the Second World War came to Evia. Like many across Greece, it’s a story of courage in the face of suffering and retribution from a vicious occupation. Evia has a rich history and a brave people that would help it survive the war. Its location made it the centre of many great events in Greek history. Evia is found in the pages of Homer – the rocks of Cape Gerastus on its southern tip witnessed the destruction of Agamemnon’s victorious returning fleet after their victory at Troy. The islanders were famed for the production of bronze weapons, bronze giving the name for the capital at Chalcis (see Map 2). They fought at the great victories of Salamis and Plataea over the Persian invaders. Alexander the Great’s famous horse Bucephalus – was bred on Evia.

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Venice in its trading heyday made Evia the centre of its great island empire in the Aegean, until the fall of the fortress at Chalkis in 1470 to a 100,000 strong Ottoman Army. The great Evian fighter Govios played his role in the liberation of Evia and Greece from Ottoman rule in the nineteenth century. Evians were famed too as the sailors of Greece. One of the oldest sites of Hellenic culture with settlements dated to the Mycenean period, Evians were the first to travel across the Aegean and into the Mediterranean, founding the first Greek colonies that formed the Greek commonwealth. Felicia tells of meeting Sicilian migrants in Melbourne from Licodia (the ancient Evians colony of Leontini) on Sicily’s east coast who describe themselves as Euboans, thereby acknowledging their links to the Aegean Island. The Islanders sea-faring skills would prove invaluable to the Anzac escapers. War arrived in 1941, when German bombers raided its harbours and dogfights swirled in the air above the island, the young pilot Roald Dahl flying his Hurricane overhead wrote of flying so close to mountains that he startled the vultures as he roared past. The fear the Germans might cut off the Anzacs defending Thermopylae and Brallos saw Allied troops destroy the famous bridge across the treacherous Euripos channel, with its fourteen tides a day, as they left on April 25. Evians may have witnessed the Allied evacuations from the nearby mainland port of Rafina.

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These escape routes were known as the “caique runs”, named for the traditional fishing boats of Greece. These boats sailed from many ports across Greece – from Mt Athos in the north to the Peloponnese in the south – transporting Allied soldiers to freedom. The success of these voyages would see the Allies return with supplies and agents to aid the Greek resistance. Evia was a crucial part of the sea route to freedom. Felicia recalls her father describing how he and others ferried Allied soldiers from the mainland to Styra on Evia’s southern coast. There they would be re-clothed in local civilian dress for their onward journey. Traversing the island by donkey, they would arrive on its eastern coast where other fishing boats would take them out to sea to be transferred to large vessels waiting to take them to freedom. One Anzac who made the journey from the mainland to Evia with the aid of locals – possibly Stamatios - was Warrant Officer Thomas Alfred Milton Boulter (Service Number VX13678), a 25-year-old Frankston-born lawyer and known as Milton. After his successful escape, Thomas would provide a detailed report on his eventful journey from captivity.1 Captured at Kalamata on April 29, Milton was initially kept in the POW camp at Corinth before being moved north on June 6. He managed to escape during a march the next day possibly near Lamia, by hanging back

Felicia recalls her father, then 35-year-old Stamatios Katsatos coming into the family home at Almirapotamos in the south of Evia, telling of the fall of Greece. He embraced his wife Evangelia and their five children, not knowing what the future would hold for them and their island.

and jumping into some low scrub on the side of the road. Waiting until

The years of the occupation saw hundreds of thousands of deaths from starvation across Greece. For Stamatios the war meant the collapse of his trade. A furniture maker, he had to find another way to feed his family. With the help of his friends Kosta and Angelos, fishing now became his main occupation. He was able to feed his family and provide fish to others on Evia. Yet like many others across Greece, Stamatios was not content to merely survive. When he was asked to help ferry Allied soldiers across from the mainland to Evia, he didn’t hesitate.

with the harvest, difficult work lasting from 4.30am until 8pm, and noted

Evia would now become one of the main routes to freedom for Allied soldiers on the run from the advancing and occupying Germans. Its vast expanse, closeness to the mainland and the difficulty of travelling on the Islands rugged southern half, meant the Germans rarely came to the island. Once across the island, its eastern shores gave access to the Aegean, Turkey, the Mediterranean and freedom.

darkness and avoiding passing German columns, Milton soon was aided by a local villager who led him to his village, where he was accommodated, fed and provided with civilian clothes. Milton remembered helping out that women harvesters “were somewhat stronger than I, at least in the back.”2 1

This account draws on Warrant Officer Boulter’s own account contained in his report on his return to the Middle East and three of his letters, as well as the accounts contain in both a report on his escape from The Argus newspaper, that of Gavin Long and Boulter’s Military Medal citation and Service File. -, “Australians who escaped from Crete”, The Argus (Melbourne), 30th October 1941, p. 5, NLA; Warrant Officer Milton, Three Letters, transcript published on website post titled For Valour – WW2, Thomas A Milton Boulter, MM, https://bonniewilliam.com/2017/01/20/for-valour-ww2-thomasa-milton-boulter-mm/; Warrant Officer (2nd Class) T.A.M. Boulter, “AIF, Headquarters, 1 Aust Corps 19 Aug 41., Report of Prisoner of War [WOII T.A.M. Boulter, 17th Australian Infantry Brigade, HQ], Personal Narrative”, 2nd AIF, 6 Australian Division General Staff Branch, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 1/5/12; W.O (II) Boulter, Thomas Alfred Milton, Intelligence Section, 1st Aust Corps, Military Medal Citation Recommendation, NAUK, WO 373/61/709; Long, pp. 188-189. 2

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A few days later and following a couple of visits by Germans to the village regarding the harvest, Milton was encouraged to move on to another village. He was sent high up into the valleys of Mount Oeta, where he found help in the village of Pavliani. Isolated and selfsufficient, the village was a perfect location for Milton to hide out and he would remember being “very well treated by the villagers.”3 It was here he was joined by four other Allied soldiers on the run. Along with two other Australians, these included a downed British Royal Air Force Flight Sergeant and a Polish liaison officer. After four to five days, Milton and his party were on the move again, heading for the mainland coast in an effort to somehow cross the Aegean and land on neutral Turkey. They crossed the railway line and walked up into the Kalidromon mountain range, heading to the village of Zelion, edging forward and checking ahead for Germans before entering villages and avoiding German convoys. Pushing on and arriving at the village of Agnanti, located near the coast, Milton and the party made contact with a fisherman who agreed to take them across to the Island of Evia. The closeness of the mainland to the Evia in this area is shown by Text Image 17.1. Moving to the coast, about five miles from the coastal village of Agios Constantinos, the Allied party were joined by the fisherman who had obtained a boat for the crossing. They sailed during the night, landing at Aidipsos on the nearby western coast of Evia on the morning of June 22. Despite the presence of Italian troops in the town, the Allied soldiers hid in a riverbed on the outskirts of town where they were soon contacted by “a number of Greeks [who] offered to assist us in any way possible.”4 Their local helpers moved them to a safer location two miles from the town. Here they stayed together for fourteen days, receiving “plenty of food” and being kept informed of current news.5 Sitting with the villagers, they even listened to the BBC and heard the news that Germany had invaded the Soviet Union. The hospitality of the Evians was such that the rest of his comrades decided to remain on the island, two deciding to try their luck and stay 3

Text Image 17.1 – The Greek mainland viewed from Evia. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

on Evia for the duration of the war. Milton made off across the Island alone, heading for the east coast, aided by local guides and his now being able to speak “quite a little Greek.”6 Approaching the village of Pili, he was warned by the frightened villagers that the village was occupied by German troops. Continuing his walk south, eventually Milton reached the Monastery at Kymi. Here he was welcomed, enjoying the best conditions and food he had had since his capture. Milton wrote of his conversations in French with the Bishop of the Monastery, “who is very interested in the British cause.”7 The Bishop put Milton in touch with a group of fishermen who would take him across to Skyros in their boat, but only after they had had a night of fishing off Skyropoula! You could say Skyros is a kidney shaped Island, its northern and southern expanses reaching to Mount Olympus in the north and Mounts Kohias and Dafni in the south pinched in the middle, near the main port of Linaria on the west coast. Skyros is the largest Island in its group. Despite its name – which translates as stony – the Island is not barren, with forests, pasture, wheat, citrus fruits and vines. It is famous for its coloured marble, veined with red and green, its distinctive pottery, woodcarving and embroidery. The embroidery is 6 7

Long, p. 189.

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lively, featuring ships, villagers, animals and flowers. Its distinctive folk dresses feature prominently in Athens’ famous Benaki Museum. During Lent, the Islanders enjoy a particular festival unique in Greece. For its folk art, customs and architecture, Skyros has attracted artists over the years, one of the most famous being George von Peschke. One of the oldest inhabited islands in the region, its longevity has given Skyros a role in Greece’s great myths. In these legends, Skyros is a place of refuge but also of danger. It is on Skyros that Theseus, King of Athens and the slayer of the Cretan Minotaur, hoped to retire. Instead he was murdered by his host, the jealous King Lycomedes, who has him thrown from the acropolis above Skyros town. Skyros was also a place of refuge for the great warrior Achilles. Foretold of her son’s early death at Troy, Achilles’ mother the Goddess Thetis hides him on Skyros dressed as a woman. Yet his fate could not be avoided. The cunning Odysseus lures him to Troy by blowing a war trumpet, the young Achilles stripping off his dress and seizing his weapons. Milton put ashore on the west coast, most probably not far from Linaria. Today Linaria is a lovely little Aegean port, with a welcoming harbour front of tavernas and ouzeries, sheltered by some wooded hills and above all, the church of Agios Nikolaos. When Milton arrived he was weakened by illness and had to make his way across the Island by foot to reach Skyros Town on the east coast. Making this trip today is an easy drive or bus trip along a sealed road. But in 1941 poor Milton had to walk all the way, following the paths across the rocky heights. When he arrived, what he would have seen was one of the most picturesque visions in Greece. Just as today, the lovely white houses with their distinctive grey roofs cluster around the mountain amongst a labyrinth of cobblestoned streets. The mountain is topped by the Monastery of Agios Georgios, its acropolis and the remains of a Venetian fortress, with its Lion adorning the once strong gate. Walking through this beautiful town, I wonder at the refuge Milton found here in 1941. He would have enjoyed the hospitality of the Skyriots, maybe admiring their unique home crafts. It is interesting to speculate whether this modern-day warrior was aware of that other warrior, Achilles, who had also sought refuge on Skyros as Milton did. It was at Skyros town where Milton probably met another saviour, Emanuel Virgilou. Emanuel was a key member of the resistance who transported Allied escapers like Milton to neutral Turkey, assisted by the British Consul in Smyrna. At great risk to his life, Emanuel ferried soldiers like the sick Milton to freedom in a small boat across heavy seas,

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stopping for a night at the Island of Psara on their three-day journey. Milton finally reached Smyrna on July 25 and then Haifa in early August 1941. On his return to Allied lines in the Middle East, Milton compiled a detailed report on his escape, as well as conditions in Greece, including German troop disposition and military infrastructure. He was awarded the Military Medal for his “fortitude & endurance escape from Greece to Turkey”, the full citation recommended by Lieutenant General Lavarack, the Australian 1st Corps commander, stating that his escape journey had taken 48 days over which he had been able to bring back “information concerning the enemy … [which] is of great value.” After the war Milton enjoyed a fruitful legal career back in Australia. His community work would see a tree dedicated to him at St Leonard’s Park in North Sydney.8 Milton Boulter’s story is just one of the many parties of Anzacs who made their way to Skyros throughout 1941. Three New Zealand escaped soldiers made their way to Skyros, joined up with others and returned to Egypt in May in a party of 31, while two other New Zealanders escaped from a German POW camp near Athens and made their way to freedom via Evia and Skyros in September 1941. The writer Colin Simpson writes that Emanuel and his fellow Skyriots evacuated some 250 Allied soldiers to freedom during the war. But while these Anzacs escaped to freedom, other Allied soldiers in other wars did not. The most famous of these lies in a solitary war grave near a beautiful bay to the Islands south. For it is on Skyros, near Tris Boukes Bay, that a grave was made for the British soldier and war poet Sub-Lieutenant Rupert Brooke, of the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He died of illness in April 1915 before his unit departed for Gallipoli. The burial party included twelve Australians. His grave was made in an olive grove and signified with a cairn of stones and a simply wooden cross (since replaced by stone) with the following inscription written in Greek - “Here lies the servant of god, Sub-Lieutenant in the English Navy, Who died for the deliverance of Constantinople from the Turks.”9 I wonder if Milton came across the grave during his time on Skyros. 8

-, Judge Milton Boulter Memorial, St Leonards Park, North Sydney, https://monumentaustralia. org.au/themes/people/legal/display/90225-judge-milton-boulter; Warrant Officer Milton Boulter, Three Letters, transcript published on website titled For Valour – WW2, Thomas A Milton Boulter, MM, https://bonniewilliam.com/2017/01/20/for-valour-ww2-thomas-a-milton-boulter-mm/; Warrant Officer (2nd Class) T.A.M. Boulter, “AIF, Headquarters, 1 Aust Corps 19 Aug 41., Report of Prisoner of War [WOII T.A.M. Boulter, 17th Australian Infantry Brigade, HQ], Personal Narrative”, 2nd AIF, 6 Australian Division General Staff Branch, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 1/5/12; W.O (II) Boulter, Thomas Alfred Milton, Intelligence Section, 1st Aust Corps, Military Medal Citation Recommendation, NAUK, WO 373/61/709.

Colin Simpson, Greece: The Unclouded Eye, Angus and Robertson, 1968, p. 190.

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Returning to the harbour of Skyros town, the modern traveller will notice the statue by the sculptor Tombros dedicated to Rupert Brooke, erected in April 1931. Just as they honoured the Philhellene Byron, so these Greeks honoured this soldier, an ally and a poet. Thirty-five-year-old Woollahra-born Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Oliver Chilton (Service Number NX231), commander of the 2/2nd Battalion made his way to Evia after the battle of Pinieos Gorge on April 18. Chilton and his comrades made their way through Thessaly “guided on their way by devoted Greeks.”.10 In early May, Chilton and his party were joined by others on Evia, including three from NSW and his own 2/2nd Battalion – 21-year-old Grafton-born Ulmarra farmer Captain Charles Hercules Green (NX121), 34-year-old Darwin-born Captain Bruce Brock (Service Number NX239), a teacher from Woonona and 27-year-old former Mosman bank clerk Lieutenant Athelstan Kendall Bosgard (Service Number NX34872). Hiding in the beautiful eastern village of Pili, their time on Evia would be recorded in a famous photograph, taken as they were about to depart for Smyrna on May 8 (see AWM 134872).11 In the winter of 1942 a former motor trimmer from Wagga, 26-yearold Launceston-born Lieutenant Maxwell Derbyshire (Service Number NX12177) of the 2/2nd Battalion arrived on Evia with 10 other Allied soldiers. Having escaped from a prison camp near Athens, he had fought with the Greek resistance and witnessed the terrible suffering of the civilian population under the occupation, of men, women and children starving to death. Like the other Anzacs, they would be carried by an Evian fisherman from its east coast to freedom. The bravery of Stamatios and others like him can be measured in their defiance of Nazi retribution. In 1944 the Greek Government in exile estimated over 860 villages were completely destroyed, a further 460 in part. Tens of thousands of civilians were murdered. But like Stamatios the Greeks would not be intimidated. Mazower recounts that one Evian villager responded when told that her house had been burned down by the Germans, “it doesn’t matter so much now. It’s warm and we can live in the open.”12

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Bishop of Chalkis and his flock acted to protect the Jewish population from the Germans. Some were native to the island; others came fleeing deportations on the mainland, especially from Thessaloniki. In one instance a large Greek Jewish family seeking safety on the island was set upon by German soldiers. As they proceeded to execute the family, two children managed to hide behind a tree, silent and unnoticed, but terrified at what they had to witness. After the Germans had left, a local village woman took the terrified girls to her home. With the help of the local priest, these children survived the war. They would marry local Evian men and raise families. Years later one of these women came to Melbourne and cried with joy at meeting Felicia and other Evians. Sadly this story of survival for Greece’s Jewish community would be all too rare. Only 10,000 of Greece’s 77,000 pre-war Jewish population is estimated to have survived the Holocaust in Greece.13 Coming from a family of priests, Stamatios always felt that he survived the war due to the intervention of St Nicholas. His bravery – like thousands of other Greek civilians – was appreciated by the Allied soldiers he helped. Many of them would have agreed with the sentiment expressed by one of their number, the New Zealand soldier serving with SOE in Greece, John Mulgan who wrote that: “the real heroes of the Greek war of resistance were the common people.”14 After the war, Felicia’s father never talked of his wartime exploits. But his modesty would be revealed at his funeral in December 2005. For then representatives of the Hellenic Army and the Evian Regional Government attended to honour his wartime service for the Allies and Greece. Stamatios’ story is one of many repeated across Greece. It is a story that we should never forget.

Churches were also desecrated and icons damaged, especially the small mountain ones dedicated to particular Saints. Felicia tells of how the 10

Long, p. 186.

“Euboea Island, Greece, 1941-05-08. Officers and men of the 2/2nd Australian Infantry Battalion near the village of Pili on the eve of their departure from the island in the Aegean Sea …”, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 134872.

Giorgios Antoniou & A. Dirk Moses “Introduction: The Holocaust in Greece”, in Assistant Professor Giorgos Antoniou and Professor Dirk Moses, (eds.), The Holocaust in Greece, Cambridge UP, 2020, p. 1.

Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler’s Greece: The experience of occupation, 1941-44, Yale, 2001, p. 188.

John Mulgan, Report on Experience, Frontline Books, Reprinted 2010, p. 147.

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From Tolo to Crete in 1941 – The Odyssey of Richmond’s Bernard O’Loughlin Across the length of Greece and on to Crete, the end of battle would often lead to capture. But for many – indeed hundreds of Allied soldiers - defeat would be followed by a successful evasion from capture – and a return to Allied lines on Crete or to the Middle East. One of these was Richmond’s Bernard Joseph O’Loughlin. This is the story of Bernard and his comrades who fought in Greece and the brave Greek locals who aided him in his successful escape. Bernard’s story was reported by Australian war correspondent and poet, Kenneth Slessor, and read by the readers of The Argus back in Australia on May 26, 1941. He had interviewed Bernard in Egypt after his successful escape from capture at the Allied evacuation beach at Tolo. Thirty-six-year-old Bernard came from the inner Melbourne suburb of Richmond. The only son of Mr and Mrs James O’Loughlin of Waltham Street in Richmond, he had been educated at St Ignatius School and Hassett's Business College. Before enlisting, he worked as a law clerk in a solicitor’s office in Bourke Street, Melbourne. As the Greek campaign on the mainland drew to a close Major Bernard O’Loughlin (Service Number VX130) of the 6th Division and 24-year-old Moss Vale-born Captain Harry Otton Bamford (Service Number NX4543) of the 2/3rd Battalion had been two of the Allied officers responsible for organising the dispersal of Allied troops awaiting evacuation at Nafplio and Tolo to assist in the smooth operation of their evacuation (see Text Image 18.1). We left Bernard at Tolo in Chapter 10. As the Germans approached Tolo on April 28 many of the exhausted

Text Image 18.1 - Lovely Tolo beach, viewed from Ancient Asini. In April 1941 the town and beaches were packed with Allied troops desperately waiting to be evacuated. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

troops resigned themselves to captivity. Bernard and Harry decided to make a run for it and had made off into the hills surrounding Tolo and headed east (see Map 9). Bernard described his fifteen days on the run and at sea as being “hunted like animals”, in a game of “perilous hide and seek” that he would remember as “the most intense of his life”.1 Essential to their survival was the advice and aid from the locals. Soon after leaving Tolo they were advised by locals to head to what he called the village of Krinodion most likely modern day Kranidi (the former home of the actor who played James Bond, the late Sean Connery) more than 64 kilometres away in the easternmost part of the Argolid. From there they could reach the coast and cross to the Island of Spetsas – and hopefully on to Crete. The drive today takes just over an hour, taking you up into the hills of the hinterland. The journey took Bernard a lot longer as he would have had to avoid the roads. Crossing the hills – often guided by escaping 1

Kenneth Slessor, “Greek Escape Adventure – Melbourne Officers,” The Argus (Melbourne), 26th May 1941, p 4. NLA.

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Greek soldiers - Bernard had to cope with the pain of injuries to his knees following a head-on vehicle collision he had suffered outside Thebes earlier in the campaign. As he trudged along nursing his wounds, Bernard was following in the footsteps of other sick and injured travellers. For two thousand years and more before him, people from across the ancient world came to the healing centre of the Asklepieion nearby, nestling in the shadow of the great amphitheatre of Epidavrou. Emerging from the hills to the coastal plain overlooking the sea, Bernard and Harry would be helped by the trusty Greek shepherd. Bernard recounted to Slessor how that here: “… we met an old shepherd driving his flock back for the night. We were dead beat after our 14 hours' climb over the hills, and he offered to shelter us in his hut. His wife and daughter and a Greek soldier were there, and we shared their supper - milk, warm from the sheep, rye bread, cheese and fiery wine.” 2 Nearing Kranidi, Bernard and Harry were now warned by locals of the dangers of the village – it was now controlled by the Germans. But they still needed to get through village to get to Spetsas. The brave locals devised a daring solution that would see Bernard and Harry driven straight through Kranidi (see Map 9) – in what Bernard described as “a ramshackle old car” - huddled in the rear, their army caps removed. 3 In an escape worthy of James Bond, they were waived through the German checkpoints unnoticed as their local driver grinned and waived his security pass – a pass approved by the Germans themselves! Further south, at another village opposite Spetsas, Bernard and Harry were transported by more locals across the sea to the Island where they joined up with sixty other Allied troops also evading capture. Four days later - on May 6 - Bernard and Harry and their new group sailed from Spetsas in an old ship. Commanded by “an old Greek skipper named George” and guided by a school atlas, the ship engine needed constant repair by the two Anzac engineers aboard - one Australian and 2

Kenneth Slessor, “Greek Escape Adventure – Melbourne Officers,” The Argus (Melbourne), 26 May 1941, p. 4, NLA.

Kenneth Slessor, “Greek Escape Adventure – Melbourne Officers,” The Argus (Melbourne), 26th May 1941, p. 4, NLA.

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the other a New Zealander.4 After a stop at Milos on May 8 where many other Allied troops were seeking escape, Bernard and his group made landfall on Crete on May 10 to a warm local welcome: “A crowd welcomed us on the wharf and we had a feast of bully beef and biscuits, and settled down for a rest in camps.” 5 Unlike other Australian troops who had been captured on the mainland, Bernard had escaped captivity. As Kenneth Slessor wrote Bernard's escape was a trek worthy of a story by Alexander Dumas. He returned to Cairo to convalesce and would be Mentioned-In-Despatches and awarded the Order of the British Empire. Not bad for a young boy from St Ignatius School in Richmond. Bernard survived the war and was discharged in 1946 – returning to Richmond, a suburb that would welcome thousands of new post-war migrants from the land that he had fought to defend. Bernard was not alone in his escape across southern Greece. Two other evaders made their escape following the battle of Corinth Canal on April 26, 1941. As with Bernard and Harry these escapers wrote later of the generous and brave help they received from the ordinary people of Greece, a help essential to their escape. Former New Zealand shepherd – 24-year-old Corporal Fred Woollams of the New Zealand 19th Battalion – who had taken part in the battle of Corinth Canal and successfully made his escape eastwards – would encounter many colourful and brave characters on his journey to evade capture. He was once helped by a friendly Greek mountain shepherd in the hills north of Megara. His name was Panayioti but Fred called him Pete. Despite speaking little English, Fred wrote that: “He talked all the way, but we understood very little, except when his words were made plain by gestures; he did not seem to mind whether we answered him or not …”6 Taken to his small hut in the mountains where the poor Panayioti lived with his family, Fred and three other comrades were fed “beautiful brown bread”, “white goat’s milk cheese” and milk.7 Later they would enjoy olives and “a huge wicker-covered bottle of wine.”8 For breakfast Fred enjoyed a 4

Kenneth Slessor, “Greek Escape Adventure – Melbourne Officers,” The Argus (Melbourne), 26th May 1941, p. 4, NLA.

Fred Woollams, Corinth and All That, Reed, 1945, p. 22.

Fred Woollams, Corinth and All That, Reed, 1945, pp. 22-24.

Fred Woollams, Corinth and All That, Reed, 1945, p. 45.

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meal of milk, cheese, bread and tomatoes. This brave man and his family and friends would hide Fred and his friends for three months. On another occasion Fred was walking in the direction of Loutraki when he came across another helpful shepherd. He described the shepherd in terms that will be familiar to many: “He was dressed in native costume - a bluish smock and pleated skirt, and long white stockings. Below his knees were black garters and on his feet, not the national shoe, but one with rubber soles. Girded round his waist was a wide leather belt, a pouch, and a huge sheath knife.”9 These were just two of the many locals of the region who would hide and look after Fred – despite the reality of German retribution - for more than 20 months. Prior to his capture in 1942, Fred would enjoy many lively local celebrations – even a wedding – in his mountain hide-away. As he enjoyed tucking into some of the wedding food, he was amazed when the wedding party began firing off their weapons in celebration – and all in occupied Greece! It is no surprise that Fred dedicated his memoir – Corinth and all that - to both his comrades and to those who helped him “to the men who fell at Corinth … [and] to those Greek people who, at the risk of their lives, sheltered Allied soldiers.” 10 The historian David Day recounts the story of one Australian soldier – the 2/6th Battalion’s 25-year-old Private George Adrian Smith (Service Number VX6688) from Warracknabeal – who lived to tell one of the most amazing stories of escape. Separated from his unit before the battle of Corinth, George was wandering the Greek countryside north of Corinth when he had a strange encounter. Taking to “the bush” as he said, George met up with a “Greek chappie” as he wrote: “…He could speak English. He said to me ‘You remember Young and Jacksons?’ I said I did and he said ‘Well, that’s where I want to get back to – to Melbourne … During this war I came over for a holiday and got caught up … and now I’m trying to get back.’ He said he knew how to get to Crete. He kept me under cover. His people had some land, and he knew some hiding places … He got hold of a small boat …”11

Fred Woollams, Corinth and All That, Reed, 1945, p. 26.

10 11

Fred Woollams, Corinth and All That, Reed, 1945, p. 8.

Private George Adrian Smith, 2/2nd Battalion, quoted in David Day, Nothing over us: The story of the 2/6th Australian Infantry Battalion, AWM, 1984, pp. 181-182.

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The rest - as they say - is history. George, with the aid of his new GreekAustralian comrade made it to Crete and safety. The story of the escapers of Corinth and the Argolid was repeated across the length and breadth of Greece, from Macedonia to Crete. Bernard and Harry, Fred and George are just four of the hundreds of Australians and other Allied soldiers who made their escape from captivity with the help of the local Greek population. Their journeys and their helpers should be remembered and honoured both here and in Greece.

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On the road to Trahila with Private Syd Grant Sitting by the harbour in Trahila one day it seemed not so long before that I had sat with Catherine Bell in Melbourne as she showed me the photos of this little village in the Mani taken by her father Syd Grant during the Greek campaign in April 1941.1 Twenty-three-year-old Horsham-born Sydney “Syd” Carney Grant (Service Number VX6699) was a private in the 2/8th Battalion who came all the way from Victoria’s western district to take part in the defence of Greece. His story is that of the Anzacs in Greece. After arriving in Piraeus, they made their way north to meet the Germans in battle. What followed was a series of dogged, bitter rear-guard actions as the Allies fell back under the weight of German onslaught. Syd’s photos capture the constant air attacks suffered by the defenders as they moved south from the Aliakmon River. Syd was one of the thousands of diggers who made his way to Kalamata to await embarkation to Crete. Today Kalamata bustles with tourists and locals enjoying the fine weather, the beautiful waterfront and the city's great avenues. In 1941 it was bustling with another sort of “tourist” – thousands of Allied soldiers – mainly Anzac, British, Greek, Cypriot, Palestinian and Yugoslav troops. Syd has captured the multinational nature of the gathering in one of his 1

This article could not have been written without the support of Private Syd Grant’s daughter, Catherine Bell, who not only discussed her father’s story but also provided access to Syd Grant’s personal correspondence and the two following typescript memoirs: Private Sydney Carney Grant, (VX6699), Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, copy supplied to the author; Private Sydney Carney Grant, (VX6699), “Chapter 4: Wartime - The evacuation from Greece was a shemozzle and a real performance”,’ transcribed by Catherine Bell, copy supplied to the author.

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amazing images, with local civilians vying to be photographed with their erstwhile defenders (see Archive Images 1.53 and 1.54). Other Australian photographs show the diggers marching down along Kalamata’s Aristomenos Avenue (see AWM 069884 and AWM 069885). While many buildings have changed, two local researchers – Panagiotis Andrianopoulos and his friend Sotiris Theodoropoulos – help me identify the shops and streets from these photographs. Syd and his comrades made their way through the city to the olive groves to the east, for protection from the daily Stuka bomber attacks. A few patches of the old olive groves remain amongst the expansion of the modern city. Local historian, the late Nikos Zervas, has identified the caves to the north of the city, where members of the Palestine Labour Corps found safety from the daytime enemy air attacks. They would be joined by local civilians fleeing the indiscriminate bombing that befell the city in April 1941. Historian Gavin Long estimates that between 18,000 and 20,000 Allied troops had been assembled at Kalamata by April 26, and from then until April 29, nearly 9,000 of these were successfully evacuated from Kalamata’s waterfront. April 26 witnessed the biggest single effort of the entire evacuation from Greece. It was also from Kalamata that the Yugoslav Crown Jewels were evacuated aboard the HMS Defender. As they marched to their evacuation positions on the waterfront diggers remembered years later the kindness of the local people, of their offering cake and wine, and thanking them for coming to help defend Greece. One soldier was moved to re-assure one elderly lady that they would be back (see Chapter 11). And it was from Kalamata that Australia’s most famous “war dog” – Horrie – was evacuated with his protectors in the 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion. Once at sea the troops were not allowed to rest as the German bombers attacked the ships as they left the harbour and made for Crete or Alexandria. Many mounted their Vickers and Bren Guns on the ships’ decks to help in the defence of their troopships. One of the ships – the Costa Rica – was sunk but not before all troops and hands were successfully evacuated. April 28 would see a German advance column force its way into Kalamata, seize the Customs House near the waterfront and capture the British naval embarkation officer in charge of communications with the approaching Allied evacuation ships. This daring raid precipitated the

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battle of the Kalamata Waterfront. Yet the brave Allied victory here would

following account.3

be short-lived. The eruption of fighting at the waterfront persuaded some

The drive to Trahila today takes just over an hour but one can imagine what it would have been like in 1941 as Syd trudged along the long and winding track to the village. It winds up into the mountains and along the coast, passing olive groves and crystal blue waters. It would have been thirsty work on these hot May days. As I make my own way I notice the caves that dot the mountains along the coast and near the village of Agios Nikolaos I wonder if these are the ones that Syd hid in during his walk south (see Text image 19.1).

of the Allied evacuation ships to abandon the evacuation. While other ships did return, by the morning of the April 29 around 8,000 Allied troops in Kalamata were left behind. For more on the evacuations from and the battle at Kalamata Waterfront see Chapter 11. This was followed by the formal Allied surrender that morning and those Allied soldiers that remained were soon interned in hastily constructed compounds on the outskirts of the city. Over 670 Jewish members of the Palestine Labour Corps are estimated to now have become prisoners of the German Army.2 Some Allied soldiers – including Syd – tried desperately to escape capture by swimming out into Kalamata’s great bay towards the lights of ships in the distance. Syd records that many drowned. He made it back to the beach and was captured. But this was not the end for all the Allied soldiers at Kalamata. Informed by their officers prior to the formal surrender that they could attempt to evade capture if they so choose, many chose that option. The Germans reported capturing some 7,000 Allied prisoners, leaving around 1,000 on the run. Some Allied prisoners like Syd were even able to escape from the prisoner’s encampment and make their way east into the mountains and villages of the Mani. Syd remembered that they were helped by the local villagers who fed and looked after them at great risk to themselves. As they made their way down the Mani coast most of these soldiers would make their way to three villages or bays from which many would make their escape by sea to Crete. The reader should note that there is some confusion in the various Allied soldier accounts as to the names and location of these villages or bays. The authors field research and a close reading of these accounts has led this author to identify them in order of proceeding southwards as firstly modern-day Selinitsis Bay (the former village of the same name having apparently been re-named Agios Nikolaos, according to Syd Grant), then the village of Trahila and finally that of Limeni. The modern map locations of these three villages are also consistent with the vast majority of the various escape accounts. To avoid confusion, I will apply these translations and locations within the 2

Gelber provides this estimation drawing on the fact that the total Palestinian Pioneer Corps troops captured at Kalamata totalled 1352 officers and men, equally divided between Jewish and Arab members. Yoav Gelber, “Palestinian POWs In German Captivity”, Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. XIV, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1981, pp. 89-137.

While Syd walked all the way he would have noticed many abandoned vehicles as he ventured further along the coast. He was following in the wake of many others who had evaded capture as Kalamata fell into the hands of the Germans. Many had made their escape using trucks, taking them as far they could on the poor roads, some reaching Kardamyli, and then proceeding further south on foot. British Lieutenant Field of the Royal Engineers made his journey with five comrades in this way, abandoning their vehicle on a track high up in the coastal mountain range. Three Australians – including 25-year-old Camberwell-born Captain Robert Roy Vial (Service Number VX3557) of the Australian 6th Division Headquarters staff and 34-year-old Camdenborn Captain Philip James Woodhill (Service Number NX12261) of the 2/2nd Battalion – got 16 kilometres to the end of the road where their vehicle was damaged and they had to proceed further on foot. The 2/5th Battalion’s 22-year-old St Kilda-born Lieutenant Hyde Gascoigne Sweet (Service Number VX7562) and 40-year-old Warrant Officer (2nd Class) Frank Nolan (Service Number VX4301) from North Fitzroy – along with two other ranks and an British Colonel Renton, also made their initial 3

The confusion in the eye-witness accounts begins in the spelling of the names. The modern village of Trahila is variously spelt as Trachila (by Grant and Field) and Drachilia (by Grant and Sweet), that of Selinitsis variously spelt as Selinitza, Selini or Selinika (by Wood, Harrison and Field) and that of Limeni spelt Limania (by Wood). Wood’s incorrect placement of Trahila above Selinitsis (rather than the other way around when compared to modern maps) in the hand-drawn map in his post-escape report is most likely an error of memory. See for example Archive Images 1.55 to 1.58; Private Sydney Carney Grant, Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, copy supplied to the author. Lieut J.H. Field, RE517, Corps Field Survey Company, Royal Engineers, “Report on frustrated evacuation at Kalamai Greece on 28th & 29th April 1941, dated 7th May 1941”, Military Survey (Geo) Branch, Winter Newsletter, 2016 – Issue 62, p. 13-19; Corporal William Charles Harrison, VX6858, 2/6th Battalion, “Report of Movements of 2/6th Aust Inf Bn Rear Party”, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Dairy, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; Lieutenant H.G. Sweet, VX7562,2/5th Battalion, “Report by Lieut H.E. [sic] Sweet on Escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/2/17; Private Max Holbrook Wood, VX3459, 2/6th Battalion HQ, “Report of Escape of British Troops from Greece”, 2/6th Battalion, War Dairy, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6.

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occurred with their group of Australian troops who had fled Kalamata in trucks, led by three of their officers. Hearing that German troops had occupied a village further on, the officers decided to abandon the escape after only two miles. A number of their troops decided to push only to discover that the rumoured Germans had in fact already vacated the village and the road south was an open one. And so Syd and the many other Allied soldiers trudged their way down the Mani coast. Syd would eventually reach the village of Trahila, probably on April 29. Estimates suggest that over the next day or so between 68 and 100 Allied soldiers would concentrate at the village, with Captain Woodhill suggesting “about 100 troops in the area of the village”, the British engineer Lieutenant Field suggesting 90 and Corporal Harrison – who was most probably here also - estimating 68.5 Captain’s Vial and Woodhill made their way to Trahila after being informed by some locals of rumours that a boat would sail to Crete from there.6 Text Image 19.1 - Caves above the road to Trahila. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

escape by truck, travelling some 40 kilometres before they were forced to proceed on foot to Trahila over the mountains, with the exception of the elderly Renton (who Lieutenant Field reports was exhausted after having been nearly drowned in an attempted embarkation) who was travelled by donkey. Warrant Officer Nolan described attempting to drive along the cliff tracks as being “a nightmare.”4 Twenty-one-year-old Oakleigh-born Corporal George Foot (Service Number VX5845) of the 2/7th Battalion writes of being part of a group of thirty soldiers who also drove a truck down the coast road until there were no more roads and walking from then on. A 2/6th Battalion soldier – 31-year-old Corporal William Harrison (Service Number VX6858) from Bendigo – wrote of making off on foot with a party of Australians from Kalamata towards the Mani, finding an abandoned truck and being able to drive as far as Selinitsis, where the lack of a road meant they had to continue along the coast on foot. Rumours of German troops nearby could unnerve some evaders and discourage them from continuing the journey. The escape accounts of both Corporal Foot and 22-year-old Albury-born Private Max Holbrook Wood (Service Number VX3459) of the 2/6th Battalion reveal that this 4

Warrant Officer (2nd Class) Frank Nolan, VX4301, “Report by WO (II) Nolan F. on escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 Item Number 8/2/17.

Lieutenant Field writes that many of the men were exhausted or wounded and proceeded to eat or sleep in the orchards above the village. According to Corporal Harrison, blankets were scarce and many lacked proper clothing too. Lieutenant Sweet writes of his party accommodating themselves in the caves above the village, no doubt a safer option to avoiding the regular German air attacks. Lieutenant Field writes that a British Colonel Bower of the Indian Army requested help from the locals. As evidenced by the help received by Syd, this was certainly forthcoming. In his account Syd records the welcome they received from the villagers of Trahila. He writes how they found accommodation “in the ruins of an old abandoned church on a hill above the town and in the olive groves nearby.” 7 On my own visit to Trahila I walked through a similar old building above the village (see Text Image 19.2). Syd writes that the “very kind locals” fed them8, capturing the scene 5

Lieut J.H. Field, RE517, Corps Field Survey Company, Royal Engineers, “Report on frustrated evacuation at Kalamai Greece on 28th & 29th April 1941, dated 7th May 1941”, Military Survey (Geo) Branch, Winter Newsletter, 2016 – Issue 62, p. 13-19; Corporal William Charles Harrison, VX6858, 2/6th Battalion, “Report of Movements of 2/6th Aust Inf Bn Rear Party”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Dairy, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; Captain P.J. Woodhill, NX12261, 2/2nd Battalion, “Report by Capt P.J. Woodhill, Julius Camp, 4th May 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16. 6 Captain P.J. Woodhill, NX12261, 2/2nd Battalion, “Report by Capt P.J. Woodhill, Julius Camp, 4th May 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16. 7

Private Sydney Carney Grant, Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, copy supplied to the author.

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of local village women coming to their church hideout, no doubt with food and water (see Archive Image 1.57). Corporal Harrison also refers to being given shelter in a village church, most probably that at Trahila. In the Trahila’s little harbour (see Text Image 19.3) and around the village Syd inter-acted with the locals, documenting his experiences for posterity in series of unique photographs (see Archive Images 1.55 to 1.58). Meanwhile signallers were posted on the high ground or cliffs above the village to attract the attention of any Allied vessels that might approach, as reported in the accounts of Lieutenant Sweet, Warrant Officer Nolan, Captain Woodhill and Corporal Harrison. By the night of April 30 Captain’s Vial and Woodhill had organised soldiers into watches with signallers to look out for Allied shipping approaching the area during the night, with a boat ready in the harbour to sail out to any such identified Allied ships. Captain Woodhill reports that several trips were made out to sea at this time. The Allied evaders at Trahila would now wait in the hope of evacuation. Text Image 19.2 – Abandoned old building, above Trahila, with its bay in the distance. Photograph Jim Claven 2016

Text Image 19.3 - Trahila harbour. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Some troops didn’t want to wait to be picked up and sought to make their own way off the mainland in boats purchased from locals. But this could be deadly. After having abandoned their vehicle and walked a further eight kilometres in the direction of Trahila, Captain Woodhill reported how Captain Vial had organized a party of 50 soldiers to try to escape from the coast north of Trahila in a 50-ton civilian schooner. Before they could depart they were bombed and machine-gunned, seven of the party being killed or drowned, with Captain Vial saving several lives of those who either couldn’t swim or were wounded. Corporal William Harrison reports that three men were killed and twelve wounded during an enemy air attack as they tried to sail in a large 80-90-ton fishing boat from the coast on April 29, ten miles south of Selinitsis. The wounded were cared for by locals at an unnamed village further south. Similarly, Corporal George Foot writes of a failed attempt on April 30 by his party of 30 men to sail from the coast in a large fishing boat, only for them to be forced to abandon the boat and return to the shore as it was set on fire during enemy air attacks sustaining 20 casualties. But two other groups would be more successful and their efforts would see Syd and the other Allied evaders hiding in the villages of the Mani coast safely evacuated. Fears that no Allied ships would return to take them off and intelligence of German troops nearby, led the senior Allied commander at Trahila to begin to organise a surrender (see below) – but this would not to be necessary.

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Lieutenant Field has left a detailed account of his role in the evacuation of the Allied soldiers from Trahila. He writes of how he and a group British soldiers would successfully sail “a clumsy but sound four-oared dinghy” from Trahila. It would be due to these men that Syd and many of the other Allied soldiers hiding along the coast of the Mani would be saved. The British soldiers in their dinghy were soon picked up at sea some five miles from the village early in the morning of April 30 by HMS Kimberley. Informing the Captain of the numbers of troops seeking evacuation, HMS Kimberley returned to Trahila along with HMS Hero and HMS Isis. Reports from the time record that contact was made with Allied ships approaching Trahila at around 1am on May 1. Captain Woodhill records the signallers being contacted by the Allied ships at this time, as does Corporal Harrison. Captain Woodhill writes of an initial request from the ships for the soldiers ashore to send out a boat, no doubt to verify their identity. Corporal Harrison writes of the signallers reporting to him that HMS Kimberley had advised the men “to proceed to the beach where she was sending her whalers to evacuate us.”9 In the meantime, Lieutenant Field and another Royal Engineer assisted HMS Kimberley’s Captain in his approach to the coast and helped pilot the warships motorboat and whaler in the approach to Trahila harbour at around 1am on May 1. Due to the harbour entrance being rocky and dangerous, the whaler was rowed in. HMS Hero would join the effort to embark the troops from Trahila. The Allied evacuation from Trahila had begun. In 1977 Syd Grant would return to Trahila and note that the old stone jetty where he had embarked, no doubt on one of those Royal Navy whalers, had been replaced by a new breakwater. While Lieutenant Sweet, Captain Woodhill, Warrant Officer Nolan and Corporal Harrison all record that the cliff-top signallers made contact with an approaching Royal Navy destroyer at around 1am on May 1, Syd writes of being alerted to the arrival of the Allied warships by the villagers, no doubt experienced fishermen, who had noticed the wash in the harbour as evidence of large ships further out. Syd then writes of using a torch to signal to the ship in the bay. Warrant Officer Nolan writes of the Allied soldiers “wading out to the ships boats from a shingle shore”.10 Syd Grant has left us a humourous account of his evacuation from Trahila, rowing a boat out to HMS Hero in the bay: 9

Corporal William Charles Harrison, VX6858, 2/6 Battalion, “Report of Movements of 2/6 Aust Inf Bn Rear Party”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Dairy, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6. 10

Warrant Officer (2nd Class) Frank Nolan, VX4301, “Report by WO (II) Nolan F. on escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 Item Number 8/2/17

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“Then we were rowed out to the destroyer, the ‘Hero’. There was a scrambling net, or a pig net, over the side, and the only way that the skipper of the ‘Hero’ would let us onboard was by asking us “Who are you?” And we said “We’re Australians” and he said “How do I know?” And we said “Of course we bloody well are!” So he said “Can you sing Waltzing Matilda?” So, it was quite a funny sight in the pitch dark, soaking, dressed in old Greek clothes and bits and pieces and some blokes with almost nothing on at all, and standing up and singing Waltzing Matilda!11 I wonder at the scene and sound, as these young, desperate Australians sang their lungs out in the darkness on the waters of Kalamata Bay. I wonder what the local Greek villagers would have thought if they had heard singing offshore. In any case, thankfully it was sufficiently authoritative to convince the Captain of their Australian character and they were welcomed aboard. After departing Trahila, Lieutenant Sweet writes that the HMS Hero picked up a further two Allied soldiers at locations along the Mani coast before departing for Egypt. Another group who successfully made it out to sea under their own steam was Private Wood. He writes of having made his way on foot with a group of Cypriot, Greek, Yugoslav, British and Palestinian soldiers arriving on April 29 at the village of Limeni, after a 30-hour march. This is the location of a great and sheltered bay, far larger than the others mentioned (see Text Image 19.4). By all accounts the local villagers were friendly, Private Wood writing of their support and graciously providing food and water to the soldiers. This was despite the presence of some German soldiers nearby. Captain Woodhill, who had ventured here from Trahila, wrote of a German motorcycle presence in the village and a warning to be careful by a Captain McNab, a British intelligence officer operating in the area. The next day, having purchased a boat, Private Wood and the others rowed their fishing boat 15 miles out to sea where they were picked up by HMS Kimberley. The scene of the tired troops aboard the warship on May 1 is captured in three unique photographs from Syd Grant’s collection, 11 Private Sydney Carney Grant (VX6699), Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, copy supplied to the author. Peter Ewer recounts a similar story concerning a largely New Zealand group of soldiers, with the crew of their rescue ship HMS Isis – one of the other British Royal Navy warships attempting Allied evacuation from the Mani - seeking to confirm the identity of the troops, some of whom purported to be Australians, with the question – ‘What was Matilda doing?’ Ewer, p. 283.

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Over 200 Allied soldiers had been rescued in these evacuations. Between 2.30am and 3.30am on May 1 Syd Grant was joined by Lieutenant Sweet and Warrant Officer Nolan aboard the HMS Hero, three of the 61 Allied troops evacuated by the warship during the Mani evacuations.13 Other small parties would similarly be evacuated from other small coastal villages, such as Selinitsis and Limeni, with HMS Isis and HMS Kimberley joining in the effort with HMS Hero. Lieutenant

Text image 19.5 – Wild poppies growing near Trahila. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Field writes that about 80 all ranks Text Image 19.4 – Limeni Bay. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

were taken off from Trahila and some forty from caves further south. As historian Gavin Long concludes,

including one photograph idenitifying Max and another photograph Palestinian troops (see Archive Images 1.59 to 1.61).12 Private Wood writes that they then directed the Captain of the warship to the locations of the three main groups of Allied evaders on the Mani coast with all remaining troops being taken aboard by 4.50am on May 1.

while it is impossible to be precise regarding the numbers evacuated from Greece on each night due to the considerable variation in the records, it is possible nevertheless to estimate an approximate figure. Reviewing the various accounts of the evacuations along the Mani – that of Admiral Cunningham, Captain Woodhill, Lieutenant Field, evacuation records held

Probably one of the last of these parties to be evacuated was that which

in the British National Archives, the British official history and historian Gavin Long14 – it is probable that a total of some 235 Allied troops were

included Corporal Foot. After their disastrous boating attempt on April 30,

evacuated from the Mani and Kalamata region during these evacuations

they had moved on south arriving at an unnamed village, probably Trahila

conducted over two nights (April 29 to May 1). Amongst these were some

or thereabouts based on his account. While there is some confusion in the

74 Australians, including five officers. Captain Woodhill also reports

times and dates in his account, it is clear that after hiding in the hills and

that amongst the totals embarked were Lieutenant Colonel Geddes and

keeping watch for ships, the party eventually made signal contact with one of the three Royal Navy warships involved in the evacuation, a boat being despatched to shore and the party evacuated, leaving the coast at 5am on May 1. 12 These photographs are both unique in that they are the only photographs of the Mani evacuations but also curious. They are curious because Syd Grant writes in his memoirs that he was aboard HMS Hero and not HMS Kimberley. There is a possibility that the photographs were taken by another photographer or that Syd Grant was in fact aboard HMS Kimberley. He could have been transferred to HMS Kimberley at sea, after his initial boarding of HMS Hero, due possibly to too many troops being on the latter. Nevertheless, the three photographs in his collection are unique photographs.

13 Report contained within Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, “Evacuation of the Army from Greece, 7th July 1941, London Gazette, 19th May 1948, p. 3055. 14 -, “Details of numbers lifted from beaches with dates and ships used”, Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, National Archives (UK), ADM199/806; Admiral Cunningham, “Transportation of the Army to Greece”, Despatch, 11th December 1941” and “Evacuation of the Army from Greece”, Despatch, 7th July 1941, London Gazette, 19th May 1948, Number 3042; Lieut J.H. Field, RE517, Corps Field Survey Company, Royal Engineers, “Report on frustrated evacuation at Kalamai Greece on 28th & 29th April 1941, dated 7th May 1941”, Military Survey (Geo) Branch, Winter Newsletter, 2016 – Issue 62, p. 13-19; Long, p. 181; Playfair, I. S. O. et al, The Mediterranean and Middle East: The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally (1941), History of the Second World War: United Kingdom Military Series. II, HMSO, 1956, p. 105; Captain P.J. Woodhill, NX12261, 2/2nd Battalion, “Report by Capt P.J. Woodhill, Julius Camp, 4th May 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16.

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to be north and south of the village, with Lieutenant Field reporting of his hearing at Trahila on the same day that the Germans were at Areopoli to the south. Lieutenant Sweet and Corporal Harrison then write that the Colonel had recommended surrender and sent a local messenger to contact the enemy, Harrison writing that this occurred at 10am on April 29. Corporal Harrison states that the messenger returned with the report that no harm would come to the village or the villagers provided the Allied soldiers kept clear of it, with Lieutenant Sweet adding that the Germans informed the Colonel that “they would come round on the following morning and take the party prisoner.”18 Despite these assurances, Syd Grant found out during a return visit to Trahila in 1977 (see Chapter 23) that when the villagers informed the Germans the Allied soldiers had gone, “the Germans turned around and gave them a good thumping. I think there must have been quite a few lives lost out of it.”19

Text Image 19.6 – New Mani Evacuation Memorial plaque, created by the author and Melbourne’s Pammessinian Brotherhood Papaflessas, to be unveiled in Trahila. Photograph Jim Claven 2020.

One Australian officer would be commended for his various actions in assisting in the escapes from the Mani. Captain Vial was recommended for the Military Cross and awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his efforts and leadership in the Mani escapes, the citation recording his award as being: “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during the evacuation from Greece from 26 Apr. 41 to 1 May 41 in that from KALAMAI [Kalamata] he organised and effected the escape of many soldiers who were surrounded by the enemy and who would otherwise have been captured or killed. At one stage of the extremely hazardous journey from KALAMAI to TRACHILI [Trahila] Capt. Vial took over a schooner and whilst preparing it for sea, the schooner was bombed and machine gunned and seven men were killed or drowned. Capt. Vial himself saved the lives of several men who could NOT swim or who were wounded. On 30 Apr. inspite of enemy planes he rowed a skiff 5 miles into the open sea in an endeavour to locate British warships. Throughout, this Officer displayed great resources, imitative and courage.”20

all British officers as well as “some Greek and Yugoslavs”.15 Other Allied escapers – including some two hundred soldiers of the British 4th Hussars – would hide in the mountains and villages within the Mani for weeks or months. Syd would have agreed with Corporal George Foot who wrote after the evacuation, “it was a marvellous piece of work on the part of the NAVY.”16 Syd and those aboard HMS Hero would be taken to Crete before being transported to Egypt before the German invasion of Crete. The evacuation of the Allied troops in the villages could not have come sooner. It was not only the constant air attacks that are reported in the various accounts but also as Lieutenant Sweet writes by the morning of April 29 German troops were reported by an “English Colonel” at Trahila17 15 Captain P.J. Woodhill, NX12261, 2/2nd Battalion, “Report by Capt P.J. Woodhill, Julius Camp, 4th May 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16. 16 Corporal George Foot, VX5845, 2/7th Battalion, “Report by Corporal G Foot VX5845 on Escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 Item Number 8/2/17. 17 Captain Woodhill refers to a “Lt. Col. Geddes” of “80 Base Sub Area” as being the senior Allied officer at Trahila who had assumed command of the Allied troops in the area. He may or may not have been the British Major Geddes of the Royal Army Service Corps who was present at Kalamata. Captain P.J. Woodhill, NX12261, 2/2nd Battalion, “Report by Capt P.J. Woodhill, Julius Camp, 4th May 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16.

Lieutenant H.G. Sweet, VX7562,2/5th Battalion, “Report by Lieut H.E. [sic] Sweet on Escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17 th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/2/17.

Private Sydney Carney Grant, Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, supplied to the author by his daughter Catherine Bell. 20

Captain Robert Roy Vial, Commendation Form, Dated 10 June 1941, NAUK, WO 373/27/391.

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After his return to Australia after the war, Syd would name his soldier settlement farm – “Kalamata” - in honour of the people of the city and the Mani that he considered had saved his life in 1941. As has been noted above, he also made the long journey back to Greece in 1977, returning to Kalamata and Trahila, sitting with the locals in the village, reminiscing about the war and enjoying their hospitality (see Chapter 23). A few years ago, as I departed Trahila myself for the return to Kalamata I notice the wild poppies that have sprung up along the route. Another fitting reminder of those Allied soldiers like Syd Grant who came to this part of Greece in 1941 and the locals who helped them (see Text Image 19.5). In 2019 it was my pleasure to work together with Melbourne’s Pammessinian Brotherhood Papaflessas to create of a new plaque commemorating those Allied soldiers who evaded capture and were successfully evacuated from the Mani (see Text image 19.6). With the support of the local authorities, it is hoped that this will be installed and unveiled at Trahila, an appropriate and permanent memorial to these Allied soldiers and their brave local helpers. I thank Catherine Bell for permission to quote from her father’s memoir for this story.

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A Grave in the Mani – The Fatal Journey of Prahran’s William Salter “If there is danger of not escaping from the Mani it is … from the hospitality and goodness of the Maniotes.” Quoted by Patrick Leigh Fermor, Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese

This story began as I stood at a solitary grave in Athens’ Phaleron War Cemetery and ended in one of the remote villages in the Mani deep in the Peloponnese. It is the story of a digger from the Melbourne suburb of Prahran who came to Greece in 1941 only to be killed as so many others were in that fateful campaign. It is the story of 25-year-old Prahran-born Private William Salter (Service Number VX2063) of the Australian Army Service Corps. William was born in Prahran in December 1915 – just as the Australian troops were making their way to the Island of Lemnos at the end of the Gallipoli campaign. The Prahran he knew was a growing and bustling one, home to many new arrivals, working in the suburbs’ many factories. After the end of the Second World War, Prahran’s pre-war Hellenic community was joined by new arrivals. Young William would have looked into the Greek-owned cafes of Windsor, wondering what the lovely cakes tasted like. And maybe he played with some of the community’s children in the local schools. When the Second World War erupted in 1939, the local Hellenic community in Prahran was soon demonstrating its solidarity with Australia and its struggle. A photo from the newspapers of the day shows the Greek community presenting the Mayor of Prahran with a large

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Greek National Flag to be flown from the Town Hall as a symbol of the common struggle of Greece and Australia against the Axis invaders (see Chapter 2). Young William would not yet be 24 years old when he decided to enlist with the Royal Australian Army Service Corps at the nearby South Melbourne Recruitment Centre. As he donned his new uniform one wonders what his wife Pearl would have thought, no doubt a combination of admiration and foreboding. After initial service in the Middle East, William and his comrades were off to take part in the defence of Greece, arriving at Piraeus in early April. Hopefully he was able to enjoy a few days leave in Athens, enjoying the sights and hospitality of the city as many other diggers did (see Chapter 3), like fellow Service Corps soldier 22-year-old Albury-born Private Kevin Byrne (Service Number VX47857). Soon most of the unit was deployed north to the defensive line being established at the Aliakmon River. Others were deployed to defend the rear area around Athens, including its aerodromes. Wherever William was deployed he would soon have faced the dangers of war. William’s unit was essential to the organisation of a modern army. The Service Corps were responsible for the transportation of troops and supplies to and from the front. A major transport hub was Larissa and the surrounding region. With the German invasion on the April 6, Allied troops were subjected to almost constant air attack by the Luftwaffe as the German Army pushed south. Operating on the key supply lines for the Allied Army, William and his unit were subjected to air and land attack as they endeavoured to extricate troops from encirclement and were constantly moving supplies to where they were needed. Some would be killed, like Ararat’s Private Felix Craig who died bravely defending his convoy from German air attack (see Chapter 7). This was William’s war. As the Allied troops made their withdrawal south to the evacuation ports and beaches around Athens and across the Peloponnese, it was William and his comrades that drove the trucks and supplied the petrol and ammunition to get them there. It appears from the records that towards the end of April William made his way to the port of Kalamata. Standing today on the harbour front it is hard to imagine the scene that would have confronted William in those dying days of April 1941. Thousands of Allied troops had gathered at Kalamata, all with the hope of evacuation. Between April 26 and the early hours of April 29 over 9,217

Text Image 20.1 – The hills and mountains of the Mani. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

troops would sail from the harbour to Crete or Egypt. But as the German troops arrived in Kalamata on the morning of the April 29, some 8,000 Allied troops remained. But unlike nearly 230 of his fellow Service Corps comrades, William would not be captured. Like many other Allied soldiers, he decided to make a run for freedom. Some escapers and evaders made their way west to Koroni but others headed east along the coast and into the mountains of the Mani (see Text Image 20.1). We don’t know whether William made his way along the roads or whether he obtained a boat and sailed south. If he had travelled by land he would have hidden in the ruined buildings and caves that dot the landscape. Yet no matter how he made his way, William would have had to survive the almost constant harassment from enemy air attack during the day and the advance of German ground troops at their heels. What we do know is that Kalamata fell on April 29 and William made his way south to evade capture. Proastio lies approximately 43 miles from Kalamata and based on the journeys of other Australian soldiers, William probably arrived in the area around April 30. The village lies six miles inland from Kardamyli, on a slope of the Taygetus mountains that tower above the coastal town that became the home of Crete war veteran and writer Patrick Leigh Fermor after the

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Text Image 20.3 – Kalimitsi bay, near Neo Proastio. Photograph Jim Claven 2018.

Text Image 20.2 – The home of Patrick Leigh Fermor, Kardamyli. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

war (see Text Image 20.2). A new village of Neo Proastio (formerly Porto Kalamitsi) has been built along the coast with a beautiful bay nearby (see Text Image 20.3), but the old village lies in the mountains. It is said to be one of the oldest and most important post-Byzantine villages in the region. Its villagers are said to be descended from Maniot sailors, with a church for every family in the village. The Church of Agios Nikoalos has some of the finest seventeenth century Byzantine murals in Greece. This little inland village would have been a safer place to wait for evacuation than the more visible villages on the coast. Many other Anzacs were hidden and helped in the villages of the Mani, enjoying the friendship and hospitality of the brave locals who faced terrible retribution from the Germans should they be discovered. The Australian War Memorial contains the detailed escape reports of six diggers – 34-year-old Camden-born Captain Philip James Woodhill (Service Number NX12261) of the 2/2nd Battalion; 22-year-old St Kilda-born Lieutenant Hyde Gascoigne Sweet (Service Number VX7562) and 40-yearold Warrant Officer (2nd Class) Frank Nolan (Service Number VX4301) from North Fitzroy (both of the 2/5th Battalion); 22-year-old Alburyborn Private Max Holbrook Wood (Service Number VX3459); 31-year-old Corporal William Harrison (Service Number VX6858) from Bendigo (both of the 2/6th Battalion); and 21-year-old Oakleigh-born Corporal George

Foot (Service Number VX5845) of the 2/7th Battalion – who had made their way down the Mani through the villages of Kardamyli, Selinitsis, Trahila, and Limeni. Another Australian soldier on the same route and recorded his experiences in writing (as well as in photographs reproduced in this book) was 23-year-old Horsham-born Sydney “Syd” Carney Grant (Service Number VX6699) of the 2/8th Battalion. These seven diggers were among the 74 Australians (in a total of 235 Allied soldiers) successfully evacuated by the British Royal Navy from the villages and beaches of the Mani in the early hours of May 1. I have recounted their story in Chapter 19. But William and his comrades would not be saved. Maybe he had been wounded in the retreats across Greece, maybe during the many air attacks across the Peloponnese or maybe in the final battle of the Kalamata Waterfront or maybe he was killed in an air attack while he was near or in the village of Proastio. The records show that William died and was buried in the village cemetery at Proastio on May 6, 1941. He was buried along with three other diggers and a British Major. All of the Australians were killed on the same day. Two of the other diggers were from Victoria – 24-year-old Marong-born Driver Donald Archibald Berry (Service Number VX4798) of William’s unit came from Mildura and 29-year-old Heywood-born Private Murray Moore (Service Number VX5109) of the 2/6th Battalion hailed from Portland. Thirty-four-year-old Mudgee-born Private Charles Sheppard (Service Number NX2459) of the 2/1st Battalion had enlisted in Willoughby across the border in NSW. The British soldier buried with them was Major Julian Frederic Doelberg of the Royal Engineers who had been killed a few days earlier, on the April 29, according to his Commonwealth War Graves

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Commission entry. How were these men killed? Local testimony collected in a history of Proastio by Panayiotis Kompliris and Dr. Panayiota Kompiliri details a German air attack on April 29 on a 50-metre fishing caique at anchor in nearby Kalamitsi bay. Although the engine was broken, a group of Allied soldiers had boarded the boat and were attempting to get it going when the attack occurred. Another eyewitness account states that the owner was intending to take the soldiers to Crete and loaded the boat with hay. The attack, which is estimated by some local witnesses to have lasted only 15 minutes, destroyed the boat, engulfing it in flames (no doubt assisted by the hay) and killing seven men, with fifteen wounded. One of the dead was remembered as having been a British officer. These men were initially buried in the sand of Kalamitsi bay. In 1943 the villagers of Proastio re-buried the remains of these soldiers in a mass grave in the New Civil Cemetery of the village. The men had been familiar to the villagers, one remembering how they organised bread and cheese to be brought to the soldiers in the days prior to the attack. This was no doubt one of many abortive Allied escape attempts by sea from the nearby Mani coastal villages. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission concentration reports, five soldiers buried at Proastio were exhumed and re-buried at Phaleron on August 27, 1945. These were Major Doelberg (see Text Image 20.4) and the four Australian soldiers recorded as having been killed on May 6, including William Salter. Clearly the British Major Doelberg is most probably the British officer remembered as having been killed during the attack on the caique in Kalamitsi bay. And so William Salter and his three comrades - Driver Donald Archibald Berry, Private Murray Moore and Private Charles Sheppard - who had been buried at Proastio were re-buried in Athens after the war, Plot 2 Row D, Graves 14-17 (see Text Image 20.5). The records are silent as to how William and the other diggers were killed. We know from the accounts of other Allied soldiers on the Mani that enemy aircraft were constantly strafing the area and German soldiers were advancing down the Mani in pursuit of the evaders. The local testimony recorded in the Mani Chronicle also contains accounts of Germans killing captured Allied soldiers in the area.1 It is more than likely that William and the diggers were killed in a German air attack

Text Image 20.4 – Major Julian Frederick Doelberg’s grave at Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

Text Image 20.5 - Prahran’s Private William Salter’s grave at Phaleron War Cemetery, Athens. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

or in a fire fight with these advancing Germans troops, such as the regular attacks reported in Private Max Wood's escape report after his evacuation. His report states that on 30 April that “enemy aircraft flew over continually and machine gunned all visible boats.” 2 This is the sort of environment in which Major Doelberg’s party were attacked. Did William make it to the village alive, did he wander its streets? And if so did his mind flood back to memories of his Greek neighbours in far off Prahran and the thought he might never see them again? A recent visit by fellow researchers – Barry and Janet Parkin of the British Brotherhood of Veterans of the Greek Campaign 1940-41 - has provided more clues to William’s story. Sitting in one of Proastio’s kafenio, one local villager named Takis remembered the burials of Allied soldiers at Proastio. A young boy during the war, he remembered that a number of Allied soldiers were buried first in a field near the village then exhumed and re-buried in the then village cemetery, now abandoned. This re-burial was supervised by the Red Cross and the Italian occupation forces. He recounted how he and some other schoolboys carried the boxes containing the soldiers’ remains to their new resting place.

Panayiotis D Kompliris & Dr. Panayiota Kompiliri, Mani Chronicle Vol 2: Proastio of Outer Mani – Memores from the time of the occupation and civil war (1941-50), A. Doulotimani Publications, 2017, p. 8.

2 Private Max Wood, 2/6th Battalion (VX3459), “Report of Escape of British Troops from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Battalion War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/2/17.

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He also witnessed the exhumation by Allied forces after the war, the operation undertaken with full military honours. Meanwhile back in Prahran, William had left behind a grieving widow, his wife Pearl. Sipping my coffee in the coastal village of Kardamyli, just below Proastio, I pondered on the story of William Salter and soldiers like him. The web of history ties this small village to Australia. And I think of the people of Prahran – and especially its Hellenic community – and how they should remember and be proud of one of their own who fought and died in Greece. The cemetery where the Australians and Major Doelberg were buried was closed soon after the war, all that remains is a single eucalypt and a few cypress trees, with no marker to identify the site. Dr Kompiliri has urged that something be erected at the site, as a mark of respect for those who were once buried there, both the Greek civillians and the Allied soldiers. Maybe it’s time for a small memorial to be erected at Proastio in memory of William and his comrades who were buried there as the Greek campaign of 1941 drew to a close.

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The Song of Sfakia - Po Atarau or Now is the Hour Music and song is an important element of human communication and social interaction. Whether at times of celebration or times of sadness, we all can be touched by an appropriate tune or song. A time of war is no different. And during some of the darkest moments in the Greek Campaign of 1941, soldiers joined in song as they faced yet another challenge. One of those moments occurred during the final evacuations of Allied soldiers from the Mani in the early hours of May 1. Here a famous Australian popular song was used to identify the nationality of those seeking to board the Allied evacuation ships. Horsham-born Private Syd Grant of the 2/8th Battalion recounted the story of how he and the other Allied soldiers awaiting to board HMS Hero were requested by the Captain to sing Banjo Paterson’s “Waltzing Matilda” as confirmation of their Australian nationality before they were allowed to board (see Chapter 19). However one of the other moving musical moments I have come across in my researches into the Greek campaign is that mentioned as having been sung by the Anzacs as the battle of Crete drew to a close. This is the story of how a distinctively Anzac song - “Po Atarau” or “Now is the Hour” captured the emotion of soldiers facing the end of the campaign. This song had begun life as a popular music hall tune written by an Australian and called the Swiss Cradle Song, published before the First World War by Australian music publishers W.H. Paling and Co. Some 130,000 copies of the sheet music were sold. The tune was also popular in New Zealand and around 1915 Maori words were added, the tune being

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slightly altered, the song becoming known as “Po Atarau”. Later English verses were written for it, including words that would become its English language title, “Now is the Hour”. The song was played as a farewell to Maori soldiers departing New Zealand for the First World War and was first recorded in 1927. The song would later be recorded by Vera Lynn, Bing Crosby and others. By the outbreak of the Second World War, the song – in both its Maori and English language versions - was well-known throughout Australia and New Zealand. As May drew to a close in 1941, the battle of Crete was coming to an end. Despite military success at Rethymno and Heraklion to the east where German paratroops had failed in their attempts to secure the airstrips and suffered many casualties, Allied defeat at Maleme led to the decision to evacuate Allied forces on Crete. While those at Rethymno would be forced to surrender, those at Heraklion were evacuated by sea to Egypt. The remaining Allied forces would take the only feasible evacuation route across the mountains to the port of Sfakia on the southern coast of Crete. Pursued by the Germans, this long column of troops, lacking water, food, ammunition and equipment, walked slowly and hopefully to their destination. These retreating troops would be defended by a rearguard force which included the Australian 2/7th Battalion. One of the Battalion's Sergeant’s was one Reg Saunders (Service Number VX12843), a 20-year-old indigenous soldier from Victoria’s western district. The Battalion’s War Diary records how the rearguard was under constant attack, from the air and from the advancing German ground troops. The Australians were also hungry, thirsty and lacking ammunition. But despite being tired and sore, they remained vigilant to the encroaching advance of the Germans. As they approached Sfakia, the Battalion would be called upon to assist in the defence of the Allied perimeter across the surrounding hills and valleys. The defence of the Sfakia evacuation port would end with the last evacuations in the early hours of June 1. While the evacuations from the mainland had been relatively smooth and well-organised affairs, that which took place on Crete were more problematic. The situation at Sfakia was described by one Australian officer as one of “no effective control”.1 Yet despite this apparent disorganization, British and Australian naval vessels managed to evacuate some 8,500 Allied troops over three nights (May 28/29 to May 30/31), the troops being ferried Entry for 31st May 1941, 2nd AIF, 2/7th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April-July 1941, Australian War Memorial AWM52 8/3/7.

Text Image 21.1 - The waters of Sfakia harbor where the Allied soldiers were evacuated. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

to the warships offshore by landing craft. As a fighting unit, Reg and the men of the 2/7th Battalion were scheduled for evacuation as part of the final effort to take place the following night, May 31/June 1. The Battalion War Diary records how the soldiers made their way down to the harbour in the dark from their positions above the town, marching in company formations, making their way through the thousands of other troops assembled around the harbour. Accounts tell of the disorder at the scene, soldiers separated from their units, all pushing to get on the last ship out. The beach at Sfakia harbor and the war memorial which stands nearby are pictured in Text Images 21.1 and 21.2. Some 72 men of the Battalion managed to get aboard the last landing craft to leave the beach. These would be part of the 4,000 Allied soldiers evacuated that night. But many of the Battalion would not make it. One witness – Private Thomson of the 2/7th - wrote later of reaching the beach only to see the last vessel moving off. Reg reported afterwards that the vessel was only 20 metres away from him but he was too tired to move anymore. Along with the Battalion’s commanding officer Lieutenant Theo Walker, Reg and over 500 men of his unit were among the 5,000 Allied troops left behind on the beach at Sfakia.

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It was at this moment that a moving scene is said to have taken place. While most accounts – official histories, unit diaries and the like – mention only the details of the evacuation and the chaos at the harbour, one account writes of some soldiers bursting into song. According to Harry Gordon’s biography of Reg Saunders, as the landing craft crept out into the harbor waters, some Maori soldiers aboard – most probably from the 28th Maori Battalion – began to sing “Po Atarau” to their comrades left behind on the shore. The song was then taken up by those on the shore and not before long other soldiers – including no doubt many Australians - joined in with the English version, “Now is the Hour”.2 By choosing this well-known Australian-New Zealand song, the singing soldiers turned this moving moment into a truly Anzac one. Listening to the words today, it is hard to think of a more poignant song to have been sung on such a sad occasion. The opening verse speaks to us across the decades: “Now is the hour for me to say goodbye, Soon you’ll be sailing far across the sea; While you’re away oh please remember me, When you return you’ll find me waiting here.”3 Across the darkness, the saved joined in song with those facing an uncertain future – capture or evasion. Reg himself would be one of thousands of Allied soldiers who tried to evade capture and one of some 600 who succeeded in getting back to Egypt – after surviving nearly a year on the run in Crete helped by the brave locals. When we remember the Greek campaign of 1941, those who served there, those who died and the brave civilians who helped them, we should think of those soldiers standing on the shore at Sfakia, gazing out into the sea as the last landing craft disappeared into the darkness. The words of farewell and remembrance must have given them some comfort. A few years ago I stood at Sfakia harbour during the annual commemorations held there and was moved thinking of this extraordinary spontaneous singing. The strength of emotion and sense of solidarity expressed by these soldiers united in song should not be forgotten.

Harry Gordon, The Embarrassing Australian: The Story of an Aboriginal Warrior, Lansdowne Press, 1962, pp. 86-87.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_Is_the_Hour_(song).

Text Image 21.2 - Sfakia War Memorial, photographed during the annual commemorations held there. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

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The Stones of Preveli – of Crete, Greece and Australia

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was the installation of the water fountain which was erected in 1991, dedicated to the people and monks of Preveli who helped the Allied soldiers in their hour of need (see Text Images 22.2 and 22.3). Later a memorial would be erected nearby overlooking the sea to those who had lost their lives in the battle of Crete (see Text Image 22.1). Geoffrey Edwards would also build and dedicate a Greek Orthodox Church in his native Western Australia in 1979, gifting it to the Greek community and re-naming the area as Preveli. It is stories such as these that have always struck me. They reveal the intensely personal core of the Hellenic link to Anzac. The Second World War was endured for close to six long years and would see Australian soldiers engaged in combat across many theatres. Those who fought in the Greek and Crete campaigns of 1941 had also served in the Middle East and many would return to this theatre and others in the Pacific.

For many years I have walked across Greece, visiting many of the sites connected to this battle and those on the Greek mainland. One of the places I visited was the Monastery of Preveli on the southern coast of Crete (see Map 11). As I walked through this beautiful Monastery I came across a water fountain dedicated by a former Australian soldier, Geoffrey Edwards and his wife Beryl who had come here in 1941.

Yet for many of these same soldiers their experience in Greece and Crete would never leave them. The campaigns had lasted only a few weeks, for those on the run a few months, for a few these would extend to a year or more. What I have found moving is the fact that despite many soldiers having served in Greece for short periods, they would recall their experiences for many years afterwards.

22-year-old Shrewsbury (UK)-born Lance Sergeant Eric Geoffrey Edwards (Service Number WX778) from Kalgoorlie had enlisted into the 2/11th Battalion in November 1939. His service in the Greek campaign would see him become one of many Allied soldiers who had found sanctuary and support amongst the Monks and surrounding villages as they evaded capture by the victorious Germans. They were sheltered by the locals until they were able to be evacuated to safety in Egypt from the nearby Limni beach. The evacuation of the first group of Allied evaders in July was so successful, that a further evacuation was organized from Preveli in August.

I am reminded of the Greek campaign experience of Private Syd Grant from Victoria’s Western District that I have recounted in Chapter 19. Like Geoffrey he would remember his time in Greece well after the campaign had ended and he had returned to civilian life in Australia. He never forgot the Greek people and their support, especially those of the Mani in the Peloponnese who helped him in his successful escape from capture by the Germans. Like Geoffrey, Syd returned to Greece and towns and villages he had walked in during the war, especially that of Trahila where he had been helped before being evacuated to Crete.

The dangers to the Cretans of sheltering these young foreign soldiers is evidenced in the physical destruction of parts of the Monastery when the Germans came to exact their revenge. Parts of this destruction have been preserved. Thankfully, the head of the Monastery – Reverend Father Lagouvardos - was later persuaded by the Allied soldiers to come with them – so certain were they that he would be killed for his support. Years after the war, some of these same Allied soldiers returned to Preveli Monastery and helped in its restoration. Part of this restoration

Similar stories from the Australian experience of Greece stretch back to the First World War. Families who had lost a son or father at Gallipoli and whose loved one was buried in the Allied cemeteries on Lemnos would re-name their homes “Lemnos.” And one digger from country Victoria – Ernie Hill – who served with Victoria’s famous Albert Jacka VC – would successfully lobby for the soldier settlement outside Shepparton to be named simply Lemnos. No doubt Ernie was keen to remember the care and treatment that he and thousands of other Allied soldiers received at the hospitals on Lemnos, as well as the hospitality of the local Greek villagers of the Island.

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This for me is what is most valuable and telling in the Hellenic link to Anzac. It is the connection between peoples. It is how amidst the horrors and threats of war, human kindness and friendship shines through and endures. We see this in the many touching photographs taken by the Anzacs during their service in Greece. We see it in the beautiful photograph of two villagers in the village of Tsimandria on Lemnos in 1915 taken by Australian Albert Savage1, in Syd Grant’s photograph of the women of Trahila bringing food to his hideout in later April 1941 (see Archive image 1.57) and in his photograph of a fierce looking elderly Cretan after his evacuation there, with the touching note on the back by Syd that the old man loved “the plonk” (see Archive Image 1.74). And we can see it in the documentaries of my good friend, John Irwin, including that featuring local women who helped the Anzacs during the Second World War, titled Out of their own hands: Women of Crete and the German Occupation 194144.

Text Image 22.1 - Preveli Memorial, Preveli, Crete. Photograph Jim Claven 2012.

Yes, the battle of Greece and Crete brought terrible destruction to millions of lives – soldiers and civilians. And this disruption stretched all the way back to Australia – to the homes and families of those who would never return and those who returned forever changed by the experience. Yet as I am trying to explain this is only part of the complex human experience of war. Thrown together by the violence of war, human beings also demonstrated their common humanity – from Lemnos in 1915 and through Greece and Crete in 1941 and beyond.

Text Images 22.2 and 22.3 - Fountain and dedication plaque, Preveli Monastery, Crete. Photograph Jim Claven 2012.

Albert Savage (Photographer), “Village Folk”, Florence Elizabeth James-Wallace Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Reference Number F831, Album 2, p. 13. Reproduced in Jim Claven, Lemnos & Gallipoli Revealed: A Pictorial History of the Anzacs in the Aegean, 1915-16, Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee, 2019, p. 214.

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The Greek Campaigns and Photographs of Private Syd Grant and Sergeant Alfred Huggins

Text Images 24.1 and 24.2 - Cover and page from one of the photographic albums in Alfred Huggins’ collection. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Photograph Jim Claven 2020

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The Axis invasion of Greece and the Allied campaign in defence was swift. While the Italian war commenced in October 1941 – ending in the Greek defeat of the Italian invasion of northern Greece – this would be followed by the subsequent German invasion and Allied fighting retreat that would last nearly two months. The Allied support for Greece would commence in 1940 – including air support in northern Greece and naval actions off the Greek coast – rising to the arrival of substantial British and Commonwealth land forces in March 1941. Amongst the Allied forces that arrived as part of this force were two young Australian soldiers from country Victoria’s western district – Syd Grant and Alfred Huggins. They would be significant in that both would record their experiences in a series of photographs, which combined would provide a dramatic visual window into their experience of the Greek campaign. Given the intensity and short duration of the campaign, such photographic collections are unusual in the history of the war. Not only was private war photography frowned upon by the authorities, but the difficulty of obtaining photographic supplies and the need to traverse two evacuations – first from the Greek mainland and secondly from Crete – makes the photographs survival almost a miracle. The viewer is also aided by the inclusion on many of the photographs themselves or in their albums of annotations (made by the photographer), providing location or other information relevant to the context of the photograph concerned. Where appropriate some of these comments are reproduced within quotation marks to the titles of the photographs and in the text. Their collections have been treasured by both families since the end of the war and the return of Syd and Alfred. It was my pleasure to have been able to assist both families in their decisions to donate their collections to the State Library of Victoria (see Text Images 23.2 and 23.4). They were both keen to ensure not only that the photographs were preserved, but also that they would be able to be viewed by the wider public. Their generous gift will be appreciated by historians, researchers and all interested in the history and experience of the Greek campaign and the Second World War. This section tells Syd and Alfred’s story, focusing on their experience of the Greek campaign, placing their photographic collections in the context of their war and provides an overview of each of their collections.

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Private Syd Grant, his Greek Campaign and his Photographs Sydney (known as Syd) Carney Grant served mostly with the Australian 2/8th Battalion in the Second World War. His service would see him serve across the Middle East and Greece, returning to Australia in March 1942 and discharged in 1944. As referred to in Chapter 19, Horsham-born Syd Grant was nearly 23 years old when he volunteered to join the 2nd AIF in December 1939.1 He enlisted at Horsham along with two of his mates, Evan Watson and Jack Walliss. Syd was enlisted as a Private with Service Number VX6699 and served with the 2/8th Battalion, 6th Division Ammunition Company, serving alongside his mates Evan and Jack. His two mates would come to feature in Syd’s photographic collection of the war. At the time he enlisted Syd was working as a Wool Classer. Syd was the younger son of Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Grant of 20 Pynsent Street, Horsham. He was one of four children – he had an older brother, Jim, and two sisters, Margaret and Ruth. The 2/8th Battalion had many recruits from Victoria’s Western District and in particular Ballarat. After the war, the Battalion’s standard would be presented to the City of Ballarat and is displayed in the Council Chambers to this day (see Text Image 1.2). 1

This article draws upon Syd Grant’s personal correspondence and two typescript memoirs Private Sydney Carney Grant, (VX6699), Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/ May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by his daughter Catherine Bell; and, Private Sydney Carney Grant, (VX6699), “Chapter 4: Wartime - The evacuation from Greece was a shemozzle and a real performance”,’ transcribed by Catherine Bell – both of which have been donated to the State Library of Victoria, as well as his service file held by the NAA and the Greek campaign entries in the War Diary of his battalion – the Australian 2/8th Battalion – held by the AWM.

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The Battalion was formed at the Melbourne Showgrounds in September 1939 and Syd subsequently trained with the rest of the unit at the Puckapunyal Army Camp near Seymour in Victoria. By the beginning of 1940, the Battalion consisted of 29 officers and 613 other ranks. It was here that Syd began his photographic collection, recording the unit in training.

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Australia (see Chapter 2). He wrote of enjoying the local Greek beer called Fix and the diggers buying Greek soldiers a drink as the Australians were paid double that of the Greek soldiers, remarking that “and inside a week, we had drunk Athens out of beer, when I say we [I mean] the Australians.”2 He also wrote home of his impressions of Athens and its people: “We had a marvelous time when on leave [in Greece], the people couldn’t do enough for us and we appreciated it…. The city of Athens is a beautiful place, nice and clean, modern shops, trams, buses, the people very cheerful under the circumstances …It was a lovely country and some day I hope to return to it. We were camped right near the sea about 8 miles out of Athens, everything lovely and green wild flowers lovely homes and just over the road the blue sea …”3

After leaving Puckapunyal early on the morning of April 14, 1940, Syd and the Battalion embarked from Port Melbourne on the HMT Dunera at 3.50pm with many friends and relatives waving them off.

Middle East – May 1940 – March 1941 He arrived at El Kantarra, the Egyptian Port on the Suez Canal, on May 18, 1940 and began nearly 12 months in training camps in the Middle East, across Egypt and Palestine. His photographic collection records the life of the Battalion’s training camps, as well as periods of leave when they would visit the sights of Palestine and Egypt – Jerusalem and its Holy places, Tel Aviv and Gaza with their beaches and Soldier’s Clubs, the deserts of Beersheba where the first Anzacs had fought in the First World War and the Pyramids of Egypt where they had camped. Syd and the Battalion then took part in the early phase of the campaign in North Africa which saw the Allies defeat the Italian invasion and capture Bardia, Tobruk and Derna from 1940 to early 1941 – great victories for the men of the 2nd AIF. Amongst Syd’s photographs are panoramas of Tobruk harbor, the smiling faces of Italian POW officers and the defaced memorials to Mussolini’s failed empire in the Middle East.

Syd’s Greek Campaign experience on the Mainland – March-April 1941 Syd then sailed with his Battalion from Alexandria to Greece on March 11, 1941, capturing the voyage in four photographs (see Archive Images 1.5 to 1.8). After arriving in Greece, Syd and his unit were camped near Glyfada (near Athens). Like many Anzacs, Syd enjoyed a brief period of leave in Athens and remembered the friendliness and hospitality of the locals. As his unit moved north through Greece to prepare to meet the enemy, Syd again recorded the welcome of the Greek people. Writing home from the Middle East on May 28 after the campaign, Syd wrote of visits to the former Olympic Stadium and the Acropolis. He wrote of the evzones and their distinctive dress, commenting that his parents back home would know it from the Greek Day Appeals held in

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One of the things that Syd wrote home about was the lack of fish and chip shops in Greece compared to Australia. As he wrote: “You would think we would live on fish and chips [in Greece] but that wasn’t the case. The whole time I was there [in Greece] I never saw a shop to buy any in.”4 His anticipation of finding some was no doubt due to his memories of the local fish and chip shop in Horsham, operated by Greek-Australian Sam Phillips. He was obviously so taken by the association that he even referred to Greece as “fish and chip land”, but this may have been a convenient way of avoiding the attention of the military censor.5 His attraction to one of the local Athenian women led him to write to his mother of his intention to bring her home to set up a new business with him – a fish and chip shop no less! After the end of the Greek campaign Syd wrote of his affection for the Greek people – “Sam Philips’ brothers and sisters” as he would write - that they “gave us a wonderful time by far the best we have had.”6

2 Private Syd Grant, Letter to Mum and Dad, dated 28th May 1941, Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. 3 Private Syd Grant, Letter to Mum and Dad, dated 28th May 1941, Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. 4 Private Syd Grant, Letter to Mum and Dad, dated 28th May 1941, Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. 5

Private Syd Grant, Letter to Maree, dated 15th May 1941, Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria. 6 Private Syd Grant, Letter to Mum and Dad, dated 6th May 1941, Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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As his unit moved north to prepare to meet the enemy in northern Greece, Syd again recorded the welcome of the Greek people. He wrote home on May 30 that women and children cheered and waved as they passed through their villages, girls throwing flowers and blowing kisses. Villagers shared their homemade food with the diggers – wheat meal bread, goat’s milk cheese and eggs. As they made camp in northern Macedonia, Syd wrote of the villagers selling the diggers bread and eggs, and how he enjoyed a glass of ouzo – “the national drink … white coloured and tastes of peppermint” – on the occasional visit to local village inns.7 Syd took a number of photographs of the journey north, of the road from Larissa to Elassona, of camps with Mount Olympus in the distance and Greek soldiers preparing pontoons (see Archive Images 1.22, 1.24 to 1.27). The German invasion began on April 6. The 2/8th Battalion had advanced as far north as Veria before being withdrawn to the defence line being established across the pass at Vevi. The battle there took place over April 10-12 and saw Syd and his comrades would succeed in holding up the German advance for three days (see Chapter 3). The 2/8th was badly mauled at Vevi and sustained heavy casualties. After the battle in early April, from nearly 650 officers and men who landed in Greece, there were barely 250 weary men at muster, including Syd. Over the next few days stragglers made their way to rejoin the Battalion. The Greek campaign would be defined by a series of short defensive actions, followed by withdrawals under sustained enemy air attacks, as the Allies fell back in the face of a determined and technically superior force. Throughout the withdrawal the Allies were subject to enemy air attacks, one of these being captured in a sequence of photographs by Syd (see Archive Images 1.33 to 1.39).8 Syd’s war in Greece saw him fall back through Kozani and Servia Pass, through Elassona and Larissa, Domokos and Lamia, to Brallos Pass, Livadia and the Corinth Canal (see Maps 8 and 9) – along the way Syd taking a photograph from the hills above the port town of Volos (see Archive Image 1.46) and another of a Royal Engineers dump alight after a German bombing attack (see Archive Image 1.47). After its mauling at Vevi the remains of the Battalion would form reserves at rearguard actions

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along the retreat – at Servia, Domokos and Brallos Pass.9 As the orders to evacuate Greece were given, Syd and the 2/8th Battalion were directed to make their way to the port of Kalamata on the Peloponnese. Crossing the Corinth Canal, Syd noted its having been begun by the Romans. As they marched south, Syd wrote home on May 30 of how the locals would give the retreating soldiers rye bread and water as they passed and how women would carry the soldiers’ packs until someone else in another village would take their place. He would write home of this support: “I think the world of them [the Greek people] for this spirit. And the way they treated us risking their own lives to do so.”10 As they finally arrived in Kalamata Syd and his unit marched through the streets of the city and camped under the olive and citrus trees to the east of the town, above the beach. These gave them some protection from the constant German daylight air attacks as they awaited orders for their evacuation. In the meantime, Syd recalled being ordered to destroy equipment that could not be evacuated. Here Syd photographed groups of Allied soldiers and the local civilians (see Archive Images 1.53 and 1.54). During the early hours of April 27 over 8,000 Allied troops were evacuated in the largest single evacuation effort of the campaign on the mainland. Amongst those evacuated were 23 officers and 440 men of 2/8th battalion – but Syd was not among them. After the convoy departed, Syd and the others awaiting embarkation returned to their allocated assembly positions on the night of April 27 but no ships came. Syd was now one of some 8,000 Allied troops that remained at Kalamata – including Anzac, British, Greek, Cypriot, Palestinian, and Yugoslav soldiers. The next day – April 28 – would see what became known as the battle of Kalamata Waterfront engulf the harbour and effectively end the evacuations from the city. Although the Allied troops – led by Victorian Captain Albert Gray and New Zealander Sergeant Jack Hinton – would overcome the German attackers and re-capture the harbour by late evening, the conflict disrupted the planned Allied evacuation for that night. Only three warships braved the harbour and managed to evacuate over 300 troops in the early hours of April 29 (see Chapter 11). Again, Syd was not one of them.

Private Syd Grant, Letter to Mum and Dad, dated 30th May 1941, Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

Note that some of these photographs appear remarkably similar to others taken by Alfred Huggins, see Archive Images 1.29 to 1.32.

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Long, pp. 75-76, 111, 140-141, 155, 157, 158.

Private Syd Grant, Letter to Mum and Dad, dated 30th May 1941, Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria.

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Syd first tried to escape capture by swimming out to sea in pursuit of lights out in the bay. A good swimmer he was confident of reaching the ships he thought were there. And indeed there were ships there – three Allied destroyers ordered back to Kalamata by the Allied Admiral Cunningham to see if any other troops could be evacuated. But he soon realized they were too far away for him to swim. As he returned to the shore, he noticed other soldiers drowning as they tired. One of HMS Hero’s sailors – Leading Torpedo Operator A.L. Ward - remembered hearing the distant cries of exhausted men trying to swim out to the warships in the bay only to end in a deathly “silence stretching out across the water.” 11 Returning to shore, Syd was captured and sent to the former Allied rest area that was now an enclosure for the Allied prisoners at Kalamata. Before too long Syd had escaped from the enclosure heading eastward on foot along the coast (see Map 9). By April 30 he had reached the village of Trahila, 40-50 miles to the southeast of Kalamata. In escaping capture and making his way towards the Mani, Syd was one of many Allied soldiers who did so with the Allied surrender at Kalamata. While on the run, Syd would receive the support of local villagers, including those of the village of Trahila, and he would document the village and its people in a series of unique photographs (see Archive Images 1.55 to 1.58). He would never forget the support he received from the Greek people throughout his campaign on the mainland. He would be one of an estimated 235 Allied soldiers successfully evacuated from the Mani over two nights (April 29-May 1). While on the HMS Kimberley Syd took photos of his Australian comrades (including Private Max Wood who had fought bravely at the battle of Kalamata Waterfront) as well as some of the Palestinian soldiers serving in the British Army (see Archive Images 1.59 to 1.61). The story of their escape and Syd’s part in it is told in Chapter 19. In the end, Syd was one of the Battalion’s survivors of the Greek campaign on the mainland. The campaign had cost the Battalion dearly 23 killed and 106 captured. A further 33 had been wounded and evacuated.

Syd’s Greek Campaign experience on Crete – May 1941 Syd arrived at Souda Bay on Crete on the May 1. Later he would recall the German air assault that greeted their arrival. 11 A. L. Ward, Leading Torpedo Operator HMS Hero, “Operation Demon”, http://www.bbc.co.uk/ history/ww2peopleswar/stories/39/a7379139.shtml.

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He would have joined up with those of his Battalion that had arrived in the earlier evacuation from Kalamata. By May 4 the Battalion had assembled 14 officers and 370 men on Crete. Most had arrived at Souda Bay on April 27 and by May 2 had held positions around the villages of Kalives and Neo Khorion (referred to by Syd as Neon Corinth). According to his memoirs and photographs, Syd spent time at both Souda Bay and Neo Khorion. His photographs include images of unidentified towns, a cemetery and a church (see Archive Images 1.64, 1.67 and 1.68), as well as the old British War Cemetery at Souda Bay (the future Suda Bay War Cemetery following the end of the Second World War), photographing a memorial there (see Archive Image 1.66). He also photographed a village on the outskirts of Souda Bay (see Archive Image 1.65) as well as a series of photographs of Neo Khorion and their camp there (see Archive Images 1.69 to 1.74), including one of the village’s local characters – titled “a terror for the plonk”! He also photographed a group of soldiers – including a number of his friends – standing outside a local café, listening to news, presumably over a radio (see Archive Image 1.75). By early May, Syd was re-embarked and taken to Port Said in Egypt. He captured the scene as men assembled at Souda Bay in readiness for departure (see Archive Image 1.76). Syd went on to depict the scene of his and the other troops arrival at Port Said in Egypt (see Archive Images 1.89 to 1.91). While Syd was evacuated to Egypt, the remaining members of his Battalion on Crete took part in the desperate defence of Crete. Initially defending positions around Souda Bay and the village of Mournies, the Battalion took part in the Allied victory at the battle of 42nd Street on May 27. It then fought as part of the rearguard defending the main evacuation port on Crete, the southern port of Sfakia. The remains of the Battalion were evacuated from Sfakia on June 1, on the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Phoebe and the destroyer HMS Jackal. The Battalion was severely mauled on Crete. It began the battle with 384 officers and men, suffering 10 killed, 41 wounded, 95 taken prisoner.

Middle East & Return to Australia – May 1941 – March 1942 In Egypt, the 2/8th Battalion were reformed, Syd joining up again with other members of the Battalion. From May 1941 until his arrival back in Australia in March 1942, Syd’s service in the Middle East took him back to Egypt, British Mandate Palestine and on to Lebanon and Syria. In January 1942 Syd had transferred from the 2/8th Battalion to the 2nd

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Company, Australian Army Service Corps. Syd’s collection records his visits to Tel Aviv, Gaza and Jerusalem, including to the War Cemeteries at Gaza and Jerusalem. He would also record his tour of the ancient ruins at Baalbek and the unit’s camps in Syria and Lebanon. While back in the Middle East, in November or December Syd became aware that his 27-year-old brother Jim Scott Grant (Service Number VX16398), a gunner with the 2/8th Field Regiment, had been wounded and was recuperating in an Allied field hospital in Egypt. Jim was wounded in action on October 11, 1941 at Mersa Matruh in Egypt as a result of an air attack, his injuries requiring the amputation of his left leg. Granted leave, Syd hitch-hiked from his camp in Syria through Palestine to El Kantara on the Suez Canal, where Jim was recuperating. Thankfully Jim survived the war, returning to Australia in 1942. Back in Australia, Syd saw out his service in the Northern Territory, before requesting and receiving his discharge papers on November 14, 1944.

After the War – and Syd’s Return to Kalamata and Trahila After his discharge, Syd took up a Soldier Settlement property on the Salt Creek Estate at Woorndoo in Victoria’s Western District. Here he established a sheep farm. Syd’s experience of war and Kalamata stayed with him for the rest of his life. Its effect was such that he never forgot the bravery of those villagers who helped him on his escape journey. He honoured the Greek people of Kalamata and the Mani who had assisted him in 1941 by naming his sheep farm back in Australia simply “Kalamata” (see Text image 23.1). After his escape from Crete, Syd wrote home on May 28, 1941 that his experience of Greece and its people had led him to wish that he might return to Greece one day. And indeed he did. In May 1977 Syd returned to Kalamata and Trahila accompanied by his wife and daughter Elizabeth. Looking out from his hotel on Navarino Street he remarked how some things had changed but others had not. Locals became excited when he showed them his photographs, recognizing their friends. He made his journey to Trahila, stopping at Agios Nikolaos, where they were welcomed by the locals and the mayor, enjoying dinner at George’s Kafenio! Continuing his journey on to Trahila, Syd noted that physically the village had changed, with many new homes, more tavernas and a new breakwater. Despite these physical changes, the people of the village welcomed their returning visitor. Syd has recounted how he sat with the locals, sharing rounds of ouzo, the local priest joining in, reminiscing

Text Image 23.1 - Catherine and Elizabeth Grant at the farm gate of ”Kalamata” in Western Victoria, 1956. Photograph reproduced courtesy of Catherine Bell.

about the war. One of the villagers – Andreas Dimoulis – invited him home for a meal of two fried eggs and four little fish each, accompanied by “a big plate of a vegetable that looked like silver beet cut up thinly, feta cheese, green salad, bread and a bottle of retsina.”12 During his visit Syd remembers the locals being very interested in his photographs of the village during the war, with two elderly ladies very intrigued by them. His photographic collection is a unique and fitting tribute to the villagers of Trahila and the people of Kalamata who bravely helped him in his hour of need. They stand testimony to the Hellenic link to Australia’s Anzac story. Later a local gave Syd a ride back to Agios Nikolaos on the back of a motorbike. Back in Kalamata, Syd thought of the time he came to the village in 1941 and the friendship of the Greek people: “We sat outside for dinner tonight along the waterfront at Kalamata and had calamari and some sort of fish, salad and a bottle of white wine. There was a sea breeze, it was very peaceful and tranquil. It’s hard to believe that thirty-six years ago there was high hell and general buggery raining everywhere. But those memories didn’t spoil our meal. 12 Private Sydney Carney Grant, (VX6699), “Chapter 4: Wartime - The evacuation from Greece was a shemozzle and a real performance”,’ transcribed by Catherine Bell, copy supplied to the author.

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It’s amazing here with the Greek people; as soon as they know that you’re Australian, they give you an extra big welcome, more of a feeling of friendship. They remember only too well when we were here all those years ago.”13 And in another account, Syd would put it simply in words that reflect the view of many Australian soldiers: “… the Greek people are very warm towards me and excited to know that you were here and helped with the war in 1941.”14 A few years ago, Syd’s daughter Catherine visited Kalamata and the village of Trahila where her father had escaped capture and been aided by the local villagers, following in her father’s footsteps. Catherine also gifted copies of Syd’s photographic record of Kalamata and Trahila during those dark days in 1941 to the local Kalamata War Museum.

Syd Grant’s Greek Campaign Photographic Collection – An Overview Along with his letters home from the war, audio recordings of his reminiscences and other relevant documentary material, the Syd Grant collection held in the State Library of Victoria (MS 15995), encompasses some 320 individual photographs which depict images from across his war service. These cover the period prior to his departure for overseas service, the Middle East and the North African campaign, return to Australia, along with 40 photographs depicting the Greek campaign. His Greek campaign photographs include a sequence of photographs documenting a German aerial bombardment of a town in central Greece as well as Allied troops in Kalamata, on the Mani peninsula and on Crete. At Kalamata, Syd recorded groups of Allied soldiers and local residents. On the Mani, he recorded the village of Trahila and its villagers who aided his escape. A series of photographs record his voyage from the mainland, one photograph showing a number of Palestinian soldiers serving with the British Army who had escaped capture by the Germans. Many of his photographs are annotated with commentary, providing locational and other relevant information.15 13 Private Sydney Carney Grant, (VX6699), “Chapter 4: Wartime - The evacuation from Greece was a shemozzle and a real performance”,’ transcribed by Catherine Bell, copy supplied to the author. 14 Private Sydney Carney Grant, Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, copy supplied to the author. 15 These annotations on the back of the photographs were either added when the photographs were developed during the war or soon after the war. This information was provided in a communication to the author from Syd’s daughter Catherine Bell received on April 1, 2021.

Text Image 23.2 - Donation ceremony of Syd Grant’s photographic collection to the State Library of Victoria. Photograph Jim Claven 2016.

The collection also includes writings and audio recordings (along with transcripts made by his daughter Catherine Bell) of his reminiscences of his war service, made after his return from the war. These include a detailed account of his service in Greece and his escape from German captivity at Kalamata to the Mani and subsequent evacuation. Combining personal reminiscences and photographs, this collection is an important addition to the historical archive of the Greek campaign of 1941. The Syd Grant collection complements the existing photographic archives documenting the Australian involvement in the Greek campaign held in various institutions, most significantly at the Australian War Memorial. The donation of Syd grant’s collection to the State Library of Victoria in 2016 was the occasion of a celebration bringing together Syd’s descendents, representatives of Melbourne’s Greek-Australian community and many others interested in commemorating the Hellenic link to Anzac (see Text Image 23.2)

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Sergeant Alfred Huggins, his Greek Campaign and his Photographs Born on 25 May 1910 at “Oakwood”, Ferryhurst via Mysia, near Boort in Victoria’s Western District, Alfred Huggins lived with his parents who ran a farm. Alfred worked as a wool classer before “humping his bluey” - as used to be said - seeking work further afield. A member of the Army Cadets prior to the war, Alfred enlisted on May 28, 1940 at the Sydney Recruitment Centre. He was given the Service Number NX22277 and went on to serve with the 2/3rd Casualty Clearing Station (2/3rd CCS). Alfred’s brother Eric also enlisted during the Second World War. Alfred’s family recall that he was a keen a photographer before the war and this is one of the reasons he took so many photographs during the war itself. He continued his interest professionally after the war. Just as is the case with Syd Grant and his collection, historians and researchers are indebted Alfred for his interest in capturing images of his wartime experiences.

Alfred’s Greek Campaign experience on the Mainland – March to April 1941 According to the Short History of the Unit (referred to as the Short History below1), the 2/3rd CCS was formed in New South Wales in July 1940, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Colquhoun Belisario (Service Number NX35034). John Belisario was born at Double Bay on April 30, 1900 and became a physician at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital 1 2/3 Aust. CCS Association, “A Short History of the Unit: An exercise in ‘name-dropping’”, 2/3 Aust. CCS Association, Thirty-Ninth Anzac Re-Union, April 1984.

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in Sydney. An officer in the militia since 1927, he would command the unit throughout the Greek campaign. For his bravery, efficiency and leadership during the campaign, John was appointed to the Order of the British Empire on December 30, 1941. He went on to command the 2/5th Australian General Hospital (AGH) in the Middle East before serving in New Guinea (see AWM 071278). The role of a unit such as Alfred’s involved the medical triage process for casualties in the field. During a military campaign a casualty clearing station received casualties from field ambulances who were located at or near the front line, administer whatever assistance could be rendered and then transport those requiring further medical treatment to the field hospitals located further to the rear. During the Greek campaign, Alfred’s unit was positioned in the field but significantly behind the front line, on the transport route further south to where the field hospitals were located. After the Greek campaign, Alfred’s unit appears, from his photographs, to have been co-located in the Middle East with a field hospital, with Alfred himself allocated to the X-Ray department. Alfred and the rest of the unit embarked for overseas service on the troopship Aquitania on December 27, 1940, sailing first to Colombo, the capital of British Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). At Colombo the unit transferred to the Christiaan Huygens, arriving at Port Tewfik at the southern boundary of the Suez Canal on January 28, 1941. As they sailed up the Suez Canal they experienced their first enemy air attack as they sailed near the Bitter Lakes. On January 29 the unit disembarked at Ismailia in Egypt and marched to the Moascar Barracks, where Australian and other Allied troops had been camped in First World War. The next day, on January 30, 1941, Alfred and the unit left by train for a camp at Hill 69 in British Mandate Palestine. Just over a month later, on March 7, 1941, Alfred and the unit embarked from Egypt aboard HMAS Perth headed for Greece. They were part of a field medical establishment which included the 2/5th and 2/6th AGH (with provisions for some 1,800 patient beds in total), three field ambulances, two field hygiene units and other smaller units. Alfred kept a photographic postcard of the HMAS Perth in his collection (see Archive Image 1.4), as well as taking a photograph of a convoy leaving Alexandria for Greece (see Archive Image 1.4). When they arrived at Piraeus harbor on March 8, Alfred and the 2/3rd CCS along with the 2/6th AGH were the first Australian medical units to arrive in Greece and part of the first group of Australian troops to land in Greece to take part in the country’s defence.

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These troops arrived in Greece at Piraeus throughout March and early April.2 They would be part of the Allied defence force being deployed to Greece to serve alongside Greek forces (see Chapter 3).

in a small measure the magnificent scenery in Greece. Note [undecipherable] place for prayer that the Greeks have all along the roads.”4

Most Australian troops appear to have enjoyed a short period of leave during the few days after their arrival in Greece. On its arrival, Alfred’s unit was based at Kephissia near Athens, where the Short History records that they were subject to “a snow storm.”3 While at Kephissia, a group of Australian nurses were attached to the unit (see AWM 119036). But it wouldn’t be all work and tents for these young Australians. Photographs taken by the soldiers at the time from various collections depict them visiting the sites of Athens, including the Acropolis and Syntagma Square, or just enjoying a drink at one of the city’s outdoor bars or cafes. Alfred’s unit appears to have been no different. Photographs in his collection depict three Australian soldiers near the Acropolis (see Archive Images 1.10). Alfred also features in two bought photographs of their images superimposed on Acropolis scenes (see Archive Images 1.11 and 1.12). Alfred seems to have also bought other photographs of the Acropolis itself and other scenes, no doubt from a local trader in the city (see Archive Images 1.13 to 1.21). To give a flavour of Alfred’s experience of Athens, we can think on the words of the Australian war correspondent and poet, Kennett Slessor, who was present in Athens during this time and found the experience of Athens and the Acropolis overwhelming (see Chapter 3).

At the same time, the Allied front line was being established to the north. On March 17 they are reported in the Short History to have set up their first “battle station” on the outskirts of Elassona (see Maps 6 and 8), located to the south of Kozani and in the shadow of Mount Olympus (see Archive Image 1.28). It was here that the Short History reports that they received their first battle casualty, a soldier from the British Army’s King’s Royal Rifle Regiment (although the historian Allan Walker states that unit's the first casualty was a Yugoslav soldier). However as the German invasion was yet to commence it is probable that this casualty was the result of an accident. Alfred wrote of this time, his notes written on the back of his photograph titled “Greece - Elissona by Olympus” (see Archive Image 1.28) and possibly written at a later date:

But soon Alfred and the rest of the Allied troops were on the move. In preparation for the coming campaign, they were moved north to face the expected German invasion, and the 2/3rd CCS were no different. Alfred took a photograph during this advance from the back of a truck he was travelling in (see Archive Image 1.23) and noted on the back of the photograph the magnificent scenery and Greek Orthodox memorials at the roadside:

On the April 6, a group of Australian nurses joined the 2/3rd CCS at Elassona. It was to be a fateful day. For it was on the same day that the German invasion of Greece commenced. Within days the Germans had breached the Greek Army’s defences across the northern border and were racing for Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city, which fell to the invaders on April 9. By early morning the next day, April 10, Australian troops faced German soldiers for the first time since 1918 at the town of Vevi at the head of the Kleidi Pass in northern Greece. Here the Australian, New Zealand, British and Greek forces were successful in holding up the German advance until they were forced to withdraw south on the evening of April 12 (see Chapter 3). This would be the beginning of a long,

“This was taken on the way up out of the back of a truck before the fun started. This was very typical. You can gather 2

The first Anzac troops to arrive in Greece were the 18th New Zealand Battalion on March 7, along with the New Zealand General Freyberg. They were followed by the 2/6th Australian General Hospital and the 2/3rd Casualty Clearing Station who arrived in Piraeus on March 8 - the first Australian medical units to embark in Greece. The first Australian fighting unit – the 2/3rd Battalion, arrived on March 19, along with the Australian commander General Blamey. The overall British Commander of the Allied expedition, General Wilson, arrived in Athens on March 8. By the March 19 the British 1st Armoured Brigade, all but a few units of the New Zealand Division and one brigade of Australians of the 6th Division had landed in Greece. Ewer, p. 91; Walker, pp. 232, 234; Long, pp. 224, 227.. 3 2/3 Aust. CCS Association, “A Short History of the Unit: An exercise in ‘name-dropping’”, 2/3 Aust. CCS Association, Thirty-Ninth Anzac Re-Union, April 1984, p.2.

“In Greece – with the famous Mt Olympus in background. The scenery here at times was magnificent especially with the morning sun. The snow provided water from the creek. You can see the town before it was bombed as the snaps in my last letter showed. We believe a large number of troops were dropped here soon after we left. Only a small number of tents shown owing to the necessity of having to defend them.”5

Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.23 titled - Untitled. Note on the back states this is the view from the back of a truck as the 2/3rd CCS’ advanced through Greece, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.28 titled “Greece – Ellisona [Ellasona] by Olympus”. This most probably depicts the 2/3rd CCS camp site, located behind Allied lines, near Ellasona, central Greece, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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fighting withdrawal by the Allied force, interrupted by a series of fierce engagements with the enemy – at Pinieos Gorge, at Servia and at Brallos Pass – as the Allies made their way south to Athens and beyond. After the battle at Pinieos Gorge on April 18, the Germans occupied Larissa and its important airfield. The speed of the German advance had its effect on Alfred and the unit. The day after the German attack on April 6, the unit had learned that their newly arrived nurses would be withdrawn in a few days and questions had already been raised about their being too far advanced. The Australian nurses were withdrawn on April 9 and sent to be quartered with the New Zealand hospital nurses at Farsala (see Map 8). On the same day, the Australian official medical history writes that the 2/3rd CCS admitted a wounded soldier of the Royal Yugoslav Army. Photographs in Alfred’s collection reveal some of the reality of the

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plain (see Archive Images 1.29 to 1.32).8 The Allied air force available for the campaign was vastly outnumbered. Roald Dahl – the future author – was a British Royal Air Force pilot during the campaign and described the experience in his memoirs. In his post-war audio recording, Alfred would give an account of the retreat through Greece and the constant enemy air attacks. He mentioned that on one occasion he jumped into a trench by the side of a road and others in the unit jumped into the opposite side. Those who jumped into the opposite trench were machine gunned and killed. After the war he remembered helping the New Zealand survivors of an air attack and avoiding injury as ammunition in a bombed truck exploded around him. The incessant air attacks no doubt created fear amongst those on the ground but also led to some interesting reactions, as seen in one of Alfred’s photographs which depict a soldier taking some timeout to relax under a tree with a bottle of something strong (see Archive Image 1.40). Alfred wrote:

experience at this time in the campaign. There is a photograph of soldiers

“At this particular time our respective insurance companies would have been as frightened as we were. But this chap didn’t care if they dropped bombs or tram-cars. A very enviable condition.”9

outside their tent (see Archive Image 1.43), while others depict them in action. One photograph shows members of the unit providing medical care to a wounded soldier, while another depicts soldiers attending a burial in the mountains (see Archive Images 1.41 and 1.42). Both these images are, I believe, unique in the photographic record of the Greek campaign. Alfred wrote of the burial: “This is where we buried some of those less fortunate chaps we had to leave in Greece. Snow capped mountains are only just in sight.”6 He also wrote on the back of his photo of the operation, writing: “An operation in the field. The chap with glasses and the one opposite are two leading men in Sydney.”7 The reality of the unit being too far advanced is shown in Alfred’s depiction in a sequence of photographs of air attacks on the surrounding plains of Elassona, the violence of the bomb blasts clearly visible. The photographs were taken by Alfred from a position in the hills above the

This is an interesting reflection given his family’s recollection of him telling them that during his war service in the Middle East he was once disciplined over the theft of some bottles of beer! One of the features of the Greek campaign was the cold experienced by the troops. As Alfred had mentioned the surrounding mountains were “snow capped.”10 Another photograph which depicts Alfred and his comrades enjoying their meal inside a tent (see Archive Image 1.44) has the written comment on the back – “In Greece and as cold as hell. Eating of course the customary bully and biscuits.”11 By April 12 the position of the unit at Elassona was considered “precarious”, with two surgical teams operating simultaneously on wounded and exhausted men, some with muddy wounds. Despite these 8 Note that some of these photographs appear remarkably similar to others taken by Syd Grant, see Archive Images 1.33 to 1.39. 9

Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.40 titled Untitled. Somewhere in mainland Greece, given its location within the album. March-May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

10 Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.42 titled “Greece – Burial Service.” Taken behind Allied lines, during the Greek campaign, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria

Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.42 titled “Greece – Burial Service.” Taken behind Allied lines, during the Greek campaign, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.41 titled “Operation – Greece.” Members of the 2/3rd CCS operating on a wounded soldier during the Greek campaign, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria

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11 Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.44 titled Untitled. Greece, March-May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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conditions the unit is recorded as being “in surprisingly good spirits”.12

“After dark the motor ambulance convoy led off followed by the casualty clearing station, and before leaving the site Belisario left a message in German on the red cross in the centre of the camp thanking the German air force for their observance of the Geneva Convention. Shortly after the unit had set up on this site German planes came over and the last plane, flying low, dropped diet sheets which had been left on the site at Elasson [sic]. Even when bombing was taking place in the surrounding area the unit was never molested, though Belisario found it necessary to ask neighbouring units not to fire machine guns at German planes from just outside the clearing station area.”14

By April 13, Major Edward “Weary” Dunlop, the senior Australian medical officer attached to British Headquarters in Athens, visited the unit and found it filled to capacity with 200 patients and at times carrying up to 400, in spite of the continuous movement of sick and wounded to the rear. Many of the male nurses were now also sick. Given the extent of the German advance, the unit was ordered to cease receiving patients, evacuate the remainder and pack for departure. On the April 17, the unit was ordered to withdraw south, through Larissa, and eventually set up a casualty clearing station at a site two miles east of Livadia on April 18. It would appear from Alfred’s collection that the unit also made a stop at Lamia and set up operations (Archive Image 1.45), only to be moved on to Livadia. There is some confusion at this point regarding the evacuation of equipment. While the Australian official medical history of the campaign writes that the unit had been able to evacuate its equipment, Alfred writes on the back of the photograph of their camp at Lamia that they had had to leave their equipment: “Where we set up our last camp. Had some very [undecipherable] times here owing to tents being scattered can see a few – had to leave everything as it stood.”13 At Livadia the unit had been ordered to set up accommodation for 100 casualties by the evening of the April 17. They began to set up wards and operating theatres and had by the same evening received 200 patients, with staff having to erect tents over some patients. Here they would also receive patients transported by the Friends Ambulance Units, a volunteer service raised by the Quakers. After a short period, the unit was ordered to move further south. On April 22 they were ordered to evacuate as many of their patients as possible by that evening, to cease receiving patients on April 23 and to withdraw that night. Some 348 patients were sent on from the unit on April 23 alone, before the unit closed operations at Livadia. All equipment and tents were left undamaged. Their departure from Livadia is noted in the Australian official medical history of the war: 12 13

Walker, p. 245.

Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.45 titled “Lamia.” The note on the back states that this depicts the last 2/3rd CCS camp site, located behind Allied lines, near Lamia, central Greece, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. .

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The withdrawal south saw them make their way across the Corinth Canal and settle under olive trees at Argos by the night of April 26 (see Map 9). Their withdrawal from Livadia was followed by the Allied defence of Thermopylae and Brallos Pass on April 21-24 (see Chapter 12) and the battle of Corinth Canal two days later (see Chapter 9). On April 27 Athens fell to the Germans, their arrival depicted in two photographs Alfred later took from a captured German soldier (see Archive Images 1.48 and 1.49). Alfred and his unit had successfully kept ahead of the German advance. While Alfred’s unit made its way across the Corinth Canal, he personally had to retrace his journey. After the war Alfred recounted his having to return to Larissa at this time to retrieve abandoned medical equipment from a former New Zealand hospital camp, suffering enemy air attack and seeing the advancing Germans no more than four kilometres away. By this time the Australian official history records that some 6,000 Allied troops were assembled at Argos awaiting embarkation at the ports of the Argolis region, lying 24 kilometres further south – at Nafplio, Tolo and Monemvasia (see Map 9). Alfred and the unit made their way to Nafplio to await embarkation. Alfred was able to take the opportunity to take a photograph of Nafplio from the plain as he approached it from the north, the great mound of the Venetian Castle on the Palamidi Mountain rising above the town and harbour below (see Archive Image 1.50). Chapter 10 details the experience of the Allied forces assembled at Nafplio and the evacuations carried out there. The 2/3rd CCS arrived at Nafplio in the early hours of April 25 and dispersed under the trees. An advance party had set up a dressing station 14

Walker, p. 263.

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a little along the Argos-Nafplio Road, using equipment from another medical unit and during the daylight they found that a red cross on top of an ambulance in the centre of the field was respected by enemy airmen. Along with another aid post set up by the British 24th Casualty Clearing Station (24th CCS), these medical posts were assigned to the care of British and Australian troops at Nafplio respectively. An additional aid post was also established on the wharf at Nafplio to care for any possible casualties, with staff drawn from both the 2/3rd CCS and British 24th CCS. During the morning of the April 26 the tired Major Dunlop and his truck, accompanied by his driver Blue and the British Brigadier Large and a Naval commander, had also arrived at Nafplio from Athens via Corinth. Reconnoitring the town Dunlop noted that he met up with Lieutenant Colonel John Belisario and the 2/3rd CCS lying up “in a pleasant little olive grove” under the Palamidi, the same castle and mountain that features in Alfred’s photograph. Major Dunlop now spent the day surrounded by the bridal scent of orange blossom, writing to his fiancée Helen, reading poetry, dozing and watching successive air sorties.15 He wrote: “It was so languorous and pleasant and I couldn’t be bothered with a slit trench, even with more inquisitive planes overhead.”16 In his post-war audio recording Alfred remembered the bombings at Nafplio as he waited for evacuation. He was lucky to move from resting under some orange trees which were subsequently bombed and spoke of hiding behind tombstones as a cemetery was bombed. Alfred later recounted the German bombing of the transport Ulster Prince that had ran aground in Nafplio harbour, setting it on fire. It was during this dangerous time that Alfred captured the downing by the Allied forces of one of the German planes, shot down and crashed near the trench where Alfred was camped (see Archive Images 1.51 and 1.52). This downing was also captured in three photographs now held in the AWM, one of which depicts the scene immediately after the crash, with smoke rising from the crash site in distance (see AWM 069867), with the two others depicting the wreckage itself (see AWM 06868 and AWM 06869). The annotation to the one of these AWM photographs notes that the German plane was shot down by British anti-aircraft fire (see AWM 069867). In his post-war audio recording Alfred also noted the 15 16

Sue Ebury, Weary: King of the River, Miegunyah Press, 2009, p. 102.

Major Edward “Weary” Dunlop quoted in Sue Ebury, Weary: King of the River, Miegunyah Press, 2009, p. 102.

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plane having been downed by a British gunner. Alfred wrote about the downing on the back of one of these photographs: “The ‘Jerry’ plane was brought down in flames much too near to where we were sheltering in holes. I got two bad scares here. Firstly, the concussion knocked some dirt on my tin hat. Secondly, an oxygen tube dropped outside the trench and started hissing. My mate and myself said a hurried goodbye. Later we collected from a wider area the scattered remains of the pilot.”17 In his post-war audio recording Alfred also recalled that as they collected the remains of the pilot for burial these indicated that the pilot had been female, although this cannot be confirmed due to the lack of any other documentary evidence of German female pilots being used in frontline roles.18 As the sun went down on April 26 the evacuation ships arrived in Nafplio harbour. The ports were subject to German bombing throughout the daylight hours, so the long and arduous process of embarkation took place in silence at night. During the evening hundreds of Allied troops marched to the harbor front to be evacuated. Major Dunlop records joining hundreds of other troops at 9.15pm silently marching off in threes, the wounded first by ambulance, the rest walking, as they got into Greek fishing vessels and made their way out to the transport ships out in the bay. The orders were “Silence and no smoking. Haversacks, Helmet steel, Respirator, greatcoats only.”19 In a similar vein the Short History records that the men of the unit embarked “silently, under cover of darkness.”20 The whole operation was dangerous. The bombed and burnt-out Ulster Prince obstructed Nafplio harbour and the choppy sea rendered embarkation dangerous in small vessels. Indeed in the darkness a number of troops are reported to have been washed overboard and drowned. An account of the evacuation from Nafplio can be read in Chapter 10. 17 Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.51 titled “Greece – Wreckage.” April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. 18 I have been unable to ascertain how a female pilot was present in this German aircraft over Nafplio. Women were recruited into the German airforce and engaged as “ferry pilots” and even as test pilots. But I have been unable to find reference to German female pilots actively engaged in active military duty, such as described by Alfred. See Evelyn Zegenhagen, “German Women Pilots at War, 1939 to 1945”, Air Power History, Rockville, Winter 2009. Vol. 56, Issue 4, p. 11-28; Alfred Huggins Post-War Audio Recording, supplied to author by David Huggins, 2019. 19 20

Quoted in Sue Ebury, Weary: King of the River, Miegunyah Press, 2009, p. 104.

2/3 Aust. CCS Association, “A Short History of the Unit: An exercise in ‘name-dropping’”, 2/3 Aust. CCS Association, Thirty-Ninth Anzac Re-Union, April 1984, p.2.

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According to the Short History, the men of the 2/3rd CCS boarded HMS Calcutta, one of the ships in the Allied evacuation flotilla, as did Major Dunlop, with Lieutenant Colonel Belisario having remained at the wharf aid post, presumably departing later. They had a difficult time of it boarding the ship. As Major Dunlop’s biographer Sue Ebury writes, a wind had risen, whipping up the sea and tossing the overloaded Greek fishing vessels about, so that there was endless manoeuvring while the men climbed up the scramble nets onto the cruiser HMS Calcutta. After the war Alfred recounted the dangerous journey he had going out to the HMS Calcutta aboard a Greek boat. The boat had problems with its steerage and made for the burning wreckage of the Ulster Prince, aground on a sandbar in Nafplio harbor. In his post-war audio recording Alfred remembered jumping overboard, fearing the boat would hit the wreck. Thankfully the captain regained control and Alfred and the others re-boarded the boat and eventually were able to again scramble up the side of the HMS Calcutta. Once aboard the ship the men were met with a warm welcome, it being recorded that the Navy was efficient, hospitable, and generous with beer. Sue Ebury writes that Major Dunlop went to sleep with a tankard of beer on his chest. In his post-war audio recording Alfred remembered of enjoying “a wonderful cup of tea”.21 It would not be until 4.30am on the morning of April 27 – dangerously late – that Alfred and his unit aboard the Calcutta left Nafplio for Crete. They were part of a convoy of the transports Slamat and Khedive Ismail, escorted by the British warships HMS Hotspur, HMS Isis and HMS Diamond and Alfred’s HMS Calcutta. Aboard the convoy were 2,600 troops, with another 1,700 left ashore to await more ships. The former were “mostly headquarter and base troops as well as British troopers of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, less one squadron.” 22 Having departed so late the Slamat was well within German aircraft range and was attacked and sunk at 7.30am with 500 troops aboard. HMS Diamond picked up a few survivors, as did HMS Wryneck which had come to the aid of the convoy. Later hese two destroyers were themselves sunk. Only one naval officer, 41 ratings and about 8 soldiers were rescued. Alfred’s voyage was more peaceful. The Short History describes the HMS Calcutta as an “ackack cruiser” and no doubt this would have been handy in thwarting German air attacks on the ship. 21

Alfred Huggins Post-War Audio Recording, copy supplied to author by David Huggins, 2019.

McClymont, p. 429.

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The Allied evacuation from the Greek mainland has been referred to as a “Second Dunkirk” with some 50,000 British and Empire troops saved from capture. This phrase was used by 20-year-old Sergeant Reg Saunders of the 2/7th Battalion (Service Number VX12843) from Western Victoria in a letter home following his evacuation from the mainland. The evacuation was undertaken by a fleet drawn from the British, Australian and Greek Navies as well as the merchant marine of many Allied nations. But thousands of soldiers could not be evacuated and much needed military equipment had to be left behind on the Greek mainland, troops destroying their equipment to deny its use by the enemy. Alfred’s unit had had to leave its equipment behind too. In the end, the Germans captured over 11,000 British and other Empire troops and many troopladen ships sunk during the evacuation.

Alfred’s Greek Campaign experience on Crete – April-May 1941 And so Alfred and the 2/3rd CCS survived the voyage without damage, disembarking at Souda Bay in Crete on April 27 (see Map 11). The unit then marched “a long way” to an unnamed village and camped under olive trees to wait for news of their further embarkation to Egypt.23 Two photographs in Alfred’s collection depicts some Australian soldiers during this time on Crete – no doubt members of his unit – one of them eating lunch under olive trees and the other taking part in a communion service (see Archive Images 1.62 and 1.63). Alfred wrote on the back of the photograph of lunch: “Taken in Greece. We had 4 attempts to eat this meal. Bombs being the disturbing influence. Had some anxious moments here.”24 On May 11, the unit marched to “42nd Street” – soon to be the location of the famous successful Anzac charge against the Germans during the battle of the same name - and headed for Souda Bay, where they embarked on the steamer Lossiebank on May 14. Alfred took a photograph of some troops arriving at Souda Bay harbor, marching towards the Lossiebank, which Alfred had already come aboard (see Archive Image 1.77). Alfred and the men of the 2/3rd CCS would be part of a 2,000 strong troop component on the ship as it sailed from Crete. 23

2/3 Aust. CCS Association, “A Short History of the Unit: An exercise in ‘name-dropping’”, 2/3 Aust. CCS Association, Thirty-Ninth Anzac Re-Union, April 1984, p.2. 24 Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.62 titled “Lunch – Crete.” May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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The Scottish-built steamer Lossiebank was part of naval convoy given the designation AS31. The convoy included the larger Dutch steamer Nieuw Zeeland and was initially protected by a number of naval vessels, including the Australian warships HMAS Stuart and HMAS Vendetta, which had taken part in the evacuation of Allied forces from the Greek mainland. One of the British warships in the convoy, the light cruiser HMS Dido, also carried the Greek national financial reserves, some £7 million in bullion, safely transferring them from Crete to Egypt. According to the Short History, the Lossiebank “broke down” on the way and had to circle for two hours in what the Australian official medical history describes as “the danger area.” Here the ship “was the target of an air raid that almost got us,” according to the Short History, but fortunately they suffered no damage. Later as the convoy continued its voyage, the British warships were replaced by warships of the Royal Hellenic Navy who sailed from Egypt for the role. Alfred and the Lossiebank arrived in Port Said on May 16, 1941. Alfred took a number of photographs of the voyage, a number of untitled photographs which appear to depict the voyage and the coast of Crete and some islands after they had departed Souda Bay, others show soldiers on the deck of the ship and others in the hold (see Archive Images 1.78 to 1.87), followed by their arrival in Palestine (see Archive Image 1.88). Alfred wrote on the back of the photograph of the Lossiebank as it sailed along the coast of Crete (see Archive Image 1.78), reflecting on his days on the Island before the attack:

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His note on the back of his photograph of troops on deck (see Archive Image 1.86) contains a brief description of the air attack on the Lossiebank: “Leaving Crete. Taken in the Cocktail Bar. Shortly after this 2 1,000lb bombs dropped so close that water poured in on us. Another second in the release and this would never have been printed. A Climax to our already ordeals.”27 Alfred’s Greek campaign was now over. Alfred and the unit had successfully made it to Egypt, but without their equipment which had had to be left behind in Greece. Historian Richard Reid cites Australian War Memorial statistics recording that the 2/3rd CCS suffered two wounded in action and two captured during the campaign on the Greek mainland. The two soldiers captured were both New South Welshmen - 40-year-old London-born Private Harry Wright (Service Number NX65232) and 30-year-old North Sydney-born Lance Corporal Hector Anderson (Service Number NX28543). The Australian official medical history provides the following assessment of the 2/3rd CCS service during the Greek campaign: “The casualty clearing station did excellent work; its early arrival and prompt establishment were factors of great importance in the campaign. During the campaign the 2/3rd CCS admitted a total of 1,683 patients, and carried out a considerable amount of surgical work in a tented theatre, under a pressure lamp for light at Elasson [Elassona] and a generator unit at Levadia [Livadia]. Many of the wounds were multiple, and limb injuries were common. At Levadia [Livadia]. an urgent surgical ward was set up near the theatre. Standard pre- and post-operative methods were used, wounds were excised where possible. … The paucity of all transport was embarrassing in Greece, and the lack of intrinsic transport for this type of unit was felt. The strain on the male nursing staff was considerable; dispersal increased the difficulties caused by the inability to use female nurses. … A semi-forward area may become a forward area over-night.”28

“On the old cargo boat between Crete and Port Said. Although the conditions were terrible we were mightily glad she was taking us further away from Crete – those 18 days there were days hard to describe.”25 The experience of the Greek campaign is again reflected in the words Alfred wrote on the back of the photograph of the soldiers in the hold (Image 1.87) as follows: “In the hold of the boat on the way from Crete. Take a note of the strained expression as compared with the one taken on return.”26 25

Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.78 titled “Lossybank – Leaving Crete.” May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. 26 Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.87 titled - “In the hold Lossybank.” The lucky ones. Taken during the 2/3rd CCS’ evacuation from Crete to Egypt, May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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27 Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.86 titled - “Lossybank”. May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. This photograph was reproduced in Allan S. Walker’s volume 2 of the Australian official medical history of the Second World War – Middle East and Far East - under the title “Evacuation from Crete on S.S. Lossiebank” and attributed to J.C. Belisario (AWM 043237). 28

Walker, pp. 270-271.

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Athens and the German Airborne Assaults – Alfred’s Captured German Photographs At some stage after his departure from Crete, Alfred obtained nine photographs, taken from a German prisoner. These depict the German troops arriving in Athens (see Archive Images 1.48 and 1.49), followed by a series of photographs of German troops at their camp in mainland Greece, preparing for or taking part in the airborne assault on Crete (see Archive Images 1.92 to 1.98). While there are some photographs that may be similar to some of these in Alfred’s collection, they appear quite unique nonetheless.

After Greece – and Return to Australia The 2/3rd CCS went on to serve in the Middle East. They were sent to Haifa in Palestine in May 1941, then on to Lebanon and Syria from July 1941, where they set up camp at Beirut and Tripoli. In July 1942 the unit moved to El Alamein, via Damascus and Haifa. The Short History records that the unit advanced to a position near Mersah Metruh in October 1942, later sustaining two battle casualties. The latter were both New South Welshmen – 27-year-old Sydney-born Sergeant Frank Aarons (Service Number NX65168) and 37-year-old Sunderland (UK)-born Corporal Tommy Thompson (Service Number NX28736), who were both killed on December 3, 1942 as they entered a minefield to rescue a wounded French officer. After being ordered back to Palestine in December 1942, the unit then returned to Australia onboard the Ile de France, arriving in Sydney on February 28, 1943. After a period at Townsville in Queensland, the unit served in various locations in the South-West Pacific area throughout the rest of the war, including Milne Bay, Lae, Finschafen, Balikpapan and Morotai. Alfred had served in the ill-fated Greek campaign from March to May 1941 and much more. He had provided medical care under fire and during a hard-fought retreat. He had survived air attack during the Greek campaign on the mainland, been successfully evacuated to Crete and then survived the near bombing of his transport ship on its voyage to Egypt. It is no wonder that Alfred was Mentioned-in-Despatches for his service in the Middle East. This was published by the War Office in the London Gazette on 30th December 1941 stating that: “The KING has been graciously pleased to approve that the following be Mentioned in recognition of distinguished

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services in the Middle East (including Egypt, East Africa, The Western Desert, The Sudan, Greece, Crete, Syria and Tobruk) during the period February, 1941, to July, 1941.”29 Alfred survived the war and returned to Australia. He soon opened a photographic studio in Melbourne. Later he would operate a medical supplies business. Alfred passed away in 1985. Alfred had indeed led an exciting life, the war taking him far away from the family farm near Boort to the mountains and blue seas of Greece and beyond. He had seen and survived the tragedy of war. His role had seen him deliver help and aid to those of his comrades who were injured and sick, no doubt a source of pride for Alfred and his comrades. He has left his archive photographs, documenting his experiences in vivid images, to be appreciated by generations to come.

Alfred Huggins’ Greek Campaign Photographic Collection – An Overview Alfred Huggins’ interest in photography is clearly exhibited in the extent and quality of his photographic collection. The vast majority of the photographs were taken by Alfred himself, with a few photographs featuring Alfred himself having been taken by others on his behalf. His family recalls that he was a keen a photographer before the war and this is no doubt one of the reasons he took so many photographs during the war itself. He continued his interest professionally after the war, opening a photographic studio in Melbourne’s prestigious “Paris End” of Collins Street. Photographs from his time in the Middle East, after the Greek campaign, reveal Alfred to have worked in the x-ray department of the unit. This would have been an ideal location for someone with photographic skills and would have provided access to film developing materials.30 Alfred Huggins’ collection encompasses some 232 photographs (including some photographic postcards), along with audio recordings of his reminiscences and other relevant documentary material (such 29 Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Mentioned-in-Despatches, award promulgated on 30th December 1941 and published in Second Supplement to the London Gazette, No. 35396, 26th December 1941, pp. 7339, 7360. 30 This was also the case with the famous Australian First World War field photographer Corporal Albert Savage of the 3rd Australian General Hospital who captured the service of the hospital on Lemnos during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915-16. For more on Corporal Albert Savage and soldier/ nurse photographers during the Gallipoli campaign, see the author’s Lemnos & Gallipoli Revealed: A Pictorial History of the Anzacs in the Aegean 1915-16, Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee, 2019.

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as the short history of his unit published by the unit association). The photographs are contained in two albums (totalling some 201 photographs) and 31 separate individual photographs. Like Syd Grant's collection these cover Alfred’s war service, including depictions of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and British Mandate-era Palestine. The Greek campaign photographs in the collection total some 54 images, including a number of postcards (of the Australian warship HMAS Perth and images depicting various Greek archaeological sites and other tourist scenes) and nine photographs confiscated from an unnamed captured German soldier depicting the battle of Crete. With respect to the Allied campaign in Greece, Alfred’s photographs cover the arrival of troops in Athens, through their deployment across northern and central Greece, through their evacuation – in Alfred’s case, from Nafplio in the Peloponnese – and on to Crete. His Greek campaign photographs contain unique images of the deployment of Australian troops behind the front line, whether at Elassona or Lamia. They show the medical troops administering aid to a casualty in the field, as well as taking part in a burial. In a sequence of photographs – remarkable similar to those taken by Syd Grant - depicting in stunning detail the effect of a German air attack, Alfred appears to have had a clear hilltop vantage point from which he was able to capture this attack. Alfred goes on to depict the drive through Greece, his arrival at the embarkation port of Nafplio in the Peloponnese. While there are no photographs of his embarkation and voyage to Crete aboard the HMS Calcutta, there are images of his time on Crete, with two photographs showing soldiers of the unit under olive trees and another taking part in a communion service during their brief time on Crete. A further five photographs depict Alfred’s voyage on the steamer Lossiebank from Souda Bay to Port Said (with seven more untitled photographs most probably depicting scenes from this voyage). While there is no photograph of his arrival at port in Egypt, there is one of the unit’s arrival by train in Palestine. Similar to those of Syd Grant, Alfred’s collection contains detailed annotations presumably by the photographer on the back of many of his photographs. Many of these are not merely descriptions of the images depicted but also provide a commentary on the particular stage of the campaign it relates to, often with poignant comments by Alfred.

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One of other interesting groups of photographs in the collection is a series of nine photographs which Alfred records as his having taken from a captured German prisoner. These images depict German troops marching through Athens. Later we are shown German paratroops preparing for an operation, being addressed by their commander. A later image shows them boarding a German plane and later images seem to depict views of a German paratroop landing taken from the ground after the photographer has landed. Alfred writes that these were images connected to the battle of Crete in May 194131. Although Alfred had been evacuated from Crete prior to the German invasion of the Island, the soldier from whom these photographs were taken had been part of that invasion. While some of these images are not uncommon in archives of the battle of Crete, some are unique. Along with the Syd Grant Collection, this collection of photographs is an important addition to the historical archive of the Greek campaign of 1941, documenting Australian involvement and complementing other existing collections held in various institutions, most significantly at the Australian War Memorial. As was the case with the donation of Syd Grant’s collection, the donation of Alfred’s collection to the State Library of Victoria in 2020 was accompanied by a celebration attended by Alfred’s descendents along the Hon Steve Bracks, former Premier of Victoria, members of Melbourne’s Greek-Australian community and others interested in commemorating the Hellenic link to Anzac (see Text Images 24.1, 24.2 and 24.3)

31 See for example Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.96 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops about to embark on their air transport plane in Greece, prior to the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria; and, Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.97 - “Captured from German Prisoner.” A series of photographs taken from a German Prisoner. This photograph appears to depict German paratroops landing taken from the ground, taken during the battle of Crete, May 1941. Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria.

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Epilogue As the guns fell silent and last evacuation ships left Crete, the Greek campaign of 1941 drew to a close. But this was only one chapter in the long history of Greece and its experience of the Second World War. What followed saw the terrors of the Axis occupation as Greece itself was broken up into a series of dysfunctional and terrorised occupation zones. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands died of starvation. All of this gave rise of the Greek resistance to the occupation, from Macedonia in the north to Crete in the south and across the Aegean. We have seen how they aided Allied soldiers on the run and they would go on to assist the Allied Special Forces soldiers sent to Greece throughout the war. Four long years of occupation would end with the liberation of Greece in October 1944.

Text Images 24.1 and 24.2 - Cover (right) and page from one of the photographic albums in Alfred Huggins’ collection (above). Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. Photograph Jim Claven 2020

Text Image 24.3 - Donation ceremony of Alfred Huggins’ photographic collection to the State Library of Victoria. Photograph Christina Despoteris 2020.

This book tells some of the stories of the Australians who came to Greece in 1941. This connection continued throughout the war, with escaped or evading soldiers on the run throughout Greece, some fighting with the resistance like Slim Wrigley and Thomas Fenton. The Hellenic link to Anzac would continue in Australia as the veterans returned, remembering their time in Greece, bringing back their photographs and war diaries of the campaign. Some like Syd Grant would come into Melbourne from Horsham – where he had named his farm “Kalamata” - and buy some feta cheese, Kalamata olives and maybe some ouzo from the newly arrived Greek grocers. The veterans of the Greek campaign would meet the new arrivals from Greece who came to Australia build a new life. And some veterans like Syd Grant would return to Greece and meet up again with the locals who had supported them in their hour of need. Of course the memory of the Greek campaign also lies in the graves at the Phaleron and Suda War Cemeteries in Greece. Yet the reality of the campaign can be seen in the thousands of photographs taken by both official photographers and soldier-photographers like Syd Grant and Alfred Huggins. Due to the generosity of their families they have been donated to one of Australia’s most important public institutions. They will not only be preserved there but will be available to be viewed and experienced by future audiences and researchers in Australia, Greece and beyond. Their preservation and availability honours the service of

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those who served in the Greek campaign of 1941 – including the brave civilians who helped them. No doubt there are more collections of photographs and written accounts still to be brought to a wider public. I hope that the publication of Syd Grant and Alfred Huggins’ collections will encourage other owners to donate theirs to public institutions so they can be preserved and brought to a wider public.

Appendices Maps & Sources and Further Reading

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Appendix 1 Maps

Map 1 –Greece and the Balkans “Greece and the Balkans”, Playfair, I. S. O. et al, The Mediterranean and Middle East: The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally (1941), History of the Second World War: United Kingdom Military Series. II, HMSO, 1956. Public Domain.

Map 2 – Greece “Greece, 1940-41”, Peter Ewer, Forgotten Anzacs, Scribe, 2008, p. 70. Colourised version reproduced courtesy of Dr Peter Ewer.

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Map 3 – The Battle of Vevi 1 “’The roof is leaking’, the Battle of Vevi, 10-13th April 1941”, Peter Ewer, Forgotten Anzacs, Scribe, 2008, p. 122. Colourised version reproduced courtesy of Dr Peter Ewer.

Map 5 – The Battle of Servia “Dispositions, 15th April”, Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p 75. AWM.

Map 4 – Battle of Vevi 2

Map 6 – The Olympus Pass

Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 59. Courtesy AWM.

“Dawn, 15th April”, Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 84. Courtesy AWM.

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Map 7 – Pinieos Gorge th

“Dispositions, 17 April”, - Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, opposite p. 107. Courtesy AWM.

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Map 8 – Aliakmon and Thermopylae Defence Lines Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 82. Courtesy AWM.

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Map 10 – Battle of Kalamata Waterfront “Battle for Kalamata Waterfront, 28-29 April 1941”, published in W.G. McClymont, To Greece, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-45, War History Branch Department of Internal Affairs, 1959, p. 452, Imperial War Museum, Public Domain.

Map 9 – The Peloponnese – Kalamata, Pylos, Methone and the Mani

Map 11 – Crete

Greece and The Aegean, Geographical Section, General Staff, No. 2758, British War Office, 1943, Second Edition 1951, (excerpt). Courtesy Andrew Ballis.

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Appendix 2

Sources and Further Reading The sources listed below are not an exhaustive list of those consulted by the author but provided as a guide to further reading.

Listing Order The order of listing sources within each chapter is as follows: war diary records and then other sources. Listing of photographic, website and personal testimony references are at the end of each chapter section.

Personal Testimony

Map 12 – Crete - Chania-Mournies Area “Morning, 25th May”, Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 245. Courtesy AWM.

I have drawn on the personal testimonies of a number of both witnesses who have either had their comments recorded by relatives or have made their testimonies direct to the author. Others provided assistance to the author during his field research in Greece. Each is referred to in the relevant story. The following individuals provided witness testimony or other research assistance – Panayiotis Andrianopoulos, Sotiris Theodoropoulos & Voula Pierakou-Vounelakis (Kalamata); Olga Black, Dr Peter Mangos & Peter Kanis (Greek Day 1941); Catherine Bell, daughter of Syd Grant (Kalamata &Trahila); Dimitris Boulotis, Angelo Kalomiris, Nikolaos Koutsaplis and his daughters Liza and Haroula, and Chris Mingos (Lemnos); Michael Byrne, son of Kevin Byrne (Vevi, Kalamata & Captured); David and Fiona Craig, nephew and great niece of Felix Craig (Thessaly); Philip Evans, son of Private Arthur Evans (Tolo); Philip and David Huggins, sons of Alfred Huggins (Alfred Huggins); Felicia Leonardos, daughter of Stamatios Katsatos (Evia); Effie and Sakis Karavidas (Olympus Pass); Mick Moran, son of Corporal Henry Moran (Vevi); David Sanderson, Janet and Barry Parkin (Mani); Aristides Thomas (Tolo); Fotis and Fotini Teliopoulos (Servia); Katy and Panorea Zampelis (Lefkada); Colonel Tziridis of the War Museum, Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki); Heather Fenton, daughter of Thomas John Fenton and Xanthoula Wrigley, wife of Herbert “Slim” Wrigley (Thessaloniki).

Maps The maps have been reproduced from Gavin Long’s official history, with the permission of the AWM, Dr Peter Ewer’s Forgotten Anzacs or from the 1951 edition of a 1943 British War Officer map, which was issued to Allied troops, with the permission of Andrew Ballis.

Service Records, Nominal Rolls, Unit Diaries and Unit Nationality

Map 13 – The Battle of Heraklion “Evening 20th May”, Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria, AWM, 1953, p. 282. Courtesy AWM.

For personal service details and biographical information for the Australian service personnel referred to in the text see the NAA website (https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/defenceand-war-service-records/army-world-war-ii-1939-45) and the DVA WW2 Nominal Roll website (https://nominal-rolls.dva.gov.au/#servicerecords). The Unit Diaries of those Australian military units mentioned have been consulted and these can also be found on the AWM Collection website (https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1359733). For those service personnel referred to in the text who are buried in the Commonwealth War Cemeteries in Greece (Phaleron and Suda Bay), see the CWGC’s website entries for the soldiers referred to (https://www.cwgc.org/ find-records/find-war-dead/).

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Official and Secondary Histories Those seeking further reading on the Greek campaign are referred to the following official and secondary histories. For official histories of the campaign: D. M. Davin, Crete, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-45, War History Branch Department of Internal Affairs, 1953; Hellenic Army General Staff, An Abridged History of the Greek Italian and Greek German War 1940-41 (Land Operations), Army History Directorate, 1984; Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria: Australia in the War of 1939-1945, AWM, 1953; W.G. McClymont, To Greece, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-45, War History Branch Department of Internal Affairs, 1959; W. Wynne Mason, Prisoner of War, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 193945, War History Branch Department of Internal Affairs, 1954; Major General I.S.O. Playfair et al, The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume II: The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally, 1941, History of the Second World War UK Military Series, HMSO, 1959; Allan S. Walker, Medical Series: Middle East and Far East, Australian in the War of 1939-45, AWM, 1956. For secondary histories of the campaign: Anthony Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, Penguin, 1992; Christopher Buckley, Greece and Crete 1941, Efstathiadis, 1977; Peter Ewer, Forgotten Anzacs: The Campaign in Greece 1941, Scribe, 2008; Maria Hill, Diggers and Greeks – The Australian Campaign in Greece and Crete, UNSW, 2010; Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation 1941-44, Yale, 2001; Peter Monteath, P.O.W.: Australian prisoners of war in Hitler’s Reich, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2011; Richard Reid, Greece and Crete – Australians in WW2, Department of Veterans Affairs, 2011; Craig Stockings and Eleanor Hancock, Swastika over the Acropolis: Re-interpreting the Nazi invasion of Greece in World War II, Brill, 2013; Peter Thompson, Anzac Fury: The Bloody Battle of Crete 1941, William Heinemann Australia, 2010.

Introduction Captain Keith Murdoch Durrant, Quartermaster 2/1st M.G. Bn. A.I.F., “2/1st M.G. Bn. A.I.F., Report on Q Activities – April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/5/1, pg 1 (file pg 152); Manny Karvelas, “Sub-Branch News - Hellenic”, Mufti, Returned and Service League of Australia Victorian Branch, March 2017, p. 18; Long, p. 70.

Before the Campaign – Australia 1941 1. How OXI Day was welcomed in Australia in 1940 -, “British Naval Aircraft Raid Italian Base: Many Bombs Dropped”, The Argus (Melbourne), Thursday 31st October 1940, p. 3, NLA; -, “Greece, Scene of Stress”, The Argus (Melbourne), Tuesday 29th October 1940, p. 3, NLA; -, “Greeks to start war fund”, The Age (Melbourne), Thursday 31st October 1940, p. 7, NLA; -, “Italian Attack Launched on Greece”, The Argus (Melbourne), Tuesday 29th October 1940, p. 1, NLA; -, “Support for Greek Cause”, The Age (Melbourne), Wednesday 30th October 1940, p. 11, NLA; -, “Zito O Polemos”, The Argus (Melbourne), Tuesday, 29th October 1940, p. 5, NLA; AWM 006818 - “Athens, Greece. Soldiers from the 2/2nd Battalion talking with Evzones near the Acropolis …”, Photographer Damien Peter Parer, AWM Collection, Accession Number 006818; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advisory_War_ Council_(Australia); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Italian_War.

2. When Melbourne went blue and white – Greek Day 1941 -, “4,000 AIF Men in March – Greek Appeal Day”, The Argus (Melbourne), Saturday 15th February 1941, p. 5, NLA; -, “£762 for Greek Appeal”, Daily Examiner (Grafton NSW), Friday 14th March 1941, p. 7, NLA; -, “AIF March to help Greek Appeal”, The Argus (Melbourne) Friday 31st January 1941, p. 1, NLA; -, “The AIF Marches – Australia holds out a Helping Hand to the Heroic Greeks”, Australasian (Melbourne) Saturday 22 February 1941, p. 5 & 20, NLA; -, “Appeal for Greek Victims”, The Age (Melbourne) Wednesday 4th December 1940, p. 8, NLA; -, “Appeal for Greeks – Shire President to open fund”, Standard (Frankston), Friday 13th December 1940, p. 1, NLA; -, “Army of Women in Action – Greek Appeal A Success”, The Age (Melbourne), Saturday 15th February 1941,

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p. 16, NLA; -, “Button Day for Greeks Totals £83”, Horsham Times, Tuesday 11th March 1941, p 2, NLA; -, “Button Day for Greeks Totals £83”, Horsham Times, Tuesday 11th March 1941, p. 2, NLA; -, “Duchess of Kent – Greek War Victims’ Fund”, Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 15th February 1941, p. 15, NLA; -, “For Greek Forces – Generous Response to Appeal for Funds”, The Age (Melbourne), Monday 31st March 1941, p. 6, NLA; - “Greek Appeal”, Cairns Post, Wednesday 19th March 1941, p. 4, NLA; -, “Greek Appeal Day”, The Argus (Melbourne) Friday 14th February 1941, p. 7, NLA; -, “Greek Ball for war veterans’ appeal”, The Argus (Melbourne), Wednesday 18th April 1945, p. 8, NLA; -, “Greek Citizen’s Wonderful Gesture – Steve de George Hands over Day’s takings to war funds”, Dandenong Journal, Wednesday 5th June 1940, p. 1, NLA; -, “Greek Day Appeal Drew Good Response”, Record (Emerald Hill Victoria), Saturday 12th April 1941, p. 4, NLA; -, “Greek Funds – City Appeal To-day”, The Age (Melbourne), Friday 14th February 1941, p. 8, NLA; -, “Greek War Appeal”, The Age (Melbourne) Tuesday 3rd December 1940, p. 6, NLA; -, “Greek War Appeal Matinee”, The Age (Melbourne) Monday 16th December 1940, p. 8, NLA; -, “Greek War Victims – Fund at Innisfail”, Cairns Post, Tuesday 12th November 1940, p. 3, NLA; -, “Greek War Victims Appeal – Rockhampton Meeting Next Week”, Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), Thursday 5th December 1940, p. 6, NLA; -, “Greece War Victims Appeal”, Gippsland Times, Monday 17th February 1941, p. 1, NLA; -, “Greek War Victims Appeal,” Advocate (Melbourne) Thursday 13th March 1941, p. 27, NLA; -, “Greeks March in Sydney Streets”, Weekly Times (Melbourne) Saturday 8th March 1941, p. 5, NLA; -, “R.E Charles Mayor of Horsham, Letter To the Editor”, Horsham Times, Friday 20th December 1940, p. 5, NLA; -, “Local Effort for Greek Appeal”, Record (Emerald Hill Victoria), Saturday 1st March 1941, p. 4, NLA; -, “March in City for Greek Appeal”, The Age (Melbourne), Wednesday 5th February 1941, p. 11, NLA; -, “Message from Duchess – Greek Appeal Day”, The Argus (Melbourne), Thursday 13th February 1941, p. 2, NLA; -, “Stalls planned for Greek Appeal”, The Age (Melbourne) Wednesday 12th February 1941, p. 5, NLA; Frank Legg, The Gordon Bennett Story, Angus & Robertson, 1965, pg. 162; https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_J._Lucas

The Greek Campaign – April-May 1941 3. Zeeto ee Australia! – With the Australians at Vevi -, Entry for 10th-12th April 1941, 2nd AIF, Royal Australian Artillery, 2/3 Field Regiment, War Diary, March to May 1941, AWM52 4/2/3/10; “2/8 Inf Bn – Greece – Apr 41”, 2nd AIF, 2/8th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, March-May 1941, AWM52 8/3/8; Lt-Col. J.P. Love, Entry for 13 April, “Summary of role of 1 Aust Tk A Battery, 2/1st Aust. Tk. A. Regt. A.I.F. in Grecian Campaign 1941” [compiled 1946], 2nd AIF, Royal Australian Artillery, 2/1 Anti-Tank Battery, War Diary, April-June 1941, AWM52 4/4/1/4; C.E.W. Bean, Gallipoli Mission, Canberra AWM, 1948, p. 390; Arthur Bentley, The Second Eighth: History of the 2/8th Infantry Battalion, 1984, 2/8th Battalion Association, pp. 72, 74-75, 81, 88, 90; Antony Beevor, Crete – The Battle and the Resistance, Penguin, 1992, p. 54; Les Bishop, Thunder under the Guns – A history of the 2/3rd Field Regiment, 2/3rd Australian Field Regiment Association, 1998, p. 189; Peter Brune, Those Ragged Bloody Heroes – From the Kokoda track to Gona Beach 1942, Allen & Unwin, 1992; Entry for 15th April 1941, Kevin Byrne, Unpublished Memoir, supplied to the author by Michael Byrne, 2020; Ivan Chapman, Iven G. Mackay, Citizen and Soldier, Melway, 1975, p. 220; Peter Charlton, The Thirty-Niners, Macmillan, 1981, pp. 147-149, 151-153; Michael Clarke, My War: 1939-1945, Michael Clarke Press, 1990, p. 339; Jim Claven, “New Research on the Greek Resistance in the Second World War”, Neos Kosmos, 26 October 2020; Cecil Chrystal et al., Unit History Editorial Committee, ed., White Over Green: The 2/4th Battalion and reference to the 4th Battalion, 2/4th Battalion Association, 1963, pp. 113, 121-122; Ken Clift, The Saga of a Sig: NX3698 Ken Clift DCM, K.C.D. Publications, 1972, p. 53; Sean Damer and Ian Frazer, On the Run – Anzac Escape and Evasion in Enemy-Occupied Crete, Penguin, 2006, p. 89; Ewer, “Forging the Aussie Greek Connection”, Herald Sun, 15th April, 2008; Ewer, pp. 91, 108-109, 113-115, 117-121, 123-133, 135-140, 269, 283; G.H. Fearnside and Ken Clift, Dougherty: A Great Man Among Men, Alpha Books, 1979, pp. 50-65 ; Miles Franklin quoted in Hugh Gilchrist, Australians and Greeks: Volume 2 the Middle Years, Halstead.1997, pp. 145, 148; Anthony Heckstall-Smith & Vice-Admiral Baillie-Grohman, Greek Tragedy 41, Anthony Blond, 1961, p. 222; Stuart Sayers, Ned Herring: A life of Sir Edmund Herring, AWM/Hyland House, 1980, p.171; Maria Hill, Diggers and Greeks - The Australian Campaign in Greece and Crete,

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UNSW, 2010, pp. 393-394; David Horner, General Vasey’s War, Melbourne UP, 1992, pp. 95-96; Mark Johnston, Anzacs in the Middle East, Cambridge UP, 2013, pp. 68, 81-82; Mark Johnston, The Proud 6th, Cambridge UP, 2008, p. 68; Long, pp. 30, 31, 33-34, 41, 43, 45, 47-48, 52-54, 56-67, 70-71, 183, 224, 227, 312; Gavin Long, The Six Years War, AWM, 1973, p.70; McClymont, pp. 192, 210; Richard Reid, Greece and Crete – Australians in WW2, Department of Veterans Affairs, 2011, pp. 32-33, 183; Clement Semmler, ed., The Diaries of Kenneth Slessor, UQP, 1985, pp. 224-225; Clement Semmler, ed., War Despatches of Kenneth Slessor, UQP, 1987, p. 147; Thompson, pp. 154-156, 158, 163, 165-170; Michael Tyquin, Greece, Big Sky Publishing, 2014, p. 35; Walker, pp. 232, 234; Chester Wilmot, “Letter from the Front 1 – March 1941”, “Letter from the Front 2 – 16 April 1941” and “Monastir Gap – 17 April 1941”, in Neil McDonald, ed., Chester Wilmot Reports – Broadcasts that Shaped World War 2, ABC, 2004, pp. 114, 119, 120-122, 124, 127-128; C.M. Woodhouse, The Struggle for Greece 1941-49, Ivan R Dee, 2002, pp. 24-27; AWM 006765 – “Australia and Greek soldier’s fraternising in the Athens cafes. A very warm friendship has spring up among the troops …” Athens, Greece, 30th March 1941, Photographer George Silk, AWM Collection, Accession Number 006765; AWM 006766 – “Game to try anything ones, an Australian samples the local [alcohol] in an open air café in Athens while his Greek soldier friends hopefully for his reaction. While the wine is good and cheap has a peculiar flavour that does not appeal to Australian palate, unfortunately the local beer is excellent and cheaper than in Australia.” Athens, Greece, 30th March 1941, Photographer George Silk, AWM Collection, Accession Number 006766; AWM 006771 – “The complexity of the language does not interfere with the mutual enjoyment of the Greek and Australian soldiers on leave together. After this campaign Australians will be able to make themselves understood in any country”, Athens, Greece, 30th March 1941, Photographer George Silk, AWM Collection, Accession Number 006771; AWM 006795 – “Australian soldiers visit the Parthenon while on leave in Athens …”, Photographer unknown, Athens Greece, [March/ April] 1941, AWM Collection, Accession Number 006795; AWM 006797 – “1941-04. Australian soldiers on leave in Athens visit the Acropolis …”, Photographer unknown, Athens Greece, AWM Collection, Accession Number 006797; AWM 006809 – “1941-03. Athens. All good friends together. Greek soldiers on leave from Albania do their best to make the Australians welcome. There is a new optimism evident in Athens since the arrival of our troops who are being welcomed like honoured guests. As far as our men are concerned their general opinion is that Greece is the finest country in the world – bar one”, Photographer George Silk, AWM Collection, Accession Number 006809; AWM 006816 – “1941-03. Athens. Australian soldiers newly arrived in Greece to relieve units of the Greek Army in the north met with an enthusiastic welcome from the new comrades in arms. Most of these Greek soldiers are convalescing from illness contracted during the present Albanian campaign”, Photographer George Silk, AWM Collection, Accession Number 006816; AWM 006818 - “Athens, Greece. Soldiers from the 2/2nd Battalion talking with Evzones near the Acropolis …”, Photographer Damien Peter Parer, AWM Collection, Accession Number 006818; AWM 128423 - “Vevi, Greece, 1941-04, Lieutenant Colonel I.N. Dougherty (right), standing in the snow with the commanding officer of the flanking Greek battalion on Good Friday,”, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 128423; http://www.cwgc.org/; https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vevi_%281941%29#cite_note-50; https://www.awm.gov.au/ unit/U56051/?query=2/8th%2520battalion; Personal Testimony of Mick Moran, son of Corporal Henry Moran, communicated to the author, 2013.

4. When Hell came to the Olympus Pass A. R. Burn, A Travellers History of Greece, Hodder and Stoughton, 1965, pp. 32-34; Ewer, pp. 156-162; Herodotus, The Histories, translated by Aubrey de Selincourt, Penguin, 1972, p. 429; Long, p. 99-102; McClymont, pp. 254-272; Personal testimony of Effie and Sakis Karavidas communicated to the author, 2018.

5. The Anzacs defending the Gate - When the Germans surrendered at the Servia Pass -, “ 2/1 Aust MG BN – Greece-Crete – April 41 - Operations”, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/5/1; -, Australian war correspondent’s report from The Times (London), 19th April 1941, quoted in David Garnett, The Campaign in Greece and Crete, London, The War Office, HMSO, 1942), pp. 28-29; -, Entry for April 14th, “Summary of

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Events and Information”, 2nd AIF, 2/2nd Infantry Battalion, War Diary, December 1940-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/3; -, Log Diary Entry for 1635 hours on 15th April and 1915 hours on16th April 1941, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/5/1; Major J.S. Bolton, Commanding officer, “B” Company, War Diary of “B” Company - 2/1st Aust. M.G. Bn. – April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/5/1; Captain Keith Murdoch Durrant, Quartermaster 2/1st M.G. Bn. A.I.F., “2/1st M.G. Bn. A.I.F., Report on Q Activities – April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, MarchApril 1941, AWM52 8/5/1; Major C.H. Fidock, “Major C.H. Fidock, Commanding Officer, “C” Company, Report on Greece and Crete “C” Company”, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/5/1; Lieutenant Colonel Gooch, “Lt Col Gooch, Commanding Officer, 2/1st M.G. B. AIF, Report on Operations of 2/1st Aust. M.G. Battalion in Greece”, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/5/1; Philip Hocking, The Long Carry: A History of 2/1 Australian Machine Gun Battalion, 1939-46, 2/1 Machine Gun Battalion Association, 1997, pp. 50, 62-63, 69-72, 317-318, 321; Long, pp. 75, 85, 87-89, 93, 102, 160; McClymont, pp. 269-272-277, 279, 280-284; Yannis Prekatsounakis, Crete – The Battle of Heraklion 1914 – The Campaign revealed through Allied and Axis Accounts, Helion & Co., 2016, pp. 193-194; Captain A.L. Vincent, “Captain A.L. Vincent, Commanding Officer, “A” Company, War Diary of A Company – April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/5/1; AWM 007628 - “Servia Pass. German Prisoners captured during the first contact between Australian and German forces …”, Photographer George Silk, AWM Collection, Accession Number 007628; AWM 007650 – “Servia Pass, Greece, 1941-04-13. Members of C and D Companies of the 2/1st Australian Machine Gun Battalion …”, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 007650; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_ of_Sarantaporo; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Balkan_War.

6. Overwhelmed - With the Anzacs at Platamonas and Pinieos Gorge -, “Arthur Allen (general)”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Allen_(general); -, “2/2nd Australian Infantry Battalion”, AWM, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/U56045; AWM, -, “2/3rd Australian Infantry Battalion”, AWM, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/U56046; -, “AIF Portion of War Diary - Party No. 1. Lieutenant Colo. F.O. Chilton DSO had with him Sgt Smith of A.A. Pl., Cpl Hiddins Sig Pl., Cpl Fuller Stretcher Bearers and Pte Brown A.A. Pl”, 2nd AIF, 2/2nd Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/3/2; -, “Recommendations for recognition of acts of gallantry”, 2nd AIF, 2/2nd Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/3/2; -, “Report 3: Events Subsequent to Battle – Members of Party incl. Capts. Brooks – Green - Buckley, Lieut. Bosgard.” 2nd AIF, 2/2nd Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/3/2; NX163 Major P. A. Cohen, 2/2nd Battalion A.I.F., “Report No. 4 – Battle and Subsequent Events”, 2nd AIF, 2/2nd Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/3/2; Captain E.H. King, 2/2 Bn. A.I.F., “Report on Voyage from Chios to Cyprus”, 2nd AIF, 2/2nd Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/3/2; -, “2/3 Aust Inf Bn: Greece”, 2nd AIF, 2/3 Infantry Battalion, War Diary, December 1940-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/3; -, Entries for April 1st to 17th and 18th 1941, “Summary of Events and Information”, 2nd AIF, 2/3nd Infantry Battalion, War Diary, December 1940-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/3; - , “Extracts from 2/3rd Battalion War Diary 18th March 1941 to 29th April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16; - , “Report on operations of 2/3 Aust Inf Bn at Penieos Gorge – Ref. Map Larissa 1/100,000, 19th Jul. 41”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16; -, “Report on Operations in Greece, 16 Aust. Inf. Bde – Phase 6: Peneios Gorge 17/18/19 April 41”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16; Lt. Col. F.C. Chilton, Comd. 2/2 Aust. Inf. Bn., “Report on Operations of 2/2 Aust. Inf. Bn. At Peneios Gorge, 4th July 1941”, p. 2, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16; Major [Cullen], Admin. Comd. 2/2 Bn., AIF, “16 Aust. Inf. Bde., Greek Campaign”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16; Kevin Baker, Paul Cullen: Citizen and Soldier – Distinquished soldier in North Africa, Greece, Crete and on the Kokoda Track, Rosenberg Publishing, 2005; Margaret Barter, Far Above Battle: The Experience and Memory of Australians soldiers in War 1939-1945, Allen & Unwin, 1994, p.91; Mark Dapin, Jewish Anzacs: Jews in the Australian Army, New South Publishing, 2017, p. 153; Ewer, p. 167-168, 174-175, 177-182, 186, 194-195, 204-205; Paul Ham, ‘Cullen, Paul Alfred (1909–2007)’, Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,

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https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/cullen-paul-alfred-20603/text31457; Hendry, James Gordon, Citation Card, AWM Collection, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/R1565574; Hendry, James Gordon, Supplement to the London Gazette, Number 35157, Published 9th May 1941, p. 2626, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/35157/supplement/2646; Herodotus, The Histories, translated Aubrey de Selincourt, revised by John Marincola Penguin, 1972, Book 7, paragraph 173, p. 429.Hiddins, Arthur James, Citation Card, AWM Collection, https://www.awm.gov.au/ collection/R1580011; Hiddins, Arthur James, Third Supplement to the London Gazette, Number 35333, Published 4th November 1941, p. 6358, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/35333/ supplement/6358; Mark Johnston, The Proud 6th: An Illustrated History of the 6th Australian Division 1939-46, Cambridge UP, 2008, p. 72; Long, p. 95, 106-108, 113-119, 126-127, 184-188 and map opposite p, 106; McClymont, p. 147-148, 316; ATL DA-10986-F - “Platamon, Greece”, c. 1941, Photographer E.K.S. Rowe, Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref DA-10986-F; ATL DA-11831-F - “Castle at Platamon, Greece”, Photographer unknown, Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref DA-11831-F; ATL11836-F – “Castle at Platamon, Greece, and World War II soldiers in foreground”, Platamon, Greece, c. April 1941, Photographer unknown, Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref DA-11836-F; ATL DA-11847-F - “Platamon, Greece, from Castle Hill”, Photographer unknown, Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref DA-11847-F.

7. On the Plains of Thessaly with Ararat’s Private Felix Craig -, “Window dedicated to Young Men”, Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, Friday 12th January 1945, p. 1 (report reprinted from the Ararat Advertiser of Tuesday 19th December), NLA; Julius Caesar, Civil War, Penguin, 1977, p.152; Patrick Leigh Fermor, Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece, Penguin, 1985, pp. 92, 186; Major Henry G. Guinn, Acting Commander 2/7th Battalion (25 June 41), Entry for 16th April 1941, 2nd AIF, “War Diary - 2/7 Bn - 1 Apr-4 Jun 41”, 2/7th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April- July 1941, AWM 52 8/3/7; Major Henry G. Guinn, Acting Commander 2/7th Battalion (25 June 41), Entry for 19th April 1941 entitled “19 Apr 41 – Air Raids – Cpl Taylor Volunteers Again, War Diary - 2/7 Bn - 1 Apr-4 Jun 41”, 2nd AIF, 2/7th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April- July 1941, AWM 52 8/3/7; N.G.L. Hammond and H.H. Scullard, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford UP, 1970, pp. 510-511; Mark Johnston, The Proud 6th, Cambridge UP, 2008, pp. 71-74; J. Lempriere, A Classical Dictionary, George Routledge and Sons, 1935, p. 460; Neville Lindsay, Equal to the Task: The Royal Australian Army Service Corps, Historia Publications, Kenmore, 1991, p. 241;Long, pp. 93, 105-106, 128; E.V. Morton, In the Steps of St Paul, Methuen, 1936, p. 255; Brigadier Stanley Savige, commander 17 Aust. Inf, Bde., “Report on Campaign in Greece and Crete, 15 July 1941,” AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, Reports Greece and Crete, War Diary, AWM52 8/2/17, p. 17; AWM 0044636 – “Pharsala [Farsala], Greece. 1941-04-18. The main road after action by Axis dive bombers had exploded a three ton truck load of ammonal”, Photographer unknown, Donor R. McNicholl, AWM Collection, Accession Number 0044636; AWM 007846 – “The approach to Pharsala bridge from the north, after German aircraft had scored a direct hit on ...” Farsala, Greece, 18th April 1941, Photographer S.B. Cann, AWM Collection, Accession Number 007846; Photograph of Private Felix Craig with Bren Gun (as anti-aircraft weapon) and Bill Williams, possibly the Middle East, January 1941. Craig Family Collection, Courtesy of Fiona Craig, 2016; Stained Glass Window at Ararat Holy Trinity Anglican Church Victorian Heritage Database Report, vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/196786/download-report; http://www. cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2931993/CRAIG,%20FELIX%20LOVELL; https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Thessaly; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pharsalus; https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Farsala; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_%281897%29; https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Crastinus; Personal Testimony of two of Private Felix Craig’s descendants, his nephew David and great niece Fiona, communicated to the author 2016.

8. When the Germans marched on Lemnos, April 1941 -,“British Naval Aircraft Raid Italian Base”, The Argus (Melbourne), Thursday 31st October 1940, p. 3, NLA; -, “Greeks Brave Stand on Lemnos: Islands Taken”, Sunday Mail (Brisbane), Sunday 27th April 1941, p. 3, NLA; -, Lemnos – the Island of Hephaestus, Toubi Editions, 2005, p. 24; Ronald Bailey, Partisans and Guerrillas, Time Life, 1978, p. 164; Jim Claven, “HMS Argonaut and the Lost Graveyard of Lemnos”, Neos Kosmos, 28 October 2020, https://neoskosmos.com/en/178509/ hms-argonaut-and-the-lost-graveyard-of-lemnos/; Jim Claven, “Remembering the liberation of

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Lemnos – October 1944”, Neos Kosmos, 24 November 2017, https://neoskosmos.com/en/44459/ remembering-the-liberation-of-lemnos-october-1944/; The Hellenic Army General Staff Army History Directorate, An Abridged History of the Greek-Italian and Greek-German war 1940-41, Army History directorate Editions Athens, 1997, p, 241; Robin Higham, Diary of a Disaster: British Aid to Greece, 1940-1941, University of Kentucky, 2009, p. 216; Long, p. 52; Callum MacDonald, The Lost Battle – Crete 1941, Free Press, 1993, p. 66; McClymont, p. 417 note 1; Adrian Seligman, War in the Islands: Undercover Operations in the Aegean 1942-44, Allan Sutton, 1996, pp. 176-184; Aristides Tsotroudis, The German Occupation of Lemnos 1941-44, Lemmos, 2011, pp. 99-101; Photographs reproduced in the following: Aristides Tsotroudis, The German Occupation of Lemnos 1941-44, Lemmos, 2011; http://kokkinovraxos.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/25-1941-1941. html; http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/index.php/Attachment/115102-attachment-jpg/; Information from the 1941-44 Martyrs Monument, Myrina, Lemnos, photograph in the authors collection; John Sidney Riggs, Officer in the 1st Bn Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, Oral History Audio Tape, Imperial War Museum, Ref 22346. Reel 3, http://www.iwm.org.uk/ collections/item/object/80021220; Enanosin, Lemnos/Limnos Island - Lieutenant Ludwig Preller, weblog, https://enanosin.wordpress.com/author/enanosin/; http://bedfordregiment.org.uk/ history/16thfoothistory.html; http://www.feldgrau.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27776; Personal Testimony of Angelo Kalomiris, Chris Mingos and Nikolaos Koutsaplis who all witnessed the German occupation of Lemnos (the latter’s recollections recorded by his daughters Liza and Haroula Koutsaplis) and Dimitris Boulotis who similarly shared his father’s recollections of the occupation, communicated to the author, 2017.

9. When paratroops filled the sky – The Anzacs at Corinth -, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Battalion, War Diary, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; -, “Enemy Tactics at Corinth and Crete”, prepared by 23rd Infantry Brigade HQ, Darwin, 30 July 1941, 2nd AIF, 23rd Brigade, War Diary, 1941 Appendices AWM Appendices 1 of 5, AWM52 8/2/23; Platon Alexiades, Target Corinth Canal 1940-44, pp. 41-43; Nigel Bagnall, The Peloponnesian War: Athens, Sparta and the Struggle for Greece, Thomas Dunne Books, 2006; Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War, Oxford UP, 1992, p.124; Antony Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, Penguin, 1992 pp. 9, 29; Lieutenant H.B. Brown, O.C. [Officer Commanding] 15 PL. “C” Coy, [2/6th Battalion], “Report on 13 and 15 Platoons, “C” Coy, from 25th April to 3rd May 1941”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, Reports Greece and Crete, AWM52 8/2/17; Christopher Buckley, Greece and Crete 1941, HMSO, 1977, p. 138; Paul Cartledge, Thermopylae, Vintage, p. 160; Stanley Casson, Greece Against the Axis, Hamish Hamilton, 1942, pp. 178-181, 184, 196; Jim Claven, “Greece’s Anzac Trail comes to Corinth”, Neos Kosmos, 25th March 2020; Robert Crisp, The Gods were neutral: A story of the Greek campaign 1941, Muller, 1960, pp. 9, 14, 203-204; Lieutenant J.L. Daish, “Narrative Record of Events – 26 April -1st June 1941 – Proforma for Unit War Diary”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; David Day, Nothing Over Us: The Story of the 2/6th Australian Infantry Battalion, AWM, 1984, p. 166; Sue Ebury, Weary: King of the River, Miegunyah Press, 2010, pp. 73, 75, 100; Ewer, pp. 257-259, 261-263; N.G.L. Hammond and H.H. Scullard, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford UP, 1970, p. 839; Herodotus, The Histories, Penguin, 2003, Book 7, Paragraph 202, p. 486, Book 7, Paragraphs 148-149, pp. 465-66, Book 8, Paragraph 94, p. 532 & Book 9, Paragraph 28, p. 566; Mark Johnston, The Proud 6th, Cambridge UP, 2008, p. 3; Captain John Jones, “Report on AntiParatroop operations by Officer Commander “B” Coy, 2/6 Bn – Corinth Canal Area 25/26 Apr. 41”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, Reports Greece & Crete, AWM52 8/2/17; Arthur W. Jose, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18: Volume IX - The Royal Australian Navy, University of Queensland, 1993, pp. 313-327; Franz Kurowski, Jump into Hell: German Paratroops in WW2, Stackpole, 2010, pp. 67-68; J. Lempriere, A Classical Dictionary, George Routledge and Sons, 1935, pp. 481, 713; Long, pp. 161-163, 165-167, 183; R.J.M., Loughnan, Divisional Cavalry, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-45, War History Branch Department of Internal Affairs, 1963, pp. 81-82, 83; McClymont, p. 413, 415-416, 419; J.B. McKinney, Medical Units of 2 NZEF in the Middle East and Italy, Historical Publications Branch, Wellington, New Zealand, 1952, pp. 103-104; John L Myers, “Stanley Casson: 1889-1944”, The Annual of the British School at Athens, Volume 41 (1940-45), pp. 1-4; E.V. Morton, In the Steps of St Paul, Methuen, 1936, pp. 289-290; Nicos Papahatzis, Corinth – The Museums of Corinth, Isthmia and Sicyon, Ekdotike Athenon SA, Athens 1996, p. 28; Steve Plowman, son of Sapper Arthur Plowman, 2NZEF, account,

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http://www.stalag18a.org/greece.html; Lieutenant W. Sherlock, B Company, 2/6th Battalion, “Report on Anti-parachute operations by “B” Coy 2/6 Aust Inf Bn, 26th April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; Brigadier Stanley Savige, “Report on Campaign in Greece and Crete, Dated 15 July 1941”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, Reports on Greece and Crete, AWM52 8/2/17; D.W. Sinclair, 19th Battalion and Armoured Regiment, Official History of NZ in the Second World War 1939-45, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1954, pp. 68-110; Field Marshal Lord Wavell, Eight Years Overseas, Hamish Hamilton, 1950, p. 98; Matthew Willingham, Perilous Commitments: The Battle for Greece and Crete 1940-41, Spellmount, 2005, p. 92; Fred Woollams, Corinth and All That, Reed, 1945, p. 10; AWM J03212 - “A photograph of the Corinth Canal, taken from the HMAS Parramatta on her way to Greece, for docking. 1918-10-02. (Donated by Mr. P.C. Slaughter”, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number J03212; AWM EN0367 - “The canal that cuts through the isthmus joining the Greek mainland and the Peloponnese, providing access to Athens from the Gulf of Corinth. An unidentified ship is visible at the far end of the waterway. The destroyers HMAS Huon and HMAS Warrego passed through this canal while taking the Greek Premier Eleutherios Venizelos and his entourage, who had been attending a conference of the Allies in London, back to Athens”, Gulf of Corinth, Greece, 4th January 1918, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number EN0367; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_Royal_Tank_Regiment; http://www.cwgc. org/.

10. To Argos, Nafplio and Tolo they came – With the Anzacs in the Argolis -, “Units in the War Years: 5 Recovery Section (2/2nd Army Field Workshop)”, RAEME (SA) Association website, https://sa.raeme.org.au/index.php/manage-articles/64-history/46-units; Private Bert Arnold, 189 Field Ambulance, R.A.M.C., “Statement”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 139-140; Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War, Oxford UP, 1992, pp.122, 124; Stanley Casson, Greece Against the Axis, Hamish Hamilton, 1942, pp. 182-191; Peter Charlton, The Thirty-Niners, Macmillan, 1981, p. 159; Ralph Churches, St George Exercise Book, handwritten memoir, c 1945, copy supplied to the author by Neil Churches; Bruce Crowley (as told to Julie Millen), North to the Apricots, Writes Hill Press, 2012, XI-XIV; Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope (Andrew Browne Cunningham), A Sailor’s Odyssey, Hutchinson, 1953, p. 354; Admiral Cunningham, “Transportation of the Army to Greece”, Despatch, 11th December 1941 and “Evacuation of the Army from Greece”, Despatch, 7th July 1941, London Gazette, 19th May 1948, Number 3042; Sue Ebury, Weary: King of the River, Miegunyah Press, 2010, pp. 100-102, 106-107; Henry “Jo” Gullett, Not as Duty Only, Melbourne UP, 1976, p. 59; Antony Heckstall-Smith & Vice-Admiral Baillie-Graham, Greek Tragedy ’41, Anthony Blond, 1961, pp. 142. 145-146, 148-149, 163-169, 229; Franz Kurowski, Jump into Hell: German Paratroops in WW2, Stackpole, 2010, p. 69-71; Long, pp. 160-161, 170-171, 178-179, 181, 430; McClymont, p. 404, 429; J.B. McKinney, Medical Units of 2 NZEF in the Middle East and Italy, Historical Publications Branch, Wellington, New Zealand, 1952, pp. 103-104; Brigadier George Moran, The Story of the 2/2 Army Field Workshops, Outlook Press, 1964, pp. 39-40; John F. Moyes, The Scrap-Iron Flotilla, NSW Bookstall, 1944, pp. 105-106, 108; Major B.J. O’Loughlin, “HQ. 1 Aust. Corps. Report on Evacuation from S and T Beaches during period 24-25 Apr. 41., Julius [Camp] 30th May 41”, 2nd AIF, 1st Australian Corps, War Diary, April-May 1941, AWM52 1/5/137; Letter of Bernard Ryan, 2/1st Battalion, quoted in weblog Surprised by time by Diana Gilliland Wright, http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/april-1941-part-one.html; Ian Sabey, Stalag Scrapbook, Cheshire, 1947, p.16; Brigadier Stanley Savige, “Report on Campaign in Greece and Crete, 15 July 1941”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, Reports on Greece and Crete, AWM52 8/2/17; Lieutenant W Sherlock, B Company, 2/6th Battalion, “Report on Anti-parachute operations by “B” Coy 2/6 Aust Inf Bn, 26th April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; Kenneth Slessor, “Greek Escape Adventure – Melbourne Officers,” The Argus, 26th May 1941, p. 4, NLA; Elsie Spathari, Hauplion-Palamidi: A guide to the history and archaeology, Hesperos, Athens, 200, pp. 6-9; AWM 087662 - “Argos, Greece, 1941-04-24, Australian Army Nursing Service (AANSD) members of the 2/6th General Hospital resting in a cemetery to avoid attack from German aircraft”, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 087662; AWM

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087663 - “Sister M. Hammond (1), with NX70302 Sister Moira Ann Crittenden (2), resting in a cemetery with other 2/6 Australian General Hospital Australian Army Nursing Service personnel while avoiding air attack”, Argos, Peloponnese, Greece, 24th April 1941, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 087663; -, “George Dexter’s funeral: Dozens turn out for WW2 veteran”, BBC News, 25th July 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-28490923; -, “SS Slamat (+1941)”, Wrecksite, https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?132264; -, “Slamat Commemoration: Commemoration of the greatest disaster in Dutch Merchant Navy History – Wednesday April 27, 2011”, Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd (KRL) Museum, 27th April 2011, https:// web.archive.org/web/20140106234624/http://www.krlmuseum.nl/Slamat/SLAMAT-Engels.htm; -, “SS Slamat Memorial”, Traces of War, https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/20728/SS-SlamatMemorial.htm; Recollections of Private Arthur Evans supplied to the author by his son Philip Evans, 2018; Information communicated to the author by Aristides Thomas, 2018.

11. A Hero of Kalamata - Red Cliffs Captain Albert Gray -, “Sketch of Assembly Area”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/2/17; -, “Kalamata, 26th April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16; Antony Beevor, Crete – The Battle and the Resistance, Penguin, 1992, p. 50; Cam Bennett, Rough Infantry: Tales of World War II, Warrnambool Institute Press, 1984, p. 90; Commander H.W. Biggs, “Report of Proceedings, Thursday 24th April to Friday 2nd May 1941, HMS Hero, 3rd May 1941”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 68-77; Private Kevin Byrne, “The Klagenfurt POW’s – In The Bag”, written 2015, http://klagenfurtpow.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/kevin-byrnesmemoir.html; Peter Carlton, Cruiser; Heinemann, 2011, p, 258; Peter Charlton, The Thirty-Niners, Macmillan, 1981, pp. 160; Ken Clift, War dance: A story of the 2/3 Inf. Battalion A.I.F., P.M. Fowler and 2/3rd Battalion Association, 1980, p. 151; Admiral Cunningham, “Transportation of the Army to Greece”, Despatch, 11th December 1941 and “Evacuation of the Army from Greece”, Despatch, 7th July 1941, London Gazette, 19th May 1948, Number 3042; Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope (Andrew Browne Cunningham), A Sailor’s Odyssey, Hutchinson, 1953, p, 356; David Scott Daniell, 4th Hussar: The Story of British Cavalry Regiment, Gale and Polden, 1959, pp. 318-320; Ewer, pp. 91, 269-271, 281, 283; Corporal George Foot, VX5845, 2/7th Battalion, “Report by Corporal G Foot VX5845 on Escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 Item Number 8/2/17; Private Sydney Carney Grant, Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, supplied to the author by his daughter Catherine Bell; Captain Albert William Gray, Citation detailed in Honours and Awards (Recommendations) Card for Albert William Gray, AWM Collection, Reference RCDIG1068961 and award promulgated 25th September 1947 in Supplement to London Gazette, No. 35396, p. 4515; Corporal William Charles Harrison, VX6858, “Report of Movements of 2/6th Aust Inf Bn Rear Party”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Dairy, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; Corporal Willam Charles Harrison, VX6858, Statement to Australian Red Cross Society, 21 July 1941, Service File of Private George Bowler, NAA; Antony Heckstall-Smith & Vice-Admiral Baillie-Graham, Greek Tragedy ’41, Anthony Blond, 1961, pp. 155, 198, 200-202; J.A. Hetherington, “Miraculous Escape of Australians from Greece”, AIF News (Middle East), No. 62, Saturday, 17 May 1941; Long, pp. 168-169, 171-173, 178-181, 181, 183; McClymont, Battle of Kalamata Waterfront map pp. 452, 452-459, 486; Warrant Officer (2nd Class) Frank Nolan, VX4301, “Report by WO (II) Nolan F. on escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 Item Number 8/2/17; Gunner C.W. Palmer, 104th Essex Yeomanry, “Statement”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 110-123; Colonel H.S. Plummer and Captain E.L. Atkins, Black and yellow triangles 1939-1946: the 2nd Machine Gun Battalion AIF official history, pp. 127-129, unpublished manuscript, AWM Collection, AWM MSS955; Unidentified Australian soldier quoted in Richard Reid, Greece and Crete – Australians in WW2, Department of Veterans Affairs, 2011, p. 51; Driver Edmund Sharpin, R.A.S.C., “Statement”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 172-175; Lieutenant E.H. Simpson, 22nd Battalion, N.Z.E.F., “Some Experiences at Kalamata, April 1941”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 86-89; Lieutenant H.G. Sweet, VX7562, 2/5th Battalion,“Report by Lieut H.E. [sic] Sweet on Escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry

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Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/2/17; Private Max Holbrook Wood, Citation detailed in Honours and Awards (Recommendations) Card for Max Holbrook Wood, AWM Collection, Reference RCDIG1068964, award promulgated 26th December 1941 in Second Supplement to London Gazette, No. 35396, and published 30th December 1941, p. 7338; Private Max Holbrook Wood, VX3459, 2/6th Battalion HQ, “Report of Escape of British Troops from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Dairy, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; Captain Philip James Woodhill, NX12261, 2/2nd Battalion, “Report by Capt P.J. Woodhill, Julius Camp, 4th May 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16; Lieutenant H. Wrigley, Commanding 2/6th Aust inf Bn, “Report of 2/6 Aust Inf Bn’s participation of the Grecian Campaign covering the period April 1st-29th 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; AWM 069884 - “Kalamata Area, Greece. 1941-04-26. British and Australian Troops marching through a street in Kalamata to the embarkation point area during the withdrawal of the Allied forces”, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 069884; AWM 069885 - “Kalamata Area, Greece, 1941-04-26. British and Australian Troops marching through a street in Kalamata to the embarkation point area during the withdrawal of the Allied forces …”, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 069885; AWM 069886 - “Kalamata Area, Greece. 1941-04-26. Australian troops resting under the trees in the Kalamata area while awaiting embarkation … “, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 069886; AWM P01166.015 - “Kalamata, Greece. 1941-04-026. Members of 1st Corps Signals having retreated from the north waiting under the olive trees for embarkation from Kalamata …” Photographer Unknown, Donor T. Edwards, AWM Collection, Accession Number P01166.015; https://www.awm. gov.au/encyclopedia/horrie/doc.asp; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hinton; Information communicated to the author by Panayiotis Andrianopoulos and Sotiris Theodoropoulos, 2018.

12. From Lefkada to St Kilda, Brallos Pass and Crete - In the wake of Homer’s Odysseus and Gunner James Zampelis Entries for 21st to 27th April 1941 and 3rd to 17th May 1941, 2nd AIF, 2/2nd Field Regiment, War Diary, October 1939-December 1945, AWM52 4/2/2/16; - “Canea” [map], 2nd AIF, 19th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, May 1941, Appendices, Part 2 of 2, AWM52 8/2/19; -, “Fallen Greek-Australian honoured in Crete”, Cretan Brotherhood of Melbourne & Victoria, 5th September 2019, https:// www.cretanbrotherhood.com.au/news/fallen-greek-australian-honoured-in-crete/; -, “Stained Glass Window at Brunswick Christ Church”, Victorian Heritage Database Report, 2009; -, W. Dorpfield: the German archaeologists who was trying to prove that Lefkada was the home of Odysseus”, Lefkada Slow Guide, 23rd June 2020, https://blog.lefkadaslowguide.gr/en/articlelist/w-d%C3%B6rpfeld-the-german-archaeologist-who-was-trying-to-prove-that-lefkada-wasthe-home-of-odysseus/; -, Third Supplement to the London Gazette, Number 3533, Published 4th November 1941, pp. 6357-6358; Anderson, John Richard, Citiation Card, AWM Collection, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/R1571088; Brown, Eric Stansilaus, Citation Card, AWM Collection, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/R1570621; Paul Cartledge, Thermopylae: The Battle that Changed the World, Vintage, 2007, p. 226; Artemis Cooper, Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure, John Murray, 2012, p. 277; Lieutentant Colonel Cremor, Letter to Gerasimos Zampelis, 1st July 1941, original in possession of Lisa Zampelis and family; CWGC, Bralo British Cemetery, https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/36001/Bralo%20 British%20Cemetery/; M.J. Flynn, “Veritas, Scientia et Misericordia: MAJOR GENERAL SIR WILLIAM DUDLEY REFSHAUGE, April 1913 – 27 May 2009, Soldier, Clinician, Administrator, Athlete and Diplomat”, ADF Health, Volume 10. No. 1 (2009), pp. 58-59; Hugh Gilchrist, Australians and Greeks Vol 3: The Later Years, Halstead Press, 2004, p. 42; Henry “Jo” Gullett, Not as a Duty Only: an Infantryman’s War, Melbourne UP, 1976, p. 53; Merrilynne Hayes, “Gerasimos Zampelis”, Immigration Place Australia website, ttps://immigrationplace.com.au/story/gerasimos-zampelis/; Herodotus, The Histories, translated Aubrey de Selincourt, revised by John Marincola Penguin, 1972, Book 7, paragraph 228, p. 446; David M. Horner, The Gunners: A History of Australian Artillery, Allen & Unwin, 1995, pp. 226-228, 253-258; Arthur W. Jose, The Official History of Australia in The War of 1914-18 –Vol 9 – The Royal Australian Navy, Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1941, pp. 313-326; Paul Nicholls, Highs & Lows: The Anglican Parish of Christ Church Brunswick, 1855-2002, Christ Church Press, 2007, pp. 119-120; John Hall Spencer, The Battle for Crete, White Lion, 1976, pp.159-161; Davin, pp. 141, 145, 282, 289, 324; Steve Kyritsis, Greek-Australians in

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the Australian forces : World War I & World War II, SK (Steve Kyritsis Publishing), 2012, pp. ix, 173; Long, pp. 102, 111, 139-158, 183, 211, 214, 216-219, 221; Gavin Long, To Bengazi: Australia in the War of 1939-1945, AWM, 1952, p. 205; William Refshauge, “Crete 26 April – 31 May 1941”, mimeo, 27th August 1991; William Refshauge interviewed by Terry Colhoun [sound recording], 9th February 2000 in Canberra ACT, Tape 2, timed 12.21-18.22 minutes, Bib ID 1897835, NLA, 2000; Stuart Sayers, Ned Herring: A Life of Sir Edmund Herring, Hyland House Melbourne, 1980, pp. 172, 176-177; Craig Stockings, Bardia: Myth, Reality and the Heirs of ANZAC, New South, 2009, pp. 161, 274; Nikos Thermos (ed.), Wilhelm Dorpfeld’s Lefkada, Fagottobooks, 2008; Thompson, p. 247; Service Files of Captain John Anderson, Corporal John Vincent and Gunner’s James Zampelis, Sydney Mitchell, Angus Kennedy and Richard Mitchell, NAA; Walker, p. 141; Gerasimos Demetriou Zampelis, File of Papers, Department of Immigration, Commonwealth of Australia, NAA; https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_D%C3%B6rpfeld; http://lostmedalsaustralia.blogspot.com. au/2009/11/john-mcallister-vincent.html; Recollections of Katy and Panorea Zampelis, as translated by Costas, communicated to the author, 2016.

13. Lost Victory at Heraklion 1941 – Templestowe’s Gunner Leonard Hodgson and the Battle of Crete Antony Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, Penguin, 1991, pp. 201-211; Peter Ewer, p. 338-339; George Johnston, Australia at War, Angus & Robertson, 1942, pp. 223-224; John Hetherington, Air-borne Invasion: The story of the battle of Crete, Angus & Robertson, 1944, pp. 107-111; Elise B. Histed, 'Mann, Sir Frederick Wollaston (1869–1958)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu. edu.au/biography/mann-sir-frederick-wollaston-7473/text13023, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 16 December 2021; David M. Horner, The Gunners: A History of Australian Artillery, Allen & Unwin, 1995, p. 264; Long, pp. 183, 204, 213, 279-282, 286-287, 291-292, 316; Albert Palazzo Battle of Crete, Army History Unit, 2007, pp.121-122; Yannis Prekatsounakis, Crete: The Battle for Heraklion 1941 – The Campaign Revealed through Allied and Axis accounts, Helion, 2016; Phaleron War Cemetery, Australian War Dead, CWGC; C.J.E. Rae, A.L. Harris and R.K. Bryant, On Target: The story of the 2/3rd Australian Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, 2/3rd Australian Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment Association/Enterprise Press, 1987, p. 32-116; Suda Bay War Cemetery, Australian War Dead, CWGC; IWM E3066E - “German Prisoners under British guard, Crete, Greece”, Imperial War Museum Collection, Identification Code E 3066E.

14. Remembering the Kondomari Massacre and Franz-Peter Weixler Antony Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, Penguin, 1992, pp.235-237; Franz Weixler, “Goering case: Information Supplied by Franz Weixler, 11th November 1945”, http://lawcollections.library.cornell.edu/nuremberg/catalog/nur:00816; Stephan D. YadaMcNeal, Franz-Peter Weixler – The invasion of Greece an Crete by the camera of a propaganda photographer, BoD, 2018; http://www.chaniapost.eu/2015/06/02/june-2-the-massacre-ofkontomari/; http://www.fallschirmjager.net/men/Trebes/trebes.html; https://www.kreta-wiki. de/wiki/Weixler; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Kondomari; Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-166-0525-03 - “Griechenland, Kreta, Kondomari.- Ermordung von griechischen Zivilisten (Männer) durch deutsche Fallschirmjäger”, [Greece, Crete, Kondomari - German paratroopers murdered Greek civilians (men)], Foto Franz Peter Weixler, 2nd June 1941, Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-166-0525-03, and subsequent photographs in this collection relating to the same subject details as follows Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-166-0525-04 to Bild 101I-166-0525-39.

The Greek Campaign – Prisoners, Evaders and Escapers 15. Captured – The Anzac prisoners in the Peloponnese -, “Four British and Australian soldiers who escaped from a German prison camp at Corinth (Greece) last June. From left: Corporal Lew Bailey, ASC Narrabeen; Corporal E.W. Lambert, ASC,

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England; Corporal C. Yates, ASC; Sergeant J. Phillips, Sydney, No Title, Sunday Times (Perth), 26th April 1942, p. 5, NLA; Driver Alfred Adams, 308 Company, R.A.S.C., “Statement”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/ Carlyon Industries, 1991, p. 125; Yosef Amogi, Total Commitment, Cornwall Books, 1982, p. 42; Margaret Barter, Far Above Battle: The experience and memory of Australian soldiers in war 1939-1945, Allen & Unwin, 1994, pp. 141-142; John Borrie, Despite Captivity: A Doctor’s Life as a Prisoner of War, Kimber, 1975; Kevin Byrne, http://www.stalag18a.org/kevinbyrne.html; Warrant Officer (2nd Class) T.A.M. Boulter, “AIF, Headquarters, 1 Aust Corps 19 Aug 41., Report of Prisoner of War [WOII T.A.M. Boulter, 17th Australian Infantry Brigade, HQ], Personal Narrative”, 2nd AIF, 6 Australian Division General Staff Branch, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 1/5/12; 472-481 Sapper Fred Carne, Royal Engineers, “Extracts from the 1941 Diary of Sapper Fred Carne”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/ Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 144-151; Ralph Churches, St George Exercise Book, handwritten memoir, c 1945, copy supplied to the author by Neil Churches; A. Tegla Davies, The Friends Ambulance Unit: the story of the F.A.U. in the Second World War 1939-46, George Allen & Unwin, 1947. http://www.ourstory.info/library/4-ww2/Friends/fau03.html#2a; Yoav Gelber, “Palestinian POWs In German Captivity”, Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. XIV, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1981, pp. 89-137; Bernard Harris, Barb-wire Blues: A Blinded Musician’s Memoir of Wartime Captivity 194043, Pen & Sword, 2021; Mason, pp. 56-58; Monteath, p. 71, 102-103; Ian Ramsay, POW: A digger in Hitler’s prison camps 1941-45, Macmillan, 1985, p. 4-9, 11-14, 18; Letter of Bernard Ryan, 2/1st Battalion, quoted in weblog Surprised by time by Diana Gilliland Wright, http://surprisedbytime. blogspot.com.au/2012/04/april-1941-part-one.html. Read 8th March 2017; Lieut W Sherlock, B Company, 2/6th Battalion, “Report on Anti-parachute operations by “B” Coy 2/6 Aust Inf Bn, 26th April 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Battalion, War Diary February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; D. Allan Slocombe, A Prisoners Tale Retold, 14th November 2005, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/ stories/80/a6956580.shtml; Lieutenant John Crooks quoted in Pauline Wall, “Time to say thanks” [POW memoirs of Australian soldiers Frank Cox and John Crooks], Red Cross magazine, 2008, Red Cross Magazine, 2008. http://www.redcross.int/EN/mag/magazine2008_2/26-27.html; Fred Woollams, Corinth and All That, Reed, Wellington, 1945, p. 89; Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L26106 – “Griechenland, Nauplion, Englische Kriegsgefangene”, [Allied prisoners in the enclosure at the Nafplio school grounds], Foto Franz Roth, 1st May 1941, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L26106.

16. To Hell and Back – Prisoners, escapers and their helpers in Thessaloniki’s Second World War POW Camp -, “Ignoring the past is condemning the future – Project about the Nazi period in Balkans – Greece”, Active Remembrance, https://activeremembrance.wordpress.com/greece/; - “POW, a girl and a happy ending”, The Argus, Saturday 3 March 1951, p.3, NLA; -, “Xanthoula and Slim: An Anzac Love Story”, Neos Kosmos, 16 November 2013; Assistant Professor Giorgos Antoniou and Professor Dirk Moses, (eds.), The Holocaust in Greece, Cambridge University Press, 2020; Margaret Barter, Far Above Battle: The Experience and Memory of Australian Soldiers in War, Allen and Unwin, 1994, p. 123, 141-142, 146-147, 149; Joan Beaumont “Prisoners of War”, in Peter Dennis et al, The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History, OUP, 1995, p. 472-481; Warrant Officer (2nd Class) T.A.M. Boulter, “AIF, Headquarters, 1 Aust Corps 19 Aug 41., Report of Prisoner of War [WOII T.A.M. Boulter, 17th Australian Infantry Brigade, HQ], Personal Narrative”, 2nd AIF, 6 Australian Division General Staff Branch, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 1/5/1; Sapper Fred Carne, Royal Engineers, “Extracts from the 1941 Diary of Sapper Fred Carne”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/ Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 144-151; C. Peter Chen, “Archibald Cochrane”, WW2 Database, https://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=656; Jim Claven, “Never Again: Remembering the Holocaust in Greece – A Book Review”, Neos Kosmos, 3 August 2020; Ralph Churches, St George Exercise Book, handwritten memoir, c 1945, copy supplied to the author by Neil Churches; Lieutenant C.T. Colquhoun, Intelligence Officer, 2/2 Bn., “AIF, HQ 2/2 Bn., A.I.F., 1 Jul. 41. – Statement from NX5097 Cpl Lane, P.A., NX3654 Pte Campbell, C.C., and NX5323 Pte. Steel, E. after returning from Greece on 30th Jun 41 is given below”, 2nd AIF, 6 Australian Division General Staff Branch, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 1/5/12; Private Ralph Churches quoted in Danny Neave and Craig Smith, Aussie Soldier: POW, Big Sky Publishing, 2009, p. 24;

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James Crossland, The British Government and the International Committee of the Red Cross Relations, 1939-1945, PHD Thesis, Murdoch university, February 2010; http://researchrepository. murdoch.edu.au/5123/2/02Whole.pdf; Admiral Cunningham, “Transportation of the Army to Greece”, Despatch, 11th December 1941 and “Evacuation of the Army from Greece”, Despatch, 7th July 1941, London Gazette, 19th May 1948, Number 3042; Sean Damer and Ian Fraser, On the Run: Anzac Escape and Evasion in Enemy-occupied Crete, Penguin, 2006, p. 73, 246; Jack Elsworthy, Greece Crete Stalag Dachau: A New Zealand soldier’s encounters with Hitler’s Army, AWA Press, p. 158-159, 160-163; J. Gerris, “The Legacy of Archibald Cochrane: from authority based towards evidence based medicine”, Facts,Views & Visions: Issues in Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Reproductive Health, 3(4), 2001; Sergeant Alwyn “Beau” Grinter, 2/6th Battalion in Clarke et al, Prisoners of War, Time Life Books, 1988, p. 34; Antony Heckstall-Smith & Vice-Admiral Baillie-Graham, Greek Tragedy ’41, Anthony Blond, 1961, p. 84, 98, 222-223 and “Evacuation of Greece April-May 1941”map; Carla Hesse & Thomas W. Lacquer, “Bodies visible and invisible: The erasure of the Jewish cemetery in the life of modern Thessaloniki”, in Giorgios Antoniou & A. Dirk Moses (eds.), The Holocaust in Greece, Cambridge UP, 2018, p.327-358; Edward Howell, Escape to Live, Longmans, 1947; George Kennard, Loopy: The autobiography of George Kennard, Leo Cooper 1990, p. 47; Sergeant Keith Hooper, 2/6th Battalion, quoted in Patsy Adam-Smith, Prisoners of War: From Gallipoli to Korea, Viking, 1992, p.161; Captain Alan King, 2/7th Field Ambulance, quoted in Patsy Adam-Smith, Prisoners of War: From Gallipoli to Korea, Viking, 1992, p. 170; Corporal Reg King, 2/11th Battalion, quoted in Patsy Adam-Smith, Prisoners of War: From Gallipoli to Korea, Viking, 1992, p.157; Leslie Le Souef, To War Without a Gun, Artlook, 1980, p. 152, 172-176; Private Reginald Lindley, 2/11th Battalion, quoted in Denny Neave & Craig Smith, Aussie Soldier – Prisoners of War, Big Sky Publishing, 2009, p. 71; Sydney Litherland, The Junak King: Life as a British POW, 1941-45, Spellmount, 2014, p. 107-111; Long, p. 67 (Note 7), 183, 185, 188-189, 214 (Note 1), 307, 312, 315,318; Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler’s Greece: The experience of occupation, 1941-44, Yale, 2001, p. 23-30, 238-240; Mark Mazower, Salonica: Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430-1950, Harper Collins 2004, p. 402-442; Mason, p. 77-82; Charalampos Minasidis, “Recent historiography on Thessaloniki’s Second World War victims”, https://activeremembrance.wordpress.com/greece/; Monteath, p. 68-69, 71-72, 85; George A. Morley, Escape from Stalag 18A, Meni Publishing and Binding, 2006, p. 8-9; George Morley, “Greece”, https://georgemorley.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/greece/; Alan Ogden, Sons of Odysseus: SOE Heroes in Greece, BFP,2012, p. 31-32; Albert Palazzo, Battle of Crete, Army History Unit, 2011, p. 27; Orestis Panagiotou, “Martyred places in Greece”, European Press Photo Agency, 2015, https://www.epa.eu/photo-essays/2015/martyred-places-in-greece; L. Parker, “Prisoner of War Statements – Europe”, AWM54 781/6/6; Sergeant Ron Phillips, 2/6th Battalion, quoted in Hugh Clarke, Prisoners of War, Australians at War Series, Time-Life Books, 1988, p.38; Ian Ramsay, POW: A digger in Hitler’s prison camps 1941-45, Macmillan, 1985, p. 4, 7, 9, 12; Miles Reid, Last on the List, Leo Cooper, 1974, p. 183; Richard Reid, Greece and Crete – Australians in WWII, AWM 2011. p. 85, 87; Colin Sampson, Greece: The Unclouded Eye, Angus & Robertson, 1968, p. 187; Private Gordon “Nobby” Squires, R.A.S.C., “Statement – Way Down South at Calamity Bay …”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 184-185; T. Stout and M. Duncan, Medical Services in New Zealand and The Pacific: Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–45, War History Branch, Department Of Internal Affairs, 1958, p. 116; Private Herbert “Sam” Stratton, 2/11th Battalion, quoted in Patsy Adam-Smith, Prisoner of War: From Gallipoli to Korea, Viking 1992, p. 165; W.B. “Sandy” Thomas, Dare to be free: One of the greatest true stories of WWII, Cassell, 2001, p. 82-85, 87-96,147, 156, 162, 173; Don Turner, Kiriakos: A British Partisan in Wartime Greece, Star 1986, p. 24, 25-36, 39-40, 46-47, 58-61, 68-70, 73-75; E. B. Turton, I lived with Greek Guerillas [Based on recollections of Bruce Vary], The Book Depot, 1945, p. 22-23; Michael Tyquin, Greece, Big Sky Publishing, 2014, p. 35,122; Walker, p. 409, 412-414; M.R. Watt, The ‘Stunned’ and the ‘Stymied’, The P.O.W. experience in the history of the 2/11th Infantry battalion, 1939-1945; A cogent argument for the inclusion of non-operational strands of warfare in official military history, MA Thesis, Edith Cowan University, 29th June 1996, p.84, 86, 88-90, 93-94; Lance Corporal I.D. “Skip” Welsh, 2/6th Battalion, “Escape from Greece”, in Norman Bartlett, ed., Australia at Arms, AWM 1955, pp 151-157; Lance Corporal I.D. “Skip” Welsh, 2/6th Battalion, quoted in Gavin Long, Greece, Crete and Syria; Australia in the War of 1939-1945, AWM 1953, p. 313-315; Lance Corporal I.D. “Skip” Welsh, 2/6th Battalion, “Skip”, in Patsy Adam-Smith,

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Prisoner of War: From Gallipoli to Korea, Viking, 1992, p. 175-183; Ioanna Zikakou, “Greek Villages Recognized as Martyr Cities 73 Years After Nazi Occupation”, The Greek Reporter, 21st August, 2014. http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/08/21/greek-villages-recognized-as-martyr-cities73-years-after-nazi-occupation/; AWM 020876 - “Aley, Syria, 1941-10-14. Two Australian soldiers who escaped from Greece. NX3317 Gunner C.E. Barnes, 2/1st Australian Field Regiment, left, and VX4460 Private I.D. Welsh, 2/6th Australian Infantry Battalion”, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 020876; AWM RELAWM24599 – “Silk escape map of Greece: Sergeant R. S. Turner, 6 Division Supply Column, Australian Army Service Corps”, AWM Collection, Accession Number RELAWM24599; Bundesarchiv, Bild 244-086 – “Thessaloniki, Hafen und Wohnhauser”, [Thessaloniki, Harbour and residential houses], Foto Theodor Scheerer, 1941/43, Bundesarchiv, Bild 244-086; Bundesarchiv,, Bild 1011-163-0318-30– “Balkan, Griechenland.deutsche Soldaten in Geschäft, plündernd ?” [Balkans, Greece, German soldiers plundering a shop?]. PK 690, Foto Bauer, April 1941, Bundesarchiv, Bild 1011-163-0318-30; Bundesarchiv, Bild 1011-163-0318-31– “Balkan, Griechenland. - deutsche Soldaten in Geschäft, plündernd?” [Balkans, Greece, German soldiers plundering a shop?]. PK 690, Foto Bauer, April 1941, Bundesarchiv, Bild 1011-163-0318-31; Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-168-0895-07A - “Griechenland, Saloniki.- Erfassung von Juden (für Arbeitseinsatz / Zwangsarbeit?), zum Sport oder Tanzen gezwungene Männer, SS-Mann mit Schlagwerkzeug, zuschauende deutsche Soldaten”, [Greece, Saloniki.- Registration of Jews (for labor/forced labor?), Men forced to exercise or dance, SS men with striking tools, watching German soldiers], PK 690, Photographer Walter Dick, July 1942, Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-168-0895-07A; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Greece; https://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/stolenyears/ww2/; https://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/ stolenyears/ww2/japan/; http://www.shrine.org.au/Exhibitions/Stories/Sergeant-Herbert-Slim--Wrigley; http://www.stalag18a.org.uk/dougnix.html; Recollections of Stamatios Katsatos as communicated to the author by his daughter Felicia Leonardos, 2014; Information supplied to the author by Colonel Tziridis of the War Museum in Thessaloniki in an interview, May 2016; Recollection of Heather Fenton, daughter of Thomas John Fenton, communicated to the author, 2020; Recollection of Xanthoula Wrigley, wife of Herbert “Slim” Wrigley, Address to the Hellenic RSL, heard by author, October 2015.

17. Over the sea to Evia, Skyros and beyond - On the run with Frankston’s Warrant Officer Milton Boulter -, “Australians who escaped from Crete”, The Argus (Melbourne), 30th October 1941, p. 5, NLA; “Colors of Greece: The Art and Archaeology of Georg von Peschke”, US Bryn Mawr College, https://repository.brynmawr.edu/peschke/index.html; -, Judge Milton Boulter Memorial, St Leonards Park, North Sydney, https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/people/ legal/display/90225-judge-milton-boulter”; Giorgios Antoniou & A. Dirk Moses “Introduction: The Holocaust in Greece”, in Assistant Professor Giorgos Antoniou and Professor Dirk Moses, (eds.), The Holocaust in Greece, Cambridge UP, 2020, p. 1; Warrant Officer (2nd Class) T.A.M. Boulter, “AIF, Headquarters, 1 Aust Corps 19 Aug 41., Report of Prisoner of War [WOII T.A.M. Boulter, 17th Australian Infantry Brigade, HQ], Personal Narrative”, 2nd AIF, 6 Australian Division General Staff Branch, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 1/5/12; Warrant Officer Milton, Three Letters, transcript published on website post titled For Valour – WW2, Thomas A Milton Boulter, MM, https://bonniewilliam.com/2017/01/20/for-valour-ww2-thomas-amilton-boulter-mm/; “W.O (II) Boulter, Thomas Alfred Milton, Intelligence Section, 1st Aust Corps, Military Medal Citation Recommendation, NAUK, WO 373/61/709; Long, pp. 188-189; Andrew Robert and Mary Burn, The Living Past of Greece, Icon, 1993, 145, 149; Roald Dahl, Going Solo, Penguin, 1986, pp. 136-137.Brian Dicks, The Greek Islands, Robert Hale, 1986, p. 87; Air Vice-Marshall J.H. D’Albac, “Air Operations in Greece, 1940-41”, Supplement to the London Gazette, Number 37846, 9th January 1947, pp. 205-216; Lawrence Durrell The Greek Islands, Faber & Faber, 1978, pp. 210-212; Martin Garret, Greece - A Literary Companion, John Murray, 1995, p 39-40; Long, pp. 186, 188-190; Neil Maybin, “Rupert Brooke on Skyros”, http:// www.rupertbrookeonskyros.com/; Mason, pp. 73 (Note 3), 77; Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler’s Greece: The experience of occupation, 1941-44, Yale, 2001, pp. 183, 188; John Mulgan, Report on Experience, Frontline Books, Reprinted 2010, p. 147; Jan Morris, The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage, Faber, 1980, pp 60-62; John Mulgan, Report on Experience (OUP, 1947) pp. 99,

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115; Plutarch The Rise and Fall of Athens, Penguin, 1960, pp. 40-41 ; Tim Severin, The Odysseus Voyage, pp, 58-59; Colin Simpson, Greece: The Unclouded Eye, Angus and Robertson, 1968, pp. 186-187; AWM 134872 - “Euboea Island, Greece, 1941-05-08. Officers and men of the 2/2nd Australian Infantry Battalion near the village of Pili on the eve of their departure from the island in the Aegean Sea …”, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 134872; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theseus; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achilles_on_Skyros; http://mythagora.com/bios/theseus.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licodia_Eubea; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Brooke; Recollections of Stamatios Katsatos as communicated to the author by his daughter Felicia Leonardos, 2014

18. From Tolo to Crete in 1941 – The Odyssey of Richmond’s Bernard O’Loughlin Long, pp. 150, Note 9; 160, 170-171, 178, 179, 179 (Note 9), 183; Major B.J. O’Loughlin, “HQ. 1 Aust. Corps. Report on Evacuation from S and T Beaches during period 24-25 Apr. 41, Julius [Camp] 30th May 41”, 2nd AIF, 1st Australian Corps, War Diary, April-May 1941, AWM52 1/5/137; Kenneth Slessor, “Greek Escape Adventure – Melbourne Officers,” The Argus (Melbourne), 26th May 1941, p. 4. NLA; Private George Adrian Smith, 2/2nd Battalion, quoted in David Day, Nothing over us: The story of the 2/6th Australian Infantry Battalion, AWM, 1984, pp. 181-182; Fred Woollams, Corinth and All That, Reed, 1945, pp. 8, 22-24, 26, 45, 54, 89

19. On the road to Trahila with Private Syd Grant -, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, February-June 1941, AWM54 8/3/6; -, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, March-May 1941, AWM54 8/3/8; -, “2/8 Inf Bn – Greece – Apr 41”, 2nd AIF, 2/8th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, March-May 1941, AWM52 8/3/8; -, 2nd AIF, 2/8th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, June-July 1941, AWM54 8/3/8; -, “Details of numbers lifted from beaches with dates and ships used”, Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, National Archives (UK), ADM199/806; -, “Horsham young man’s leg amputated”, Horsham Times, 28th October 1941, p. 1, NLA; Arthur Bentley, The Second Eighth: History of the 2/8th Infantry Battalion, 2/8th Battalion Association 1984; W.P. Bolger, J.G. Littlewood and F.C. Folkland, The Fiery Phoenix: The Story of the 2/7th Australian Infantry Battalion, 1939-46, 2/7 Battalion Association, 1983, pp. 63-105; Peter Carlton, Cruiser; Heinemann, 2011; Admiral Cunningham, “Transportation of the Army to Greece”, Despatch, 11th December 1941 and “Evacuation of the Army from Greece”, Despatch, 7th July 1941, London Gazette, 19th May 1948, Number 3042; David Scott Daniell, 4th Hussar: The Story of a British Cavalry Regiment, Gale and Polden, 1959; Ewer; Lieut J.H. Field, RE517, Corps Field Survey Company, Royal Engineers, “Report on frustrated evacuation at Kalamai Greece on 28th & 29th April 1941, dated 7th May 1941,” Military Survey (Geo) Branch, Winter Newsletter, 2016 – Issue 62, pp. 13-19; Corporal George Foot, VX5845, 2/7th Battalion, “Report by Corporal G Foot VX5845 on Escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 Item Number 8/2/17; Yoav Gelber, “Palestinian POWs In German Captivity”, Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. XIV, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1981, pp. 89-137; Private Sydney Carney Grant, Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, copy supplied to the author; Major Henry Gunn, “War Diary, 1st Apr-4th Jun 41”, dated 24th June 41, 2nd AIF, 2/7th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April-July 1941, AWM52 8/3/7; Corporal William Charles Harrison, VX6858, 2/6th Battalion, “Report of Movements of 2/6th Aust Inf Bn Rear Party”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Dairy, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; Long, pp. 171, 173, 181; McClymont, p. 461; Playfair, I. S. O. et al, The Mediterranean and Middle East: The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally (1941), History of the Second World War: United Kingdom Military Series. II, HMSO, 1956, p. 105; Warrant Officer (2nd Class) Frank Nolan, VX4301, “Report by WO (II) Nolan F. on escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 Item Number 8/2/17; Peloponnese [map], Nakas Road Cartography, February 2015 Edition; Roland Perry, Horrie the War Dog: The story of Australia’s most famous dog, Allen & Unwin, 2013; Lieutenant H.G. Sweet, VX7562,2/5th Battalion, “Report by Lieut H.E. [sic] Sweet on Escape from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 17th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/2/17; Commander C.S.B. Swinley, “Report of Proceedings, 24th April to 2nd May, HMS Isis, 6th May 1941”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/ Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 79-83; Captain Robert Roy Vial, Commendation Form, Dated 10

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June 1941, NAUK, WO 373/27/391; A. L. Ward, Leading Torpedo Operator HMS Hero, “Operation Demon”, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/39/a7379139.shtml; Signalman W. Williams, Royal Corps of Signals, “Statement of his Experiences from Larissa Wed 15th April till he was taken aboard Isis a fortnight later”, in Edwin Horlington, Tell Them We Were Here: 1940-1941 Greek Campaign, Ed. Don West, Edlington Press/Carlyon Industries, 1991, pp. 98-102; Private Max Holbrook Wood, VX3459, 2/6th Battalion HQ, “Report of Escape of British Troops from Greece”, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Dairy, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; Captain Philip James Woodhill, NX12261, 2/2nd Battalion, “Report by Capt P.J. Woodhill, Julius Camp, 4th May 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16; Lieutenant Hugh Wrigley, VX171, Commanding 2/6 Aust inf Bn, “Report of 2/6 Aust Inf Bn’s participation of the Grecian Campaign covering the period April 1st-29th 1941”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; Recollection of Voula Pierakou-Vounelakis communicated to and video-recorded by the author, 2016.

20. A Grave in the Mani – The Fatal Journey of Prahran’s William Salter Major Julian Frederic Doelberg, Phaleron War Cemetery, CWGC; Private Syd Grant’s Memoir Private Sydney Carney Grant, Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, supplied to the author by his daughter Catherine Bell; Panayiotis D Kompliris & Dr. Panayiota Kompiliri, Mani Chronicle Vol 2: Proastio of Outer Mani – Memories from the time of the occupation and civil war (1941-50), A. Doulotimani Publications, 2017, pp. 8, 17-26; Neville Lindsay, Equal to the Task: Volume 1 – The Royal Australian Army Service Corps, Historia Productions, 1992, pp. 241-242; Long, p. 181; Kevin Rushby, “On the Trail of Patrick Leigh Fermor in the Greece”, The Guardian, 28th September 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2012/sep/28/patrick-leigh-fermor-mani-peninsula-greece; Private William Salter, Driver Donald Archibald Berry, Private Murray Moore and Private Charles Sheppard, Phaleron War Cemetery, CWGC; Private Max Wood, 2/6th Battalion (VX3459), “Report of Escape of British Troops from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/2/17; Captain Philip James Woodhill, NX12261, 2/2nd Battalion, “Report by Captain P.J. Woodhill, 4th May 1941, Julius Camp, Palestine”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, MarchApril 1941, AWM52 8/2/16; -, “Proastio”, https://greece.terrabook.com/messinia/page/proastio; http://www.maniguide.info/proastio.html; Information supplied by David Sanderson, Janet and Barry Parkin, 2017.

21. The Song of Sfakia - Po Atarau or Now is the Hour Entries for 26 to 31 May 1941, Major Henry Gunn, A/Comd 2/7 Bn, “War Diary 2/7 Bn 1 Apr- 4 Jun 41”, dated 24th June 41, 2nd AIF, 2/7th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April-July 1941, Australian War Memorial AWM52 8/3/7; Private Thomson, VX5721, C Coy 2/7 Bn, “Escape from the Island of Crete”, 2nd AIF, 2/7th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April-July 1941, Australian War Memorial AWM52 8/3/7; Harry Gordon, The Embarrassing Australian: The Story of an Aboriginal Warrior, Lansdowne Press, 1962, p. 84-99; Long, pp. 297, 300, 302, 305-307; Captain Reginald Walter Saunders, Transcript of Oral History Recording, Interviewer Dr Peter Read, Date Made 13th January 1989, The Keith Murdoch Sound Archive of Australia in the war of 1939-45, Australian War Memorial S00520; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_Is_the_Hour_(song).

22. The Stones of Preveli – of Crete, Greece and Australia Jim Claven, Lemnos & Gallipoli Revealed: A Pictorial History of the Anzac’s in the Aegean 191516, Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee, 2019; Sean Damer & Ian Frazer, On the Run: Anzac Escape and Evasion in Enemy-occupied Crete, Penguin, 2007, pp. 94-105; Geoffrey Edwards, The Road to Prevelly, E.G. Edwards, 2007, pp.48-54, 125-146, 148-152; Private Syd Grant’s Memoir - Private Sydney Carney Grant, Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, supplied to the author by his daughter Catherine Bell; John Irwin, “Out of their own hands – Women of Crete and the German Occupation 1941-44”, Video; Albert Savage (Photographer), “Village Folk”, Florence Elizabeth James-Wallace Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Reference Number F831, Album 2, p. 13.

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The Greek Campaigns of Syd Grant and Alfred Huggins and their Photographs 23. Private Syd Grant, his Greek Campaign and his Photographs -, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, February-June 1941, AWM54 8/3/6; -, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, March-May 1941, AWM54 8/3/8; -, “2/8 Inf Bn – Greece – Apr 41”, 2nd AIF, 2/8th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, March-May 1941, AWM52 8/3/8; -, 2nd AIF, 2/8th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, June-July 1941, AWM54 8/3/8; -, “Horsham young man’s leg amputated”, Horsham Times, 28th October 1941, p. 1, NLA; Arthur Bentley, The Second Eighth: History of the 2/8th Infantry Battalion, 2/8th Battalion Association 1984; Peter Carlton, Cruiser, Penguin, 2011, p, 258; Admiral Cunningham, “Transportation of the Army to Greece”, Despatch, 11th December 1941 and “Evacuation of the Army from Greece”, Despatch, 7th July 1941, London Gazette, 19th May 1948, Number 3042; Ewer, pp. 283-284; Private Sydney Carney Grant, (VX6699), “Kalamata Evacuation and Escape from Trahila Greece April/May 1941”, recorded c1977, transcribed by Catherine Bell, copy supplied to the author; Private Sydney Carney Grant, (VX6699), “Chapter 4: Wartime - The evacuation from Greece was a shemozzle and a real performance”, transcribed by Catherine Bell, copy supplied to the author; Private Syd Grant, Letter to Mum and Dad, dated 6thMay 1941, Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria; Private Syd Grant, Letter to Maree, dated 15th May 1941, Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria; Private Syd Grant, Letter to Mum and Dad, dated 28th May 1941, Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria; Private Syd Grant, Letter to Mum and Dad, dated 30th May 1941, Sydney Grant Collection, MS 15995, State Library of Victoria; Corporal William Charles Harrison, VX6858, “Report of Movements of 2/6th Aust Inf Bn Rear Party”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Dairy, February-June 1941, AWM52 8/3/6; Long, pp. 62, 75-76, 111, 140-141, 155, 157-158,171, 173, 180-181, 183, 214 (Note 1), 251-252, 315 (Note 2); A. L. Ward, Leading Torpedo Operator HMS Hero, “ Operation Demon”, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ ww2peopleswar/stories/39/a7379139.shtml; Private Max Wood, 2/6th Battalion (VX3459), “Report of Escape of British Troops from Greece”, 2nd AIF, 2/6th Infantry Battalion, War Diary, April 1941, AWM52 8/2/17; Captain Philip James Woodhill, NX12261, 2/2nd Battalion, “Report by Capt P.J. Woodhill, Julius Camp, 4th May 1941”, 2nd AIF, 16th Infantry Brigade, War Diary, March-April 1941, AWM52 8/2/16.

24. Sergeant Alfred Huggins, his Greek Campaign and his Photographs 2/3 Aust. CCS Association, “A Short History of the Unit: An exercise in ‘name-dropping’”, 2/3 Aust. CCS Association, Thirty-Ninth Anzac Re-Union, April 1984, p.2; Antony Beevor, Crete, Penguin, 1991, p. 52; General Blamey quoted in Thompson, p. 161; Donald A .Bertke, Gordon Smith, Don Kindell, WWII Sea War, Volume 3: The Royal Navy is Bloodied in the Mediterranean, Naval History – Net, Bertke Publications, 2012, p. 503; Jim Claven, Lemnos & Gallipoli Revealed: A Pictorial History of the Anzacs in the Aegean 1915-16, Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee, 2019; Roald Dahl, Going Solo, Penguin, 1986, pp.122-186; Air Vice-Marshall J.H. D’Albac, “Air Operations in Greece, 1940-41”, Supplement to the London Gazette, Number 37846, 9th January 1947, pp. 205-216; Sue Ebury, Weary: King of the River, Miegunyah Press, 2009, pp. 102, 104; Ewer, p. 91; Anthony Heckstall-Smith & Vice-Admiral Baillie-Grohman, Greek Tragedy 41, Anthony Blond, 1961, p. 163-169; David Horner, General Vasey’s War, Melbourne UP, 1992, pp. 93-99; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back Archive Image 1.23 titled - Untitled. Note on the back states this is the view from the back of a truck as the 2/3rd CCS advanced through Greece, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.28 titled - “Greece – Ellisona by Olympus.” This most probably depicts the 2/3rd CCS camp site, located behind Allied lines, near Ellasona, central Greece, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.40 titled - Untitled. Somewhere in mainland Greece, given its location within the album. March-May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.41 titled - “Operation – Greece.” Members of the 2/3rd CCS operating on a wounded soldier

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during the Greek campaign, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.42 titled - “Greece – Burial Service.” Taken behind Allied lines, during the Greek campaign, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.44 titled - Untitled. Greece, March-May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.45 titled - “Lamia.” The note on the back states that this depicts the last 2/3rd CCS camp site, located behind Allied lines, near Lamia, central Greece, April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.51 titled - “Greece – Wreckage.” With the Germans exercising effective air superiority, troops were subject to German air attack wherever they were located. April 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Image 1.58 titled - “Lunch – Crete.” May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.75 titled - “Lossybank – Leaving Crete.” May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.83 titled - “Lossybank.” May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection, State Library of Victoria. This photograph was reproduced in Allan S. Walker’s volume 2 of the Australian official medical history of the Second World War – Middle East and Far East - under the title “Evacuation from Crete on S.S. Lossiebank” and attributed to J.C. Belisario (AWM 043237); Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Handwritten notes written on the back of Archive Image 1.84 titled - “In the hold Lossybank.” The lucky ones. Taken during the 2/3rd CCS’ evacuation from Crete to Egypt, May 1941. Sergeant Alfred Huggins Collection , State Library of Victoria; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Post-War Audio Recording, copy supplied to author by David Huggins, 2019; Sergeant Alfred Huggins, Mentioned-in-Despatches, award promulgated on 30th December 1941 and published in Second Supplement to the London Gazette, No. 35396, 26th December 1941, pp. 7339, 7360; Long, pp. 62, 75-76, 111, 140-141, 155, 157-158,171, 173, 180-181, 183, 214 (Note 1), 251-252, 315 (Note 2); McClymont, p. 429; G. L. McDonald, 'Belisario, John Colquhoun (1900–1976)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/belisario-john-colquhoun-9476/ text16671, published first in hardcopy 1993, accessed online 19th September 2016; John F. Moyes, The Scrap-Iron Flotilla, 1944, p, 108; Ocker, “Personal Paragraphs”, in Casualties: The official magazine of the 2/3 C.C.S., No. 4, May 1944, p. 17; OCRP, “Lest we forget”, in Casualties: The official magazine of the 2/3 C.C.S., No. 4, May 1944, p. 48; Richard Reid, Greece and Crete – Australians in WW2, DVA, 2011, pp. 94-95; Sergeant Reg Saunders quoted in Harry Gordon, The Embarrassing Australian: The Story of an Aboriginal Warrior, Lansdowne Press, 1962, p, 56; Clement Semmler, ed., The Diaries of Kenneth Slessor, UQP, 1985, p, 224-225; Walker, pp. 232, 234-235, 238, 240, 243, 245-246, 248, 251,255, 258, 260, 263, 266-267, 270-271, 280-281; Evelyn Zegenhagen, “German Women Pilots at War, 1939 to 1945”, Air Power History, Rockville, Winter 2009. Vol. 56, Issue 4, pp. 11-28; -, “Ulster Prince at Nafplio”, [27th April 1941], Argoliki Archival Library of History and Culture, Greece; AWM 043230 - “2/3 CCS, Levadia, Greece, April 1941”, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 043230; AWM 069867 - “Navplion, Greece, 25 April 1941. One of a series of photographs depicting the bombing of shipping in the harbor by German aircraft during the evacuation of Allied troops and the destruction of one of the raiders. The German “Stuka” dive bomber (JU87), which was hit by anti aircraft fire, has just crashed and the smoke from the explosion can be seen, in the centre of the picture, on the slope between the trees.” Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 069867; AWM 069868 - “Navplion, Greece, 25 April 1941. One of a series of photographs depicting the bombing of shipping in the harbor by German aircraft during the evacuation of Allied troops and the destruction of one of the raiders. The burnt out remains of the German “Stuka” dive bomber (JU87), which almost crashed on an Australian Field Ambulance can be seen in the right middle distance.” Photographer Unknown, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 069868; AWM 069869 - “Navplion, Greece, 25 April 1941. One of a series of photographs depicting the bombing of shipping in the harbor by German aircraft during the evacuation of Allied troops and the destruction of one of the raiders. The burnt out remains of the German “Stuka” dive bomber (JU87), which almost crashed on an Australian Field Ambulance can be seen

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in the right middle distance.” Photographer Unknown, Photographer Unknown, AWM Collection, Accession Number 069869; AWM 071278 - “John Colquhoun Belisario (1900-1976), Unknown photographer”, AWM Collection, Accession Number 071278; AWM 119036 - “Group of Nurses – left to right Sisters Deane, Luke, Lorbett and Fallick - attached to the 2/3 CCS in front of the house at which they were billeted, Khafissia, Athens, Greece, c 1941”, AWM Collection, Accession Number 119036; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Greece; Information supplied to the author by Philip and David Huggins, sons of Sergeant Alfred Huggins, 2016.

The story of the Greek campaign of April-May 1941 told from the view of many of the young Australians who served there, such as Private Syd Grant and Sergeant Alfred Huggins from Victoria who photographed their experiences, their images now published for the first time. The book takes you on a tour of some of the key aspects of the campaign, informed by the author’s field research in Greece and his own photographs of many of the locations connected to the Anzac trail across Greece. Published in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Greek campaign of 1941.

“My late father Syd never forgot the help of the Greek people during the campaign. He would be so glad that his story and photographs are being published and brought to a wider audience.” Catherine Bell, daughter of Private Syd Grant “Honouring the courage and friendship that bonds us, vividly told through my dear father’s story and that of the many others in this book, God bless Australia and Greece with ever deepening unity in democratic freedom.” Philip Huggins, son of Sergeant Alfred Huggins ISBN 978-0-646-83863-2

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