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CHAPTER 6

Crete

A nd so, towards the end of April 1941, the war-weary troops evacuated from Greece, minus equipment and often rifles, began to arrive in Crete. They settled in and waited for the anticipated German invasion.

Lieutenant George Arthur Brown, 20th Battalion NZ Infantry, who was evacuated from Greece in the destroyer HMS Kimberley, arrived at Suda Bay to see:

‘. . .the masts and funnel of the cruiser York that had been sunk in Suda Bay by the Germans. The Colonel was on the wharf with his Adjutant and RSM. We officers gathered together and had breakfast. The men were told to report to a certain area-there was only one road. “Take your time,” said the Colonel, so take your time meant that the boys visited the bars. I set off for my area, which was a lovely area, trees and a stream; I stripped off, washed my clothes as best I could, laid them out to dry and put them on. No tools for digging, but we relieved a battalion of the Welsh Regiment, who had been on the island for about six months and had not completed their trenches.

We dug and we dug with what we could find – we only had M&V, that is meat and vegetables, to eat, all tinned. I got a couple of blokes one day and I said, “We’ll go to Canea and see if we can get some food.” So we went to Canea and we bought what we could, and one of the chaps said to me, “Sir, do you mind going back on your own?’

I said, “Why?” and they said, “Well, the battle will be starting before very long and we want to go to the brothel. We’d hate to be killed without having been to the brothel.” So I let them go to the brothel and one of them was killed.

We were at Division when the real aerial bombing started. The island had a couple of Hurricane fighters, which had been shooting down the odd German plane, but they didn’t last long so we were completely at their mercy. The Germans were concentrating on the port of Suda Bay, which was the only port which our supplies came through. The sky was black with heavy oil smoke.’

One of those who endured that wait for the German onslaught was Rex Thompson, a driver in the NZ Army Service Corps:

‘There were a few vehicles on Crete, not many, but we had virtually nothing else. It was just a matter of supplying Maleme aerodrome on Crete and the battalions who were dug in round the place. And the Germans, to start with, used to come over and bomb occasionally, bomb Canea, that was the main town there. It must have been about 14 orl5 May they really set in and bombed virtually most of the day off and on. They bombed the town, they also bombed the harbour, but despite all that and the noise and the dust our casualties were not that heavy.’

Bruce Smith, Gunner in the 25th NZ Artillery Battery, recollected that:

‘Suda Bay had a lot of shipping in it, which was being bombed fairly frequently and ineffectually, actually. And we eventually disembarked and were told to make our way some distance out of Suda Bay where there was a reception area, where we got some basic food, bully beef and biscuits, and told to find somewhere to sleep for the night. We had no baggage, just what we stood up in. Some of us had greatcoats, others didn’t, and fortunately the weather wasn’t over cold.

In the morning we were lined up and those of us that had rifles were put into groups of eight to 12 and usually with six rifles assigned to each group. We had a bombardier in charge of us; we were told to carry on, I think, in a southerly direction and keep going until we were caught up with by a guide or a runner to take us to a particular area which we were supposed to defend. We kept going all day and part of the night and then came to a little gully, not far off the sea, and told to make ourselves comfortable in this little gully. Four to five gunners were to stand on duty with their rifles at all times, taking shifts – I think four hours on and four off. We were supposed to look for any sea invasion or aircraft invasion, and that went on for two or three days. Not a lot of activity except somebody came out on an old broken-down vehicle and gave us a bit more food and water, which was pretty frugal.’

When Richard Kean, Sergeant, NZ Artillery, arrived at Suda Bay:

‘We were told to march along the road, but every time we stopped and said, “How far have we got to go?” we were told, “Oh, its only another couple of miles.” We were finally told that our camp was 10 miles away. So we walked 10 miles and settled in. It was pretty cold but I managed to scrounge a blanket from somewhere and another bloke had a ground sheet. We dug a slit trench with a bayonet and we got into that, put the groundsheet on the ground and covered ourselves with the blanket and we slept. Well, this went on for a while and things improved; we got a bit more food and got sorted out and we finished up with the armed personnel staying on the island – that was the fellows that had rifles – but I, unfortunately, was armed with a .45 so I was classed as armed personnel.

We were turned into infantry and I became the CSM with four sections under me. The section was comprised of infantry guys, drivers and gunners who had rifles and ASC men, and we moved backwards and forwards, laid wire in the area in sporadic attempts to make ourselves useful. I got friendly with an innkeeper in the village of Galatos. So we would “stand to” about 5 o’clock in the morning, keeping ourselves warm by having the odd liqueur.’

Alexander Rodgers, Sapper, NZ Engineers, remembered everything being a proper shambles:

‘We had no ammunition, no guns, no nothing. Eventually we managed to pick up the odd rifle and the odd rounds of ammunition; some had a machine-gun. The artillery was not far away from us. We were at Maleme aerodrome.’

From Canea, after a fair route march, Keith Newth, Corporal of Signals, had joined the encamped NZ 20th Battalion:

‘I picked my signal station and dug holes and put ourselves in. And then every morning we would “stand to”, I think it was just at daylight and until about an hour after daybreak, expecting the paratroopers which we knew were coming at any time, and then we would stand down. Colonel Kippenberger sent back to Egypt for entertainment for the troops, such things as cards, you know, and that type of thing. Cairo sent the New Zealand Band over. Well, those boys were giving a Sunday afternoon concert and all of a sudden this sweep of planes was coming across – “Oh, here’s our boys” – but it wasn’t and the next minute they started to scream down. It was a squadron of Stukas. As you can imagine, band instruments, they went one way, the men the other.

That was our first real taste of what it was going to be like to be the actual targets for these Stuka bombers with their screamers on them. And that was a terrible noise to hear. Then we went to our main camp at Galatas; that was quite a big village, and I set up my signal station there and “Kippy” had the biggest house in the village. It was a big white house, so that was to be his Battalion Headquarters. And I remember in the basement of this place there were 20 or 30 huge wine casks – they would hold 600 or 700 litres at least, probably more. Well some of the boys got a little bit troublesome on wine, so Kippy had every one of them staked and they were smashed to let the stuff pour out, which was sacrilege as far as we were concerned, but it had to be done of course.’

On 20 May 1941, after very heavy bombing, the Germans, who had complete mastery of the air, proceeded to land parachute and glider-borne troops in their thousands, on and around the airfields in Crete. In so doing they suffered severe losses.

Captain George Brown recalled:

‘The morning of the invasion we had just finished breakfast, I think I was about to shave, when the first bombing planes came over. We had a few casualties. We took up positions but no parachutists landed in our area; they were really concentrating on Maleme aerodrome. There were three aerodromes on the island. The Australians further to the east were looking after two of them, and it was our job, New Zealand’s job mostly, to deny Maleme to the Germans. It was our 5th Brigade that was centred around Maleme aerodrome, and we must remember that we did not have the full three brigades, we only had two – the rest had gone direct from Greece to Egypt. The General had formed composite battalions of Cretans, Greeks, odds and sods. We lost our company commander and our second in command. The company commander went to a composite Greek Battalion – he was killed later – and the second in command went to another company of our battalion.

Eventually we were told that we were to counter-attack Maleme aerodrome. There was a piece of land, a river valley, west of the aerodrome, that was practically undefended, and the Germans had landed there by troop carriers and parachutists almost ad lib. The slaughter of the Germans was terrible, so I believe. We were to be relieved from Division Reserve by a battalion of Australians; they, however, arrived late, and it was General Freyberg’s instructions that we were not to move until we were relieved. Out at sea we could see flashes of guns and searchlights and we knew that the Navy was dealing with the seaborne troops that the Germans were sending over and that General Freyberg was concerned would arrive and attack Division, hence our staying there.