For Five Shillings a Day: Personal Histories of World War II. Dr. Campbell-Begg Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ all I possessed was the truck, which belonged to the Army anyway, my rifle, the clothes I stood up in and the contents of my pockets.

      Early afternoon the troops returned and we resumed our journey, travelling over a mountainous area. There were lots of abandoned and burnt-out trucks, but we had a safe journey and went on to take up positions near Tripolis. Whilst I was playing my usual waiting game, I was parked near an aerodrome which had well and truly been done over by enemy planes. Nearby I found an abandoned pick-up in a ditch. I made a search of the vehicle and found a large tin of green peas. I couldn’t believe my luck. Food! I opened the tin with my pocket-knife, drank the liquid and shovelled the peas down my throat. What a marvellous, delicious taste! Fifteen minutes later I had my trousers round my ankles with a stream of green water running from my bowels. It wasn’t nice.

      Next morning we moved through Sparta and my passengers went into a holding position until early on the morning of 29 April. We pulled out just after daybreak. The old Bedford was now only firing on five cylinders. My original load had overnight grown from 20 to over 40. Over 4 tons on a 3-ton truck. She still went good downhill, but I was in low gear going uphill. However, this didn’t last for long and we started a steep descent of about 10 miles toward the sea at Momenvasia. I think, for my passengers, this was probably the most hairy part of the entire trip. Being well overloaded, even in third gear it was hard to keep under 50 miles an hour. I must admit I was anxious to get off the road before the strafing started, so perhaps took some unnecessary risks.

      The road flattened out and about a mile from the sea I was directed into an olive grove. Arthur Wesney thanked me for a job well done, the rest said nothing. I was still pretty terse with them for pinching my food and gear. I guess if they had known I would be responsible for carrying them safely for over 400 miles and five nights and days to the evacuation beach, they may have acted differently. I hope the act of them leaving without a word was an act of shame.

      Parking under an olive tree I looked around the dozen or so trucks dispersed and hidden through the olive grove. This was all that were left of the 30 that started. One of our officers had caught up with us during the day. At sunset we drove our trucks to a cliff edge. There we drained the oil and ran the engines until they seized up, then pushed them over the cliff. When it was fully dark we marched down to the beach and for hours sat there wondering if and when something was going to happen. Finally, about midnight a few row-boats appeared and were quickly loaded. It was about 2am before it was our turn. We got into a row-boat and pushed off, and after a few minutes drew up alongside an old Greek fishing-boat. There were probably over a hundred aboard when the one-cylinder engine was started. I thought, “My God, if we’re going in this old thing we’ll be dead at daylight.”

      However, after puffing round for about 10 minutes, there, at anchor, were two beautiful destroyers, HMS Isis and the Hotspur. We were put aboard the Hotspur where a mug of cocoa was put in my hand and, grasping my rifle, my only possession, I went to sleep on the steel deck under a stairwell. This was the last of the organised official evacuation, although I understand the Ajax picked the General up at 4am.

      Around mid-morning on 30 April I was awakened by the tannoy telling us to assemble on deck. We were in a bay which someone thought was Canea in Crete. We were just tying up alongside an old freighter called the Thurland Castle and were quickly transhipped to her. There were a number of sunken ships. There was an air raid and bombs dropped near several ships, but we were left alone although the Thurland Castle showed marks of previous strafing. It was suggested by the ASC Officer that we would be returned to our units who were now on Crete. However, Colonel Paige said that we were going to stay under his command until he had orders to the contrary. Hooray for Rusty Paige!

      We sailed about midday. There were three troopships with survivors of the 6th Brigade and odds and sods like us aboard. The 6th Brigade had been placed in reserve. The troopships were in line ahead and on either side was a row of warships, probably most of what remained of the Mediterranean Fleet. They stayed with us until we were out of range of the Luftwaffe, and then we were left with only one destroyer for escort. During that 24 hours, though, they were continually attacked by German planes. Fortunately they were after the warships and left us alone. The day we arrived in Port Said was 2 May, exactly one year since sailing from New Zealand. Happy anniversary!’

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 СКАЧАТЬ