CHAPTER NINE

An Anzac Dunkirk

The siege is broken, we are going to sail,

and even so may not leave death behind

The Iliad, 1.63–5

When Blamey’s order of the day had announced the formation of a second Anzac Corps, his staff officers could not avoid the obvious parallel. Sydney Rowell commented: ‘Our ebullient chief engineer, Brigadier C. S. Steele, reminded us that, in its earlier incarnation, the first campaign of the corps of that name ended in evacuation!’1

The auguries were therefore never hopeful, but the comparison between Gallipoli and Greece held to only a limited degree. At Gallipoli, the Anzacs had pulled out at a time of their own choosing, in an orderly manner, thanks to meticulous planning, and at the end of a campaign which neither side could bring to a decisive conclusion. But the situation facing the second Anzacs 26 years later was vastly different. What these sons and daughters of the Southern Cross were about to endure was more akin to Dunkirk than Gallipoli.

Just as the British Expeditionary Force was chased off the continent by triumphant German panzers in 1940, so the second Anzacs were a broken army. If anything, the circumstances in Greece were even more desperate than those that prevailed a year earlier. The proximity of Dunkirk to south-east England allowed the RAF to mount standing fighter patrols to cope with at least some of the Luftwaffe raids, and gave thousands of small fishing and pleasure craft the opportunity to play a role in the evacuation. Over the Greek beaches, however, there would be no friendly fighters of any kind, and the limited shipping available had to come over much larger distances, restricting the number of troops that could be lifted at any one time. As a result, the embarkation from Greece could only be undertaken at night, from a number of widely separated points across the whole southern coastline. Even then, the shipping had to depart well before dawn to give some prospect of avoiding air attack. The ‘Anzac Dunkirk’ would therefore test the discipline of the troops to the utmost as they waited patiently to see whether friendly ships or the Germans would arrive first. This would also be an examination of the professionalism and self-sacrifice of the Royal Navy, the Australian ships serving with it, and the merchant seamen crewing whatever troop transports could be found.

Planning for the evacuation had begun almost immediately after the initial decision to send the expedition to the Greece in the first place. In response to political enquiries from Australia and New Zealand about the safety of their forces in Greece, Cunningham assured the British admiralty that he had planning in hand for an evacuation as early as 24 March.2 And even before the British military leaders conferred with the Greeks about a withdrawal as the campaign degenerated into a rout, Cunningham, Wavell, and the British air commander, Longmore, decided in Alexandria as early as 15 April that evacuation was inevitable. As a result, senior British naval commander Rear Admiral Baillie-Grohman arrived in Athens on 17 April to begin detailed local planning as to how to get the troops out.

Baillie-Grohman’s first plans assumed that 56,000 troops could be lifted out over five nights from 28 April, from 21 separate embarkation points. These leisurely assumptions collapsed under the weight of events: on 21 April, after the Anglo–Greek command conference that agreed on evacuation, the timetable was brought forward to begin the evacuation from the night of 24 April, and the number of beaches over which it was to be mounted was cut to just eight. In conformity with this new schedule, the first convoy left Alexandria on 22 April, and the second the following day. Meanwhile, Blamey conferred with Wilson and Baillie-Grohman in Athens on the evening of 21 April, the Australian general returning to his headquarters at Levadia at dawn the next day, where he briefed his divisional commander, Mackay, at 8.00 a.m.

If Blamey had difficulty getting to grips with the problems facing his command at Pinios Gorge, he was even less effective by the time the need for evacuation arrived. At the Levadia conference, according to Rowell, ‘it was obvious to Mackay that Blamey, in his rather tired and distressed state, had not given a sufficiently clear explanation of the evacuation plans,’ and Rowell had to repeat them to the 6th Division commander and his staff.3 Freyberg, further forward with his New Zealanders, was briefed by a liaison officer on the decision to evacuate. Later in the day, Blamey established his last blocking force at Erithrai to protect the embarkation beaches, and allocated to it the 4 NZ Brigade; the 2/3rd Field Regiment; a battery of the 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiment; the 2/8th Australian Field Company; and a company of 2/1st MG Battalion.

To undertake the evacuation, Wilson divided his force between Anzac Corps, the 80 Base sub-area, and the 82 Base sub-area (including brigade elements of 1st Armoured Brigade), and kept another group of units under his own direct command, including the 4th Hussars, 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, and the reinforcement battalions attached to the 6th Australian and 2nd NZ divisions. Word quickly got around that evacuation was on, and the effect at a rank-and-file level had its lighter side. Warrant Officer Grooby, a 34-year-old hardware merchant, broke the news to the headquarters of C Company, 20 NZ Battalion on 22 April, and attempted to gain some military advantage from an otherwise somber announcement, declaring that:

[F]rom now on discipline is going to be tightened up, so there’ll be no more ‘Groob’, ‘Baldy’ or ‘Grand-dad’ out of you lot. It’ll be ‘Sar-Major’ in future!’

The New Zealand units still retained the atmosphere of a citizen soldiery, and this call to a more martial bearing was a disconcerting development: ‘Christ,’ declared the company runner, ‘that shows how serious it is!’4

As part of his command arrangements, Wilson went on to issue the most incomprehensible order of the whole campaign — which was some achievement, given the general ineptitude he brought to it. Upon reporting back to Wilson in Athens, Blamey was ordered not to take carriage of the evacuation of Anzac Corps, but to report back to Alexandria — in other words, to abandon his troops and leave the battle.

Ironically, Blamey was about to get a promotion, certainly an unusual outcome for a general in the context of a heavy defeat. But, as we saw earlier, he had complained from the outset that, since Australians were meant to be the largest group of combat troops, he should have commanded Force W. When the fighting started, and things went from bad to worse, the political positions of both Churchill and Menzies were under increasing pressure. Far from home, Menzies felt this pressure keenly; he needed something to show his cabinet that his long sojourn in London was producing results in Australia’s interest. With Churchill unwilling to give the Australian prime minister anything of substance — such as air cover to protect the evacuation from Greece — the British came up with another, more tokenistic, solution; they would give Blamey a meaningless promotion, creating a new role under Wavell called ‘Deputy Commander in Chief’ in the Middle East, and appointing the Australian general to the position when he got to Alexandria.

The political nature of this appointment is obvious in Wavell’s cables to London before it was made. When in Athens on 22 April to review evacuation arrangements, Wavell met with Blamey, and had a discussion with him that provided another example of his masterly political management of the Australians throughout the campaign. In the midst of chaotic defeat, Wavell took the time to test whether Blamey was going to cause the British problems by telling Canberra just how badly run the campaign had been. Wavell was greatly reassured by Blamey’s response, which the commander in chief faithfully relayed to London: ‘he [Blamey] hoped no political trouble would be made of what had occurred’.

Only after had he confirmed Blamey’s political reliability did Wavell go on to recommend his reward :

Blamey has shown himself fine fighting commander in these operations and fitted for high command. Suggest now for your consideration that he be appointed Deputy Commander in Chief Middle East as soon as he can be spared from Greece. I consider such an appointment would be valuable and that Blamey would fill it well.5

To take up the role, Blamey complied with Wilson’s order to leave the Anzacs to their fate, and even found a place for his son, a major serving on the Corps staff, on the flying boat that was to take him to Egypt. Blamey’s behaviour scandalised the Australian army, then and since. When Blamey informed his staff of what he intended to do on the night of 23 April, one officer exclaimed from the darkness, ‘The old bastard’s taking his son out!’6 Sydney Rowell, Blamey’s competent and imperturbable chief of staff, was outraged, and offered to stay behind himself to organise the evacuation. Blamey responded by ordering him out.7 Rowell reportedly thought Blamey was ‘scared out of his bloody life’, and Vasey thought that to ‘include the boy was just too terrible … he has lost a lot of caste on account of it.’8 Apart from the need to give Menzies a sop in London, the other ostensible reason for Blamey’s recall was that his presence in Egypt would impress on the naval authorities the need for urgency. However, as Rowell wrote, ‘surely the proper solution would have been to bring a senior naval officer to Athens to assess our position rather than take out a senior field commander at a critical stage.’9 The point was a strong one, and its force was compounded by the presence in Athens already of Baillie-Grohman, who was perfectly capable of making direct representations to Cunningham on the urgency of the situation.

Mackay was also subject to the same order as Blamey, and he too flew out of Greece; but Freyberg, with a better sense of propriety, flatly refused to leave his troops for the safety of Alexandria. When he received Wilson’s order, Freyberg was then engaged in the fighting at Molos. In the midst of this critical rearguard action, Freyberg cabled back to general headquarters in Athens:

[I] told them I was being attacked by tanks, fighting a battle on a two brigade front and asked who was to command the New Zealand troops if I left. I was given the answer of ‘Movement Control.’ I naturally went on with the battle. After that I never received an order as to my disposal.10

When Freyberg was later asked to compare his decision to that of Blamey and Mackay, he remarked only: ‘They went. I refused.’11

In these circumstances, Anzac Corps headquarters closed at midnight on 23 April, and Blamey and his son were on the next plane out the following morning. Thus ended, in ignominy, the second formal (and so far, only other) use of the famous Anzac name, with its commander scuttling away from the battle, and its men and women still not safe from harm.

Blamey was not the only one building a career out of the wreckage in Greece. So, too, was his prime minister, still wheeling and dealing in London with a view to replacing Churchill. As Blamey flew back to Egypt, the British press was catching on to Menzies’ campaign, calling on him to be retained in London to bolster British leadership of the war. And the Australian leader was circling closer to Churchill’s political opponents, especially David Lloyd George, whom Menzies met for lunch on 26 April. The Australian recorded in his diary that ‘we had many ideas in common’, most of them concerning Churchill’s limitations. He also noted without demur Lloyd George’s opinion that he could not see ‘how we can win the war’, and that it was no necessary achievement if Britain did, since it was a ‘melancholy truth’ that the ‘Germans in their hearts like us much more than the French ever did’.12 Behind such sentiments was the idea of a compromise peace with Hitler, and Menzies clearly stood ready to join with Lloyd George if the opportunity presented itself.

Behind the din and sparks of clashing armour and artillery, modern armies are essentially an exercise in administration and logistics. For that reason, their development in the twentieth century was characterised by the growth of professional staff — the officers who run the administrative machinery. These staff officers manage the myriad stores, communication, transport, medical, and engineering services that provide a combat force with its vital support elements, not to mention the host of other specialist functions that go to make an army a self-contained community, from military police to church chaplains. Efficient staff work is essential if withdrawal is not to become a rout: in retreat, communications are disrupted, combat units are dislocated and dispersed, and the support services behind the front line are themselves liable to attack.

The untimely departure of Blamey and Mackay opened up for the Anzac Corps the prospect of just such a debacle, and the predicament they left behind exemplifies the point. As preparations got under way, Brigadier Allen’s 16 Brigade took on responsibility for a much larger force, which eventually swelled to seven battalions and two artillery regiments. When, on 21 April, the evacuation timetable was brought forward, Allen had to get this organisational hotchpotch from its original point of departure in Megara to Navplion, some 160 kilometres away, and accomplish the feat within two days. With Blamey and his corps headquarters as well as Mackay and his divisional staff gone, Allen faced this considerable administrative and transport challenge with a total staff of four — his brigade major, his intelligence officer, one captain, and one lieutenant.

The mixed experience of the first embarkations illustrated the difficulties that Allen faced with these limited staff resources. The first convoy from Alexandria approached the Greek coast on the afternoon of 24 April and split into two: the cruiser Calcutta, the amphibious landing ship Glengyle, and the troopship Salvia made for Porto Rafti, while a larger group of ships headed for Navplion. At Porto Rafti, all went well, and the ships sailed again at 4.00 a.m. on 25 April, carrying the 5 NZ Brigade.13 The embarkation staff there was led efficiently by Major Shepherd, legal officer of 6th Division; but at Navplion things were much less satisfactory. To begin with, on the evening of 24 April the larger group sailing there was bombed on approach, and the amphibious landing ship Glenearn was attacked by two Heinkels that, as Ballie-Grohman described it, landed a bomb ‘fair and square on her fo’c’stle, smashed her capstan, carried away her port anchor, hawse pipe and a large part of her side plating, and started a fire in her paint store’.14 She nevertheless persevered, reaching Navplion, only to find that the big troopship Ulster Prince had run aground and could not be shifted. Despite efforts to shift her, the Ulster Prince remained stuck less than her own length from the quayside. This left the cruiser Phoebe, the Australian destroyers Stuart and Voyager, and the British escort vessel Hyacinth relying on a single landing craft and the Greek fishing caiques to ferry troops out past the harbour where they could scramble up nets to safety.

On land, the situation was equally chaotic, through no particular fault of the British staff officers trying to organise the embarkations. The initial plans forecast that 5000 troops would be lifted out of Navplion on the night of 24 April, mostly from base units. However, between 6000 and 7000 personnel made their way to the harbour and, with the inevitable mingling of units in the crowded streets of the town, order deteriorated. Vehicles of all sorts were simply abandoned in Navplion itself, presenting further obstacles to the efficient movement and embarkation of troops. The men of the Australian 2/2nd Field Workshop were given the job of removing this collection of unwanted trucks, cars, and motor cycles to the outskirts of the town, where they were disabled by a variety of crude means (including the discrete application of picks and axes to the engines).

Amid the chaos, personnel were ferried out to the waiting warships aboard powered lighters (or landing craft). The Voyager picked up 301, and the destroyer’s crew was stunned by the make-up of this contingent. As darkened figures clambered up the ropes onto the decks of the destroyer, one seaman exclaimed to his officer, ‘Look, sir. They’re women!’15 Indeed they were, for here ended the Greek adventure of the 160 nurses of the 2/5th AGH — among them, the indomitable Mollie Edwards.

The nurses were a high priority for the embarkation planners, and those from the 2/5th AGH had left their hospital at Ekali and made their way by truck to Navplion, ‘chased by German planes the whole way down’.16 The German aircraft that were strafing and bombing the Anzac columns did not discriminate on the grounds of gender, nor did they respect the immunity provided by the red crosses displayed by the hospital transport. Like every other soldier, when the Luftwaffe bore down on them, Edwards and her sisters leapt from their trucks, and sought what cover they could find. The only available defence plan was, she said, to ‘go for your life, into a drain, anywhere to get out of sight’. On one occasion, so low and close did it pass, Edwards saw ‘the shadow of the plane’ go over her; 60 years later, Edwards insisted she ‘could still tell you the sound of a Messerschmitt’. Dodging bullets in this way, the pleasantries of life went by the board — rations consisted of bully beef, and sanitation amounted to venturing to the far side of the nearest tree.

Coming into Navplion, Edwards was struck by the disorder generated not only by the troops, but by the trauma suffered by the Greek civilians: ‘The place was full of refugees, wheelbarrows, and donkeys.’ The personnel of the 2/5th AGH fared relatively well in the chaos. In Edwards’ estimation, this was thanks to the leadership provided by Colonel McDonald. A physician from the Prince Alfred Hospital where she had trained, McDonald was, in her words, ‘magnificent’. The nurses walked down to the beach in the darkness and onto a lighter, with orders not to stop for anyone. Piled aboard and out into the harbour, Edwards saw the grey shape of what would prove to be the Voyager loom above them. With rope netting down the side, up went the nurses and, Edwards remembered, ‘As the first girl went over, a voice called out, “Funniest bloody soldier I’ve seen.”’ Women at war were a novelty, and notions of chivalry still prevailed — the Australian sailors gave up their hammocks for the nurses, but Edwards preferred to stay on deck, reasoning that she ‘was a good swimmer’, and she thought she would take her chances.

The only mishap to befall the women in their evacuation brought forth an extraordinary act of bravery. When a British nurse fell from the netting and pitched into the sea, one of the Voyager’s company, Ordinary Seamen Webb, ignored the horrible prospect of being ground between the landing craft and the steel plates of the destroyer, dived in after her, and ‘held her up until a line could be passed and both hauled to safety’.17 On leaving the harbour, the Voyager, her crew, and the tired nurses passed by the stricken Ulster Prince, and then passed out into the Aegean, the wine-dark sea of Homer’s lyric, sustained on their journey by the great tonic of the age — a good cup of tea.

Not all of the 2/5th AGH fared as well as Edwards and her party. In battered Pireaus Harbour, the large Greek motor yacht Hellas embarked 500 British civilians and 400 wounded on the evening of 24 April. The progress of loading the wounded from shore to barge, and barge to ship, was painfully slow. Alas, in the midst of this work came a German air attack. The Hellas was hit, resulting in one of those horrific wartime incidents where escape was impossible, even for those who survived the initial bomb blasts: ‘Passengers and wounded men were trapped in burning cabins, the only gangway was destroyed and eventually the ship rolled over.’18 A working party of Australian army service corps under Lieutenant D. J. Arbuthonot carried off some of the wounded, even with the ship ablaze and German planes strafing it, and the medical teams of the 2/5th AGH rapidly set up an aid post. These brave medical staff had to cope with untold tragedy, with precious little gear to help them, and the Luftwaffe bombers still at their beastly work above:

During the whole of this period the enemy planes were machine-gunning the ship and the dock and the ship was now burning fiercely. The wounded included women and children and other civilians. The wounded showed profound shock and in many cases were stripped of their clothing by the blast. The only medical equipment available was haversacks of shell dressing and surgical haversacks carried by Major Cook and Major Kingsley.19

The death toll was hideous, and may have been as high as seven hundred and forty-two. Among the Australian casaulties was Colonel W. E. Kay, a general practitioner from Waverley, New South Wales, and commander of the 2/5th Hospital, who was hideously wounded while organising the embarkation of his patients. He died of his injuries two days later.

As a test of endurance and morale in the face of adversity, Anzac Day 1941 lived up to the traditions set at Gallipoli 26 years earlier. Moving south to its new embarkation points in the Peloponnese was Allen Force, which spent the early hours of 25 April bumping along poor roads, headlights dimmed, bitterly tired. The most vulnerable point in the journey came at Corinth, where a sandy isthmus just under five kilometres wide, at its narrowest, joined the Peloponnese to Attica. To help their coastal shipping, the Greeks had cut a canal through the isthmus, 70 feet wide and 26 feet deep, and over this built a bridge to carry the north–south railway and road between Argos and Athens. The town of Corinth proper lay to the south-west of the canal.

All of the Anzac troops seeking the beaches of Kalamata and Monemvasia, designated as the final embarkation points for the last days of the scheduled evacuation, had to pass over the bottleneck of the bridge. If the Germans could cut the artery of retreat at Corinth by air attack or paratroop landing, they would slice the remaining Commonwealth force in half. To protect against such an eventuality, Lee conferred with Savige at 1.30 a.m. on 25 April, and the two Australian brigadiers agreed to detach three companies of the 2/6th Battalion to strengthen the garrison at Corinth. The force there was commanded by Colonel E. G. G. Lillingston of the 4th Hussars, whose few remaining light Vickers tanks had little infantry support until the 2/6th Battalion arrived, amounting to only the Bren-gun carriers of the 22 and the 28 NZ battalions, and Gordon’s company of the 19 NZ Battalion. As the Australian infantry came up, Lillingston put Captain H. A. Dean’s A Company on the northern side of the bridge. Captain K. A. Carroll’s company was sent by Lee to hold airfields north of Argos.

While moving back to Corinth, Captain J. S. Jones and his company bumped into Freyberg at 5.30 a.m. on the morning of Anzac Day. The New Zealand general asked the Australians for help to clear the road of damaged vehicles and bomb craters. While his men performed this service under regular air attack, Jones went on to the canal to consult with Lillingston, who ordered the Australians to hold a ridge running parallel to the road south of the bridge. Jones could not extricate his men from their repair duties in Corinth until 9.00 p.m. that day, and the men, when they eventually took up their allocated ground, had to spend a sleepless night digging weapons pits.

Elsewhere, many of the troops could do nothing on Anzac Day but shelter in olive groves behind the beaches, awaiting embarkation and dodging strafing Messerschmitts as best they could. The largest force on the move was Allen Group — it spent the day dispersed around Miloi, and got under way again at 8.00 p.m. This was but the latest instalment in the odyssey forced upon the Australians by the change in the naval schedule. ‘For the third consecutive night, this column of 600 vehicles containing 6,000 men, had a journey of 90 miles by the map, farther in fact — this time along winding mountain roads.’20

While Allen Group was on the move to Kalamata, other Anzacs got off on the night of 25 April. Ken Johnson of the 2/11th Battalion was one such Anzac; the Kiwi machine-gunner Murray McColl was another. Having lost contact with his unit, McColl made his way through Athens in the company of an Australian digger, finally finding a spot on a train heading south. Under the olive trees behind Megara, McColl spent Anzac Day avoiding the prowling German fighters as they strafed anything in the open. He found the experience contributed to his personal development, albeit in limited ways: ‘It’s amazing how grass looks from close up, and I reckon I can [now] hide behind a tree about that wide.’

Attempts to gain some sort of order were mounted on national grounds, all the ‘colonial’ troops being moved to one side of the road, and all the British to the other. Thus assembled, McColl and his group of Anzac stragglers were marched down to the evacuation point. McColl recalled that the scene involved ‘some of the blokes badly wounded, everyone helping each other’. This march was successfully achieved until, in true army style, the troops were marched back to whence they had come, only to be dispersed by yet more strafing attacks. Not surprisingly, as McColl recalled, ‘a few of the blokes’ nerves didn’t stand up to it too well’.

Fortunately for McColl, he had chanced upon the beach from which the only embarkations were accomplished on the night of 25 April. Ordered to form up in groups of 55, he and others moved down to the beach in the darkness. McColl happened to be number 56, and ended up in a lifeboat. Pushing out into the gloom of the harbour, his boat came to a destroyer, and then another, and he became fearful. He remembered thinking, ‘Bloody hell, we’re going back to Egypt in a lifeboat.’ Their mode of transport eventually proved to be the freighter Thurland Castle. She had already survived air attacks on the way in, which sank her consort, the Pennland, familiar to many of the Anzacs from their inital passage to Greece. When McColl, now safely aboard Thurland Castle, heard the freighter’s engines start at three o’clock the next morning, he declared that he had ‘never heard such a sweet sound’.21

Not all of the embarkations at Megara that night were as haphazard as the one experienced by McColl. Ken Johnson found it remarkable that, once word went out in the early evening of Anzac Day that the 19 Brigade was getting out, ‘In no time, people found their own “home”, and moved down to the wharf as a cohesive unit.’22 Taken out on a landing craft, Johnson and his men were ‘dog tired’, and took what weapons they could carry, together with a blanket or a great coat, but they were not allowed both. Once aboard, Johnson and the other battalion officers found the Thurland Castle armed with only one captured Breda anti-aircraft cannon. They bolstered this minimal armoury by lashing Bren guns to the rails of the ship, and readied their men for anti-aircraft action.

While the evacuation at Megara was going broadly according to plan, Admiral Pridham-Wippell, who was out in the Aegean and in command of the covering fleet, had lost touch with events ashore. He decided to detach some of his destroyers direct to the beaches in an effort to establish what was going on and what needed to be done. To Megara, he sent the Australian destroyers Waterhen and Vendetta; when these approached the coast, they found the Thurland Castle, which was taking on troops, together with an escorting force made up of the anti-aircraft cruiser Coventry and the destroyer Wryneck. The Australian destroyers joined in, the Vendetta using her whaler and skiff to pick up 350 troops, 60 of whom were wounded, some badly. On learning that many more wounded remained ashore, Vendetta’s captain, Lieutenant Commander Rhoades, asked to remain behind to evacuate them. This gallant request was sensibly declined, and Vendetta sailed with the rest of the convoy at 4.15 a.m.

One of the walking wounded at Megara who took matters into his own hands was Edwin Madigan, who had trudged out of Pinios Gorge and, after many adventures, ended up in hospital. Word got around the wards on 25 April that, by the next morning, the remaining patients would be prisoners of war. Madigan, not liking this prospect, made his own way to the beaches. Seeing the ships lying off the beach as mere black shapes, he put his lifesaving skills to good use, stripping off his clothes and swimming out to take his chances. Approaching one of the ships, Madigan called out in the darkness and succeeded in having a line thrown down to haul him aboard. When he clambered up and over the rails, Madigan was astonished to be greeted by the friendly exclamation, ‘What are you doing here?’ Of all the chance encounters possible, Madigan had come across his mate Dick Flack, a crewman on Vendetta and a fellow pre-war lifesaving enthusiast. Madigan and Flack had, of course, not seen each other since the outbreak of war, and here they were, reunited in the chaos of a night-time evacuation half a world away. For his fatigued army mate, Flack managed to secure the captain’s cabin for a few hours, which allowed Madigan to catch a brief sleep before the air attacks started the next morning.

By this combination of military discipline and personal initiative, 5900 troops were taken off from Megara — some 20 per cent more than planned for. The Thurland Castle and her warship escorts were duly dive-bombed the next day; Ken Johnson fought back with his Bren gunners, but was more deeply impressed by the weight of fire that the anti-aircraft cruiser Coventry could direct at the Luftwaffe. She was a World War One cruiser, rebuilt in 1936 for anti-aircraft work, a conversion that had seen her six-inch guns replaced by high-angle four-inch weapons. For close-quarter work, Coventry mounted eight twin-barrelled pompom guns. These were the Royal Navy’s attempt to deal with the aerial threat at sea, and were known for the sound of their discharge; but, unfortunately, the benign nickname also reflected their limited effectiveness, which was the result of poor range, low muzzle velocity, and the unreliable but heavy mountings on which they were fixed.

Despite the lack of potency in some of their weapons, Coventry and the supporting destroyers kept the dive-bombers at bay — although, aboard Thurland Castle, Murray McColl was never confident of the outcome. He remembered the reconnaissance bomber arriving over the convoy on the morning of 26 April. It dropped four bombs, one of which was a close call: ‘[Had the last] come another 50 yards this way, I would have caught it in my lap.’

McColl was one of 300 soldiers in one of the ship’s holds. They were kept informed of developments by a system of flags: yellow when hostile aircraft were about, and red when an actual attack was underway. Even so, McColl and his comrades had just one ladder with which to escape, had events demanded it. Not encouraged by such a prospect, some of the troops climbed out on deck. McColl, though, opted to stay below, as he thought ‘you’d cop a bit of shrapnel up there.’ Like Johnson, McColl was impressed by the efforts of Coventry, whose barrage seemed deafening, but he was nevertheless pleased to disembark on Crete on the evening of 26 April. ‘I couldn’t get off quick enough,’ he said.23

While these dramas were played out at sea, many thousands of Anzacs remained ashore — some engaged in desperate fighting. At Corinth, the motley and tired garrison spent the night of 25 April taking what steps they could to strengthen their defences, which were bolstered just before dawn by the arrival of a detachment of the NZ Divisional Cavalry.

To meet the feared paratroop attack, Colonel Lillingston of the 4th Hussars had a seemingly strong anti-aircraft contingent, comprising three 3.7-inch and eight three-inch heavy guns, and also sixteen of the powerful Bofors, a Swedish-designed automatic 40-millimetre cannon that was the best available weapon of its kind. Unfortunately, this force was spread out along the road, 48 kilometres south, all the way to Argos. As a result, when the German air attacks began at 6.30 a.m. on 26 April, the Luftwaffe found it relatively easy to silence the guns one by one. The first small-scale raid destroyed an anti-aircraft gun immediately south-east of the canal, but the major attempt to silence the defences came at 7.00 a.m. when 120 twin-engine bombers and Stukas mounted a ‘thunderous attack’ on the gun batteries, with fighters joining in to strafe the surviving crews.24

Fifteen minutes later, Australian and New Zealand troops had their first experience of a paratroop landing. Many transports appeared at a height of 300 to 400 feet, and disgorged what the defenders estimated to be a contingent of 800 to 1500 parachutists.25 There were, in fact, 53 tri-motor Junkers 52 transports, belonging to KGzbV 2. These carried into battle 2 Fallschirmjäger Regiment, commanded by Oberst Alfred Sturm, under orders to seize the bridge and thereby cut the Allied remnants in half. Sturm divided his force in two, sending I/Fallschirmjäger Regiment 2 (under the command of Hauptmann Hans Kroh) north of the bridge, and II/Fallschirmjäger Regiment 2 (commanded by Hauptmann Pietzonka) south of it. The German assault force was then rounded out by a weapon of war equally new to the Anzacs: 12 DFS 230 assault gliders of LuftLand Geschwader 1, led by Leutnant Fulda, and carrying 52 Fallschirmpionere commanded by Leutnant Häffner.26

The development of glider-borne assault forces in Germany is an interesting example of how technical innovation can be propelled by restriction and regulation. Under the Treaty of Versailles, the Weimar Republic was denied the right to form an air force. Between the wars, in order to keep alive a spirit of ‘air mindedness’ among young men and thereby to lay the groundwork for a future military air service, the German army and nationalist groups fostered gliding. German designers quickly perfected the technology, and began to apply it to wider research purposes. In the mid-1930s, the premiere German research centre — the Deutsches Foschungsinstitut für Segelflug (DFS) — built a large glider for high altitude metereological research.

Entering into the development of the technology came Ernst Udet, the highest-scoring German fighter ace left alive in 1918, a contemporary of the Red Baron (Manfred von Richtofen), and a squadron mate of Hermann Göring. A confirmed Nazi, Udet’s career in the new Luftwaffe was accelerated by political favouritism, despite his lack of sound organisational skill. Udet, who was an ultimately frivolous and incompetent military administrator, did have the occasional flash of technical brilliance, and backing the development of assault gliders was one such. Chancing upon the DFS research glider during a tour of inspection, Udet remarked to another First World War veteran that an aircraft of this type, if modified, could provide a modern Trojan horse, landing troops silently and accurately alongside vital strategic assets of the enemy.

Within weeks of this conversation, DFS had a contract to build just such a glider, and the DFS 230 was the result. What was notable about the combination of the glider and its tug, the Junkers 52, was the essential conservatism of the technology — it was only the integration of that technology into a new weapons system that was novel. The glider was entirely conventional in construction, comprising a tubular-steel welded fuselage covered by fabric, and a plywood covered wing. This was an engineering formula that had been perfected by the German aircraft industry in 1918, in the face of shortages of seasoned aircraft timber. The Junkers 52 transport was a three-engined version of a single-engined design that first flew as far back as 1930, and its distinctive aluminium-alloy skinning was the product of a development chain that had begun in 1915. To these proven technologies, the DFS design team added some desirable military touches: the 230 could carry a pilot and nine fully equipped troops, one of whom could operate a machine-gun mounted above the cockpit to suppress defensive fire on approach. The military efficiency of the design was then completed by a large, detachable freight panel under the starboard wing, to give the machine the capacity to carry bulk cargo.27

This technology and the elite force that operated it presented the defenders with a sight unparalleled in their experience. Peter Preston was south of the bridge, along with his platoon of the 26 NZ Battalion, and was dumbstruck as 12 of the big Junkers drifted by. At least here the defenders quickly regained their composure, and sent up a devastating fire through which the German paratroopers had to float. ‘Like duck shooting,’ remembered Preston, ‘[it was] all over by the time they hit the ground.’ The Germans had other troubles: one stick of paratroopers from the 3 Company fell in the sea and drowned, and Pietzonka, the II Battalion CO, broke both ankles on landing.28

The gliders carrying the engineers also struck trouble when one hit a pylon on the bridge and injured all of its occupants, but enough landed virtually next to the vital crossing to quickly secure it. North of the bridge, the situation for the garrison quickly became desperate. The major unit in place was Captain Dean’s A Company of the 2/6th Battalion. Dean had three platoons available. The 7 Platoon, under Lieutenant A. Hunter, a South African who had enlisted in the AIF while on holiday in Australia, was on the western flank beyond the railway station. The 9 Platoon, under Lieutenant G. T. E. Richards, a Wonthaggi jeweller, was dug in between the station and the canal, just near Dean’s company headquarters in a slit trench just east of the station. Finally, the 8 Platoon, under Lieutenant W. R. Mann, a clerk from South Yarra, Melbourne, was on the eastern side of the Athens road.

‘Every man for himself’
Dispositions at the Corinth Canal, 26 April 1941

The German paratroops landed right on the Australians, who went into the battle at a dreadful disadvantage — the German bombing had thrown up a fine, sandy dust, which clogged Dean’s automatic weapons and prevented them from firing. Reduced to only rifles, pistols, and grenades, Richard’s platoon dealt with the occupants of two gliders that landed nearby, but otherwise Dean and his men were soon in trouble. The 8 Platoon found themselves attacked by a German party that seized the high ground above the Australians, whereupon platoon commander Mann was wounded and several of his men killed. As the cohesion of Dean’s company collapsed, he found his own company headquarters under attack by another section of paratroopers liberally throwing grenades among the Australians. Warrant Officer Stevenson, the company sergeant major, fought on at the head of an isolated group; but, with their ammunition exhausted, these men surrendered at 11.45 a.m. Of A Company’s experience, Lieutenant J. L. Daish wrote later: ‘The suddenness of the attack and the unpreparedness of the British Force left only one alternative — “every man for himself”.’29

The B Company, 2/6th Battalion was south of the canal. At the time the Germans landed, its CO, Captain Jones, was on his way to report to the headquarters of the 4th Hussars. Jones admitted that he did not have ‘any knowledge of the probable tactics of paratroops’.30 Without their commander, who was in any event uncertain about what to do, B Company failed to make any organised counterattack in the assembly phase after the landing, when the paratroopers were at their most vulnerable. Second-in-command Lieutenant Sherlock rallied what troops he could on high ground, 500 metres in the rear of the initial company position, but B Company increasingly unravelled into small bands of isolated men.

In the surrounding area, other groups of men from a miscellany of units were camped on their way south. Not all took adequate precautions to meet an attack. The detachment of the NZ Divisional Cavalry was one such — it went to ground without preparing a laager from which it might fight at dawn if need arose and, when the paratroopers arrived, it ‘learnt a lesson … it never forgot’.31 Although the Kiwi cavalry men got their automatic weapons into action, a bomb crater prevented them from moving their armoured cars and carriers on the main road, and a likely track they took as an alternative petered out in the hills, which meant that all of their vehicles had to be abandoned. The NZ 6 Field Company was another unit dispersed and broken up by the landing. Lieutenant D. V. C. Kelsall, a student civil engineer, wrote that the Kiwi sappers were ‘dumbfounded’ by the paratroop attack, and from his diary we can get a sense of the wide-eyed bewilderment that he and his men felt as they looked up ‘to see inside the planes thro’ the open doors’.32 Most of the 6 Field Company ended up as prisoners of war.

With another isolated group was Captain K. E. Olephant, separated from his artillery regiment and making his way south. Of the paratroop attack, he wrote later:

The parachutists had landed about 1 mile in front of where we were sleeping and we decided it was time to take to the bush. We were hopelessly outnumbered and had few arms amongst us. About 20 of us including some New Zealanders and a Major Macrae, Seaforth Highlanders, set off up a creek bed, running 20 yards and then falling flat in the mud whilst a Hun plane screamed overhead just over the tops of the trees with all guns blazing.33

The 2 Fallschirmjäger Regiment lost 63 men and saw 174 wounded in this daring operation, but their sacrifice only partly achieved the German objective.34 The parachutists succeeded in cutting the Commonwealth army in two, but the bridge did not fall undamaged into German hands. Before the assault, Lillingston fitted charges to it ready for demolition; but, come the crucial moment, the fuses refused to function, disabled either deliberately by the German paratroopers or by crossfire in the battle. How they were detonated therefore became one of the mysteries of the campaign. British Admiral Baillie-Groham attributed the feat to a remarkable piece of shooting, claiming that the charges were set off by rifle fire by Captain J. F. Devonshire of the Devonshire Regiment, and Lieutenant J. T. Tyson of the Royal Engineers.35 Post-war New Zealand research, based on German sources, concluded that the paratroop officer detailed to remove the explosive charges piled them up on the bridge, and that a chance hit on this stack effected the detonation and brought about the demolition.36

However they were detonated, the charges at least brought down the bridge, preventing rapid German exploitation south. When the Germans sent a reconnaissance vehicle in that direction, probably captured from the defenders, Peter Preston and his men were still in position. The Germans approached, with a swastika on top as an air recognition signal, but the Kiwi Bren gunners were ready. ‘Our boy cleaned him up,’ Preston recalled.37

Local successes of the sort recorded by Preston counted for little overall. With the Germans astride the line of retreat at Corinth, the retiring defenders comprised widely separated forces, the main part of which was Allen Force, along with large concentrations of base troops, south of Argos. The last remaining rearguards were in the pass above the town of Kriekouri, where Puttick’s 4 NZ Brigade stood sentinel, supported by the irrepressible 2/3rd Field Regiment, and at Patras, where the remnants of 1st Armoured Brigade still held the left flank route to Athens. On news of events at Corinth, Freyberg ordered Puttick to pull out so as to be ready to embark from the Athens beaches the following night, 27 April. This movement was not affected without pressure from the Germans — New Zealand and Australian artillery engaged a German column advancing on the 4 NZ Brigade from 11.00 a.m. — and an artillery duel followed from 1.00 p.m. Once again, the Anzac artillery provided the shield behind which the infantry got away. Puttick’s men embussed at 9.00 p.m. and drove south, blowing bridges behind them as they went. The 1st Armoured Brigade did the same, assembling at Patras and moving back from 2.00 p.m. on 26 April. Wilson chose this dreadful moment in the campaign to leave Greece, blithely informing Freyberg that he would be flying out that night, which he duly did aboard a flying boat departing from Miloi. Thus, by the evening of 26 April, Freyberg was the only general officer still in Greece, despite the urgent need to snatch upwards of 20,000 remaining troops from the clutches of the Germans.

While Wilson got away safely, the embarkation effort reached a critical phase. On the night of 26 April, evacuations were mounted from three sites: the beaches of Athens, where a big artillery group waited at Porto Rafti, and the 1st Armoured Brigade reached Rafina; the Argos beaches; and Kalamata, where Allen Group was ready to get away. West of Athens, things did not go completely to plan — loading at Porto Rafti was delayed while a vital landing craft recovered men deposited on an outlying island, forcing the British 102 Anti-Tank Regiment and 2 Royal Horse Artillery to move onto Rafina. The proud hope of the British gunners that they could lift off their guns and heavy equipment proved far too ambitious, and all their gear had to be abandoned. Focusing strictly on recovering personnel, the troopships Glengyle and Salween were loaded and away by 2.00 a.m., and the anti-aircraft cruiser Carlisle and destroyers Kingston and Kandahar embarked another 2720 troops. Even so, Brigadier Charrington (the CO of 1st Armoured Brigade) and his headquarters, elements of the 1/Rangers, and parts of the 102 Anti-Tank Regiment were left behind at Rafina.

Further south, untold disaster befell the men who embarked from Navplion. Plans there were first compromised by the loss of the amphibious ship Glenearn, which was bombed on approach. Badly damaged, she had to be towed back to Suda Bay and then to Alexandria. The destroyers hoping to enter the port to load troops could not then get past the gutted Ulster Prince, still stuck fast in the channel. Small boats therefore had to be used to shift the troops out to the ships waiting in the open sea, but a choppy swell was running so strongly that it washed men overboard, several of whom drowned. With loading delayed on this account, the ships did not leave until 4.30 a.m. — perilously late to evade the inevitable air attacks — carrying 2600 troops, but leaving another 1700 ashore.

Included among those left behind were the men of the Australian Reinforcement Battalion, who were advised to move down the coast to Tolos to await a further embarkation effort, which they did. Those carried away were mostly base troops, but they included the greater part of the remaining personnel of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment. These men had bravely crewed the medium tanks that had fought at Ptolemain and Domokos, and they deserved a better fate. The troopship Slamat, having defied orders to sail at the hour needed to escape the Luftwaffe, was caught and sunk at 7.30 a.m. In company with Slamat was another troopship, the Khedive Ismail, which was defended by an anti-aircraft detachment provided by men due to join the 2/8th Battalion as reinforcements from the base camp at Julius, Palestine. Manning machine-guns on the deck of the Khedive Ismail, the Australians had a horrifyingly close view of the attack on the Slamat. After five Stukas were beaten off, they recorded that

[a] sixth machine delivered a surprise attack from the sun scoring a hit with a very heavy bomb in superstructure beneath bridge of the ship just above the rail. All forward superstructure wrecked including bridge and A. A. fire ceased immediately.38

The stricken Slamat hove to, and the destroyers Wryneck and Diamond took off survivors before the blazing troopship was sent to the bottom by torpedo. They, in turn, were attacked by strafing fighters that silenced the gun crews, before Junkers 88s pounded them with heavy bombs. Diamond was hit once, and then for a second time:

[The bomb] went down into the after end of the engine-room, and the explosion brought the after mast and funnel crashing to the deck and hurled a score of soldiers overboard. Steam gushed in all direction and geysers of scalding water poured down on the wounded men and the sailors fighting to launch [the life rafts.]

Wryneck was also hit, ‘her port side forward blown in by a bomb which reduced the stoker’s mess, filled with soldiers and ratings, to a shambles of dead and mutilated men’.39 Both destroyers sank within minutes. From them and the Slamat, just one naval officer, 41 ratings, and eight soldiers were rescued.

Earlier in the night at nearby Tolos, the Australian destroyer Stuart, under the command of Waller, did mighty work on her own to bring succour to the troops. Waller had already distinguished himself in the command of British destroyers along the Libyan coast during O’Connor’s successful offensive from December to January, and then at the Battle of Matapan. His reputation as one of the best Australian naval commanders in the war was confirmed that dark night off the Greek coast. Pridham Wippell, in his flagship Orion, had sailed to Navplion in company with Perth, to be what help he could there, while he sent Stuart on to Tolos. There, Waller found more than 3000 troops ashore, and the prospect of removing them was complicated by a sandbar in the channel to the tiny port, on which the only available landing craft became repeatedly stuck. Undeterred, Waller patiently loaded Stuart to the gunwales, and then sailed in search of Orion to transfer troops and free his decks up for more — signalling to Pridham-Wippell, as he did so, that further help was required. In response, Perth was sent to Waller’s aid and, thanks to his calm but resolute leadership, 2000 troops were embarked from Tolos by the time the warships departed at 4.00 a.m. Even so, 1300 were left ashore, with more to come from those moving south from Navplion.

At Kalamata, the southern-most embarkation point, between 18,000 and 20,000 troops had assembled by the evening of 26 April. One third of these comprised Allen Group, and the Australian brigadier in command insisted that his fighting men take priority in the evacuation over base troops. This hard military calculation was implemented by dividing the conglomeration of men into four groups: Allen Force itself; all troops north-east of the town under the command of the British regular soldier, Colonel M. D. B. Lister; those who’d arrived by train, under Major Pemberton; and a fourth group of all other ranks, led by the camp commandant on the staff of Brigadier L. Parrington, the British officer in charge of the port. Within these groups, men were organised into batches of 50, and a serial number was then allocated to each of these multiples.

An Anzac Dunkirk: the evacuation beaches, and major force movements, April 1941

In retrospect, these arrangements read as a model of organisation, but on the ground the experience was less orderly. Don Stephenson and his platoon of the 2/6th Battalion got to Kalamata by a process of circumnavigation:

We had to take up a new position, and a captain marched us up and down these hills. We were footsore already, so when we came to a little village with a crystal-clear mountain stream, the officers wanting us to move on, we refused until we washed our feet. Anyway we get to this new position, and it’s right next to where we started.

Finally reaching Kalamata and resting in the olive trees, the Australians were given little rest by the ubiquitous Messerschmitts. One twin-engined Bf 110 heavy fighter strafed Stephenson’s position and, as it passed over, the rear gunner threw out an object — down fluttered a toilet roll to help the Australians deal with their nerves. ‘At least he had a sense of humour,’ recalled Stephenson.

By this stage, laughter was rare, because the ultimate tragedy of the campaign was now hitting home to soldiers and Greek civilians alike. As Stephenson and his tired comrades tramped through Kalamata, an old lady came out and offered him a piece of chicken. Immediately struck by the nobility of her offer, he recalled his embarrassment later: ‘All you’re worried about is getting out, and she’s trying to give you this bit of chicken.’40

Also on his way to Kalamata was Bill Jenkins and the 2/3rd Battalion. He remembered going past a farm house where another elderly woman stood by with a tray of cake, and little glasses of ouzo and wine, as tokens of appreciation for the Australians. ‘She was crying her eyes out,’ recalled Jenkins who, with his comrades, accepted the offering and assured her, ‘Don’t worry, Ma, we’ll be back.’ That night, when Bill Jenkins finally managed to get aboard a troopship, it dawned on him that their bravado was hollow. As he and his comrades gained the deck in the darkness, carrying what weapons they could, and grabbing hold of comforting cups of strong, sweet tea from the ship’s crew, someone remarked, ‘We won’t be coming back.’ Jenkins realised then the bitter truth of it, and what the Greek civilians who had welcomed them so warmly might now be facing.41

As the Kalamata evacuation approached its critical phase, the Australian and British officers were gravely concerned that a collapse in discipline might result in disaster. Parrington issued an order of the day demanding that ‘the highest standard of discipline be observed in accordance with Imperial traditions’.42 Allen went further — he bluntly ordered his provosts to shoot any man who fired a shot, lit a fire, or panicked.

By these drastic measures, 8000 men were loaded onto ships off Kalamata on the night of 26 April — the largest single effort of the entire evacuation. Inevitably, within this overall success, misfortunes still befell some men. Confusion over the destruction of the Australian motor transport led Allen to leave behind some staff officers to supervise the work and the later embarkation of those still ashore performing it. Parts of the 2/1st Field Regiment also remained ashore when the ships pulled out, including its commander, Lieutenant Colonel Harlock. Years later, Bill Jenkins attended a public meeting, to find an artillery officer talking about Greece. As all good artillerymen would, the gunner lamented having spiked his guns, and went on to recount how he had waited for hours on the quay at Kalamata for the number of his group to be called. Brigadier Allen, however, had given priority to his infantry; so, when a ragged group of infantry came along, they were given preference to the artillery officer and his unit. No sooner were the infantry aboard than the gangplank was pulled up and the gunners were left behind, to face four long years as prisoners of war. On hearing this recollection, Jenkins, the last aboard, knew immediately that it had been him leading that final section of infantrymen. Such was the narrow and arbitrary difference between rescue and captivity.

For those who did get away, evacuation still meant facing the gauntlet thrown down by the Luftwaffe. In order to concentrate his firepower, Pridham-Wippell ordered all the ships from the night’s embarkations to concentrate north of Crete. With Suda Bay, hitherto used as a staging post but now dangerously overcrowded, the British Admiral hoped that this large convoy, codenamed GA.14, would then proceed directly to Alexandria. In this, he was only partly successful, thanks to the efforts of the German bombers. Apart from its strong contingent of warships, GA.14 comprised the troopships Glengyle, Salween, Khedive Ismail, Dilwarra, City of London, and Costa Rica.

The Dilwarra carried among others the 2/3rd Battalion, including the battalion transport officer Frank Reid and the young Bill Jenkins. Reid spent Anzac Day at Kalamata destroying gear and transport. He recalled, ‘[We were] dog tired, we hadn’t had a sleep for a week.’ Once aboard, going out to the Dilwarra via the destroyer Hero, Reid got orders from Battalion CO Jimmy Lamb to organise a makeshift anti-aircraft defence. By this stage of the campaign, relations between Lamb and Reid, were tense indeed, soured by the long and unnecessary march back from Veria. When the young officer received the order to mount his Bren guns for anti-aircraft work, he told Lamb he would get to it eventually, and received the frosty reply, ‘Immediately.’ Too tired to argue, Reid repaired to a spare cabin, and bribed an Indian ship’s steward with one half of a pound note, and the promise of the other half if the steward woke him up at first light. The Indian dutifully obliged, but could only rouse Reid from his deep slumber by determined means — ‘When I awoke, I was seated on the edge of the bunk. He had me by the ears and was vigorously shaking my head from side to side.’43 The Australian subaltern, after weeks in the field, found the accompanying breakfast of poached eggs, hot buttered toast, and fresh tea easily justified the second half of the pound note.

Sustained by his cooked breakfast, Reid collected his ‘ack ack’ platoon and climbed up to the boat deck, which he found ‘nice and clear’ of obstructions and thus well-suited to his purpose. With their four Brens lashed in place, Reid and his platoon sergeant scoured the boat for other weapons; but, when the first Stukas arrived, few gunners had answered the call. As the screaming Junkers fell upon the convoy, suddenly ‘Bren guns came on deck from everywhere’, and the Australians set up to fight it out. Before long, Reid had 27 Bren guns under command, and he directed these by ordering that they all take their firing cue from the forward port gun — ‘When it fired, all would fire, but neither sooner nor later.’ The young lieutenant found the Dilwarra quickly singled out by six dive-bombers ‘circling like Indians in the movies’, and directed his gunners to aim ‘a hand’s distance in front’ to estimate the deflection needed to hit their plunging targets. Through bitter experience, Reid now had a perfect understanding of Stuka tactics, and used these to concentrate the fire of his impromptu battery at the decisive moment:

Attacking Stukas always circled over their target at about 2000 feet; they then peeled off one by one, and dived. At between 1200 and 1000 feet the pilot took aim at the target — after this, it was virtually impossible for him to make any further correction. At about 800 feet he had to release his bomb irrespective of whether his aim was good or bad; otherwise, he could not pull out. This [meant that] the ideal time to fire a volley at a Stuka [was] during the few seconds [it was] between 1200 and 1000 feet).44

Bill Jenkins was with Reid that harrowing day as wave after wave of German bombers sought to turn the evacuation convoy into a maritime morgue. Jenkins installed himself on the deck, re-loading the magazines of the machine-guns — these held 20 rounds, which could be fired off in a couple of short bursts. As each gunner threw a magazine to the deck and replaced it with a fresh one, Jenkins and others caught them and restocked them with cartridges. Jenkins was by now a hardened infantryman, but by the end of the day even his gnarled hands were blistered and raw from the intensity of the action.

Forever after, Jenkins testified to the ferocity of the impromptu defence organised by Reid. ‘He should have been decorated,’ Jenkins insisted, because the machine-gun rounds that Reid coordinated meant that the Germans ‘could have landed on the amount of lead going up’. Yet the German dive-bombers came through this wall of fire, hoping that their screaming sirens would psychologically break the gunners and thereby allow the bomb-runs to be pressed home from low and decisive heights. Undaunted, the Australians kept to their guns, and their work was effective enough to keep the Germans at a distance. The most damage inflicted on the Dilwarra came from high-level bombers that damaged her stern and wrecked all the lifeboats.

As the long and trying hours of daylight dragged on, it seemed that Convoy GA.14 might survive with only this very limited damage to Dilwarra. Unfortunately, at 3.00 p.m. a flight of three Junkers 88 bombers slipped unnoticed out of the sun.45 Before effective fire could be directed at them, a stick of bombs landed close by the Costa Rica, crammed with 2500 troops from a variety of units. The ship escaped a direct hit that would have inflicted horrific casualties, but one near-miss split the steel sides of the ship just abreast of the engine room. Don Stephenson and his platoon of the 2/6th Battalion were right next to the towering splash caused by the bomb blast. ‘We were drowned,’ Stephenson recalled, by this mountain of water that engulfed his battalion. Jack Burke with the 2/1st Field Ambulance Company was down below, preparing a meal of sausages from a tin long he’d coveted during the evacuation. He vowed and declared, ‘I’m going to get those bloody sausages,’ and maintained his defiance until the ship’s lights went out and all the internal spaces were plunged into utter darkness. He finally relented. ‘Bugger the sausages — I got out,’ he recalled.46

As water poured in through the fractured hull of the Costa Rica, her captain concluded she would founder within the hour. According to Stephenson, the ship’s crew made their own initial assessment of the damage: ‘The first thing we know, the crew are in the boats — they expected the thing to blow, with the cold water rushing in on the boilers.’

Fortunately, the boilers held, and destroyers were brought alongside to take off the longsuffering Anzacs. As the British destroyers Defender, Hereward, and Hero nosed up to the stricken troopship, those being rescued faced a challenging and dangerous feat of acrobatics to regain safety. A large swell was running, and to jump from sinking deck to rolling destroyer required good timing — and gumption. Stephenson recalled how military discipline prevailed with guards on the decks, which ensured an orderly evacuation, and with the ‘blokes from below off first’. Some of the men from the 2/6th broke bones on landing, and one poor unfortunate landed in the water between the ships. As one of the Royal Navy’s finest fished the soldier out with a boat hook, he provided a running commentary to keep up surrounding spirits, saying things like, ‘Good fishing today, mates!’ This kind of black humour served as an antidote to the gravity of the moment, as when one soldier received little sympathy for the predicament he found himself in:

[O]ne bloke decides he’s going down a rope, but he gets down there and the destroyer’s above. ‘What am I going to do?’ he says, and our bloke says ‘pull your finger out and scuttle yourself!’ You can’t beat our blokes in situations like that.47

Even those who made the jump safely found the landing below a tense affair. Jack Burke judged his departure from the Costa Rica perfectly, but found his hobnail boots gave an excellent impersonation of ice skates when he hit the deck of the Hereward below. Careering across the destroyer, Burke’s further passage was arrested by the rope rail guarding the far side of the ship; the tin hat he wore met no such impediment, though, and over the side it went. Many years later, Burke mused about his contribution to maritime archaeology: ‘There’s a rusty old tin hat in the Mediterranean somewhere.’48

In different circumstances, Bob Slocombe, one of the survivors from 2/8th Battalion’s engagement with the SS at Vevi, managed to keep his tin hat, although the reasons for wanting to would later escape him. Slocombe was one of the Australians who ended up in the sea when Costa Rica finally foundered. He’d had the good sense to take off his boots in preparation for the swim but, inexplicably, he left his helmet on. A passing carley float (life raft) provided temporary respite, before he was picked up by another destroyer; still crowned with his helmet, Slocombe dried out on the engine-room gratings on the passage to Crete. Jim Mooney, one of Slocombe’s comrades in the 2/8th Battalion, recalled the miscalculations of other men, such as those who took off their boots and patiently tied a knot in the laces so they could hang them around their necks. Inevitably, when the boots filled with water and weighed them down, these men found their fastidious preparations no aid to their breast-stroke.

The sinking of the Costa Rica inflicted an unwanted diversion on the survivors. Instead of going back to Egypt, the survivors who had crammed aboard the three destroyers were offloaded at Suda Bay, Crete. In this chance way, these men were set on another path of tragedy and suffering.

While the Costa Rica drama played out, the Greeks awaited their fate on the mainland. Early on 27 April, the Germans finally entered Athens. On a ‘mellow spring morning, with an early nightingale singing in the pines and the hills glowing with wild roses’, mechanised columns entered the ancient birthplace of democracy.49 To complete the Nazi triumph, two German officers immediately hoisted the swastika on the Acropolis and just as quickly sent a telegram to their Führer, laying claim to the feat. This act of self-congratulation set off yet another spat in the ranks of the Wehrmacht, this time over who was entitled to claim the title of conqueror of Athens — the flag bearers or their commander.50 One Greek soldier, lying wounded in hospital, marked the occasion with a very different act of symbolism: he asked his nurse ‘to help him tie something up in his handkerchief’, which proved to be a handful of earth, since ‘he wished to save a little of Greek soil while it was still free’.51

Some Anzacs were there to greet the Germans. Left behind at their hospital at Kephissia was Major Brooke Moore, a 42-year-old general practitioner from Bathurst, New South Wales, now commanding the six other officers and 150 non-commissioned ranks of the 2/5th AGH. With 112 patients too ill to move, the medical staff remained behind to care for them. Vince Egan was one of the hospital orderlies who, having spent the night on duty, awoke to be informed that he was now a prisoner of war.52 The Germans arrived at Kephissia on the morning of 27 April and placed a guard on the hospital, but otherwise allowed the staff to continue their work.

While the citizens of Athens contemplated occupation, the last military evacuations were still underway. By 27 April, Freyberg described conditions at the remaining embarkation beaches as ‘chaotic’. His 4 Brigade spent the morning moving into a defensive position near the village of Markopoulon, in order to block the road from Athens to Porto Rafti. This movement was detected by the ever-present Luftwaffe, which mounted a sharp raid before noon by 23 aircraft. These managed to start a fire in an ammunition wagon of the 2/3rd Field Regiment, with disastrous results: ammunition set off by the fire set in train a series of explosions, and ‘soon shells were bursting everywhere, vehicles burning, and the ripe crops in the fields and the trees in the pine woods blazing fiercely’.53 When the Australian gunners and the nearby New Zealand infantry of the 20 Battalion emerged from the mayhem, they left behind six artillerymen who had been killed, and 30 more Kiwis who had been killed or wounded. The loss in equipment was also severe — nine guns from the 2/3rd Field and an attached anti-tank battery were smashed and burnt. Warrant Officer C. V. Shirley, a 24-year-old clerk from Invercargill, was among the New Zealanders:

I was only about one hundred yards down the road when a number of aeroplanes swooped very low over the ridge. The men were still in their trucks, awaiting dispersal orders but immediately the attack began they scattered and took what cover they could on both sides of the road. The attack continued for some considerable time, the planes swooping very low up and down the road and strafing the road itself, the trucks and men. All the vehicles except the OC’s 8-cwt truck were ‘brewed up’ by incendiary bullets, which also set fire to [the] crop in which some of the men were sheltering.54

Observing this devastation were the villagers of Markopoulon. With the Germans on their doorstep, and the sky black with smoke as their crops burnt, the Greeks stood outside their houses to cheer on the Kiwi infantry, and give what support they could — ‘Women and girls ran forward with cups of water and old men gave the thumbs-up sign.’55 For good reason, many of the Anzacs interviewed for this book still had tears in their eyes 60 years later when they were asked to comment on the support they got from the Greek people.

Despite the air attacks, the 4 NZ Brigade got into position, and they watched mid-afternoon as a German column moved into Markopoulon. The Anzacs declined to fire into the village, and instead opened a barrage from field guns and mortars only when the German vehicles appeared from it. A determined attack did not eventuate, and this allowed Puttick to get his brigade and its attached artillery back that evening to Porto Rafti, where the cruiser Ajax, and the destroyers Kingston and Kimberley, carried away 3840 troops. At Rafina, the destroyer Havock took on another 800 men — the final elements of the 1st Armoured Brigade, with Charrington still in command.

One of the New Zealand infantrymen who embarked that night at Porto Rafti was Eric Davies with the 19 Battalion. He got out to the Kingston, and climbed the netting strung down the side to bring the troops aboard, initially in fine military order. Davies had both a rifle and a tommy gun, with ample ammunition for both, but made no allowances for the man above him, who panicked as they went up the side. When his comrade lashed out in fright, Davies was kicked off the netting. Weighed down by the hardware, Davies recalled, ‘I reckon I went down 25 feet, but by the grace of God, the net went that far, and I grabbed onto it. I got back up, ammunition and all.’56

At Kalamata on 27 April, the only organised force was the NZ Reinforcement Battalion and the elements of the 2/1st Field Regiment and transport personnel under Lieutenant Colonel Haylock, marooned after the big embarkation the night before. The rest of the men at Kalamata were disorganised base troops under Brigadier Parrington. They spent the day beneath the olive trees, under regular air attack — the worst of them at dusk, when 25 bombers crisscrossed the town at only 500 feet, unloading sticks of bombs as they went. There would be no respite that night for the men at Kalamata. No naval force was sent there on 27 April, and so they had to wait another day to see if rescue was still a prospect the following night.

One of those waiting under the trees at Kalamata was John Crooks. He had set off from Athens with seven or eight of his own signallers, and along the way inherited about 120 other men. He recalled: ‘As the gathering collection of miscellaneous soldiers appeared to have no leader and I was the only officer in sight, I felt that I would have to show some sort of leadership and take the whole party with men.’57

On 28 April, all was set for one final effort to shift the men from Kalamata. The only organised fighting force still ashore — Barrowclough’s 6 NZ Brigade — had reached Monemvasia after its rearguard work, and was also standing by to embark. Doug Morrison, at the head of his company in the 24 Battalion, spent his last days in Greece at Tripolis in the central Peloponnese, holding the road junction there which led to Monemvasia. Moving back to the port itself, Morrison’s men occupied a hill overlooking the bay, holding the very last perimeter of the campaign. By then his men were exhausted, and he recalled that ‘chaps were sleeping on their feet’.58

For some, the Greek campaign ended on 28 April, and with it, their fighting careers. The Australian Reinforcement Battalion managed to move down the coast to Tolos from Navplion after it was left behind on the 26 April, but even this exertion proved to be in vain. While waiting at Tolos for embarkation, this isolated group was overrun by the Germans, and the greater part of it was forced to surrender. Some scattered parties took to the hills, and some others took their chances in small boats; but, for most, long years of captivity began that day.

Better luck attended Barrowclough and his men. On the evening of 28 April, with its discipline intact, the 4 NZ Brigade formed up on the causeway between Monemvasia and the mainland. Heading their way was first the destroyer Isis, followed shortly thereafter by the hardworking cruiser Ajax and the destroyers Hotspur and Havock. On the voyage north, Havock swooped in the darkness on what she thought was a submarine — but the small object in the sea proved to be a rubber dinghy carrying the crew of a spotter plane that had been catapulted off Perth earlier in the day. This machine was a ‘Walrus’ biplane amphibian, a wonderful contraption of pusher engine, high-mounted wings, and bracing wires, which ironically emanated from the same stable as the sleek Spitfire of Battle of Britain fame. The Walrus, unfortunately, had come across a prowling Junkers 88, which had quickly dispatched the Australian spotter plane. Closing in to depth-charge what she thought to be a submarine, Havock recognised her error at the last minute, and the hapless aviators became the first rescued souls for the evening.

At Monemvasia, the New Zealand troops formed up in good order at five points along the causeway, and were carried to the warships on board landing craft left behind by Glenearn. Baillie-Groham, waiting for embarkation along with General Freyberg, thought their organisation and discipline ‘magnificent’.59 Peter Preston’s platoon of the 26 Battalion was even ordered to shave and clean up before embarkation, to ensure that the brigade went away with the correct bearing. Setting this standard was Freyberg himself. Preston remembers the general striding the quay, demanding in his ‘funny, high-pitched voice, “Who’s in charge of that boat?”’, when something went even slightly awry.60 Freyberg’s equanimity was largely a show for the troops, as the general was actually a bundle of nerves:

I feel sure those last hours of waiting on the beach were the most anxious that we had had. The ships did not arrive to time. At 11.30 there were no ships in sight and we were in a state of desperation for, given the most favourable circumstances, I considered that anything up to 1500 troops would be left behind. Another difficult situation faced us. Suppose they did not turn up at all? Spread out all over the area were over 100 vehicles, we had our stretcher cases out on the pier and there were also walking wounded … the anxiety of those last hours was indescribable.

‘When, lo, out of the darkness, there was light
There in the sea were England and her ships.’61

Without major mishap, the troops were embarked; so, by 3.00 a.m., after a last sweep of the beach by Freyberg and Baillie-Groham to see that no stragglers had been left behind, the New Zealand general and the British admiral were at last aboard the Ajax.

Further south at Kithera, a smaller evacuation mounted by Auckland, Salvia, and Hyacinth was also a success that night. Unfortunately, the good luck ended at Kalamata. There, 7000 troops remained, together with 1500 Yugoslav refugees, whose likely fate in German hands was too hideous to contemplate. Coming to their aid was a powerful convoy of warships, led by Lieutenant Commander Bowyer-Smyth aboard Perth, together with another cruiser, Phoebe, and the destroyers Decoy and Hasty. Sailing north, these ships were joined by four more destroyers, Nubian, Hero, Hereward, and Defender, the whole group aiming to arrive at Kalamata at 10.00 p.m. To undertake a reconnaissance, Bowyer-Smyth sent ahead Hero, commanded by Captain Biggs, at 7.30 p.m. Good practice though this reconnaissance might have been, it unfortunately did more harm than good. Nearing the port at 8.45 p.m., Biggs saw evidence of fighting in the town as tracer fire lit the night, and someone on the breakwater then signalled the destroyer, ‘Bosch in town’.

Indeed they were. An assault party of two companies of the 5th Panzer Division, with two field guns, had attempted a daring coup by storming the town. One of the units awaiting embarkation was the New Zealand reinforcement camp: it held men from 31 different units of the 2nd NZEF, awaiting orders to go forward as replacements. With the help of a number of officers, Major MacDuff organised the men into a battalion headquarters and three rifle companies, and these preparations were warranted. At around 5.00 p.m., the German column suddenly entered the town and got as far as the quay, where they captured the naval sea-transport officer in charge of the embarkation, Captain Clark-Hall.

Small groups of New Zealand and Australian infantry quickly counterattacked, many not even needing orders before pitching in. Sergeant Jack Hinton of the 20 NZ Battalion was one of the men from the reinforcement camp who took matters into his own hands. Fighting his way through the town, Hinton was finally faced at a distance of 200 metres by a post of two machine-guns and a mortar, placed to cover one of the German field pieces. One of his 20 Battalion comrades, Private Jones, recalled:

Hinton started off again and in a very short time cleaned out the two LMGs and the mortar with grenades. Simultaneously a 3-tonner driven by an Aussie and carrying a load of Kiwis rushed the heavy gun from the south. I cannot say whether Hinton or the chaps on the truck cleaned up the big gun. A few minutes after this episode, which was really the turning point of the whole show, Jack was severely wounded in the stomach.62

For his bravery in this action, Hinton was awarded the Victoria Cross. Pockets of Germans armed with machine pistols fought it out from the balconies of houses along the quayside, before being persuaded to surrender. The defenders had killed 41 Germans, wounded more than 60, and taken between 80 and 90 prisoner.

Still waiting in the olive groves, John Crooks was a witness to this battle. With his sergeant, he made to enter the town looking for instructions:

[W]e set off on our own to walk along the road in the direction of the town and the pier. I estimated it was about two kilometres ahead of us. At this time sounds of a fierce battle developing could be heard. Almost immediately a shell burst some 15 yards to our left and a little ahead of us. This shell killed one of two British soldiers who were also attempting to find out what they ought best be doing. I … judged it would not be prudent to proceed further. What with the gathering darkness and with no troop dispositions or password known, the possibilities were ripe for either side to have a shot at us, so we walked back to our olive grove hiding place.63

While the battle raged along the harbour front, out at sea on board Hero, Captain Biggs acted to clarify the position ashore, landing his first lieutenant in search of Parrington. Biggs’ signal to Bowyer-Smyth to indicate the presence of the Germans reached Perth at 9.10 p.m. Without waiting for a further assessment, or even asking for one, Bowyer-Smyth turned the rest of his force around at 9.29 p.m., abandoning the Kalamata troops to their fate. Bowyer-Smyth subsequently justified his decision on the grounds that his warships were too valuable to risk, and that fire from fighting ashore would silhouette his force and leave it vulnerable to attack by enemy surface vessels. There were no signs of such enemy intervention and, in an any event, Pridham-Wippell had already accepted the risk of loss when Bowyer-Smyth’s force was sent north. By the time Biggs established that evacuation was still possible, Bowyer-Smyth was long gone. Joined by three other destroyers — Kandahar, Kingston, and Kimberley — Biggs took on board Hero as many troops as he could, but this amounted to only 332 men. One of the lucky few was Kevin Price of the 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiment, who had been in the first action of the campaign at Vevi and was now one of the last off. Carrying a heavy Boys rifle, Price walked out into neck-deep water to scramble aboard a boat taking troops out to the Kingston. Safely on the destroyer, Price took a mug of hot cocoa. He remembered thinking, ‘[This is] the best drink I’ve ever had.’ Then he lay down on the deck and did not move until the Kingston reached Crete the next day.64

Admiral Cunningham wrote later that Bowyer-Smyth had come to an ‘unfortunate decision’, but his reaction at the time suggested an even stronger sense of disapproval. Under his direct orders, the destroyers Isis, Hero, and Kimberley were sent back to the Kalamata area the following night, 29 April, to see what could be done. By then, as predicted by Parrington, the Germans had arrived at Kalamata in force and had compelled most of the remaining troops to surrender. John Crooks was one of them. According to him, at about 8.00 a.m. on 29 April, ‘a solitary German soldier, not much more than five feet tall, nonchalantly walked along the road with rifle slung casually over his shoulder and shepherded [the remaining troops] in a slow march into and through the town of Kalamata’.65

The following night, Isis did pick up a boatload of New Zealanders who had managed to get 16 kilometres out to sea; with them, a sweep of the shore netted a total of 202 troops When some of these claimed to be Australians, their identity in the darkness was established by the destroyer crews asking the question, ‘What was Matilda doing?’ Cunningham sent ships north for the last time on 30 April. With another handful of stragglers rescued that night, the naval effort had managed to get away from Greece the grand total of 50,662 men, not counting the various parties making their way through the Aegean islands.

In this way, the Anzac campaign on mainland Greece ended. Whatever its motives, whether it was the mirage of a Balkan Front, a desire to impress American public opinion, the need to uphold British honour by helping the valiant Greeks, or some combination of all these, the cost of the campaign was high. Of the Australian contingent, 320 lay dead in Greek graves, another 494 were wounded, and 2030 began four long years as prisoners of the Germans. The Kiwis fared little better: 291 New Zealanders were dead, 599 wounded, and 1614 made prisoner. Militarily, the cost would be measured not only in casualty lists, but in foregone strategic opportunities, and the fragmentation and dispersal of first-class units like the 6th Division AIF and the New Zealand Division.

The Greek campaign was not just a failure in its own right, but it meant that the chance to finish the war in North Africa in 1941 was lost, forcing Britain and her empire to spend time, money, and lives that might have been better expended securing Malaya, Singapore, and Australia against the Japanese threat. Churchill, however, was well pleased, telling Wavell on 28 April that the whole campaign was a ‘glorious episode in the history of Britain’ which had greatly impressed the Americans.66