Story of a Digger Part 4
The toll of the 2nd/11th on Crete, was smaller than the battalions but still ranged from 35 officers and 610 men at the start to 53 killed, 126 wounded and 423 taken prisoner by time Crete had fallen , the remainder were evacuated from Crete by ship or submarine or had escaped, including Major Sandover.
The prisoners were put on ships heading towards an unknown fate. Roy and his companions had very little to eat on the voyage and conditions onboard were appalling. To keep occupied the men talked, joked and sang songs just like Aussie do but there was worse to come.
They were off loaded and sent to Salonika (the hell hole Salonika) in Greece. They were housed in old disused barracks; with only the clothes on their backs. There was maybe a cup of soup per day, a bit of bread and sometimes a cup of tea. Dysentery hit the troops quickly and spread through the camp. At night the lice and bugs would crawl over the tightly packed sleeping quarters, no beds just concrete floors. During the day the men undressed and took turns at picking the lice off each other. No water to wash, no medical supplies and no clothing.
An escape route was found in an unused sewer pipe where several men managed a short time of freedom, but were captured. Then the Germans discovered the route and fired machine guns up the pipe and sealed it. Roy did not know if there were any escapees in there at the time. There was a committee formed to organise escapes. The Greeks would organise false passports if someone got through. Roy did not know how he would go posing as a Greek with red hair.
There was nothing to do in the camps just sit around (mostly on the toilet); the prisoners kept up morale between each other. Occasionally the Red Cross would get some parcels through which helped keep Roy and his starving mates stay alive. He said if it wasn’t for the Red Cross they all might not have survived. Even though Roy was registered with the Red Cross his family in Australia did not know where he was for nine months.
Around August and onwards the men were crammed onto trains moving 1000 at a time heading for the stalags (prisons) in Germany. Thirty three men on each cattle truck with no toilet and one can of meat and a loaf of bread between six and that was to last six days. The tin came in handy as a toilet. Then it was thrown out a small slit in the side of the carriage. One bloke accidentally emptied his tin over a guard, the train was stopped and he was hauled out (they thought he was a goner) but the guards made him clean up the mess, do the laundry and polish boots for the rest of the journey.
At Belgrade the Red Cross made the Germans stop the train and every one that could was given a cup of tea and a biscuit. It was like heaven, this gave them a chance to wash up at the station. The carriages were so cramped they had to take turns to lie down or exercise.
After six days they arrived in Munich, Roy’s group were sent to Stalag VIIA and the commandant was disgusted at their treatment, he had never seen anyone in that revolting condition come into his camp. The guards were disciplined and some were sent to the western front. He ordered the men be given a big meal of sauerkraut, kartoffels (potatoes) and milk unfortunately after so long without food this made them sick.
The camp had bunks and straw mattresses, pot belly stoves and one blanket. (This was luxury compared to Salonika). The French had been prisoners in the camp for some time and gave the boys some clothing
When they recovered from their nightmare journey the private soldiers were put into work parties. It was better to work than stand around doing nothing because that would send you mad. Being a carpenter, Roy’s work party was building barracks for future Russian prisoners. They would prefabricate the barracks in workshops in winter and erect them in summer.
Roy in a POW camp
Then at one stage he was in a work party in Munich and if they promised not to escape they were allowed to stay in motels and not have to go back to camp. It was a beautiful city and we were treated well. The job was to dismantle all the bells in the church towers because Hitler needed the metal. They ranged in size from two inches to two tons.
Roy was in Stalag VIIA for 18months, recalling his first winter in 1941 as a very harsh one. At Christmas they received Red Cross parcels and mail from home.
The prisoners used to play tricks on the elderly guards, a bit like dads army. A couple of blokes climbed through the fence one night and went to the local night club and ended up playing the saxophone in the band that was playing, they were reprimanded when they returned. The prisoners were given a ration of beer in the form of kegs, it was mostly water but being Australians they got hold of some stronger spirits and a “still” and made a potent brew. After drinking it the blokes got drunk quickly and the guards had a big laugh about the Aussies that could not hold their liquor!!
Only a few blokes escaped from the Munich camp, life was pretty good where they were, so close to and working in the city, they could barter with locals. The locals liked the Australians and often gave them food as they were walking past the work parties.
The Allies started bombing Munich and the prisoners had to help clean up where the bombs had fallen. Christmas 1942 some bombs hit the camp and set fire to a few of the barracks, they saved the building that stored the Red Cross Christmas parcels, which was the most important job, mainly for morale.
As a result of the bombs beginning to fall in Munich, Roy was sent to Stalag VIIIB in Poland (near the Russian border) in early 1943 where he found most of the prisoners were going mad. There had been murders throughout the camp and the place was full of bad blokes. He worked in the carbide mines working on the ovens, miner’s lamps in Kalgoorlie use to come from the same factory before the war. He lost one of his best mates while working in that factory and Blue had to help carry the coffin. Australian mateship was very strong at this camp. Then he was shifted to a steel factory for a time.
It was at this stage a few of them decided to make their escape. In January1945 as they were hanging around the front gate a guard came through and left it unlocked. It was getting dark and Roy had a look around and said to his mate “I’m going out the gate. Is anybody with me”? Two chaps said “Yeah”, “Righto. Once we’re out, don’t look around. Just keep walking. If we get shot in the back, bad luck”.
To be continued
Story of a Digger Part 3
Battle of Crete
From the 25th to the 28th April, 20,000 troops were evacuated to Crete, mostly with just their clothes on their backs. Weapons, ammunition and supplies were very low. Sleeping amongst the olive trees was good camouflage from the air but the bitterly cold nights were a problem.
The 2nd/11th were in the Rethymno and Geogeoupolis areas defending the airstrip. They were combined with the 2nd/1st, 2nd/7th, 2nd/8th, 2nd/1st machine gun battalions, several Greek battalions and the Cretan Police, they were lead by Colonel Ian Ross Campbell.
The 2nd/11th was under the command of Major Sandover who had taken over when the last commander was wounded in the fight at Brallos Pass in Greece.
The troops dug in the best they could and scraped up any weapons they could find. Roy recalls escorting a prisoner (Australian), “not a nice character”, to Suda Bay; it took him three nights to get there and three nights to get back. The Greek people were good to the defenders and fed them as much as they could spare.
The allies didn’t know Hitler had decided on the 25th April, that he needed Crete as an air base to launch attacks on North Africa and to defend their oil fields in Romania.
Crete had been occupied by the British since November 1940 and they did little to improve the defences and communications on the island.
The Germans sent many recognisance flights over the island but because of the good camouflage of the olive trees and vegetation they were lead to believe they would not encounter much resistance from the ground.
General Student, the commander of the German XI Air Corps drew up his plans to parachute Germany’s crack troops and conquer the Island of Crete.
The moral of the 2nd/11th, Roy recalls, was very high, as it always was with the Australian Troops.
On the 20th May the invasion started in the morning at Maleme airfield where the New Zealanders were stationed. Then at 1715hrs after being bombarded for several hours by the German air force the transporters arrived at Rethymno. In the first wave, at one stage, 190 transport planes were seen in the sky dropping the German paratroopers. With the battalions dug in on the hills around the Rethymno airport, the transporters were at the altitude of the allies’ guns.
When the battalions at Rethymno opened fire the slaughter began. The Germans lost at least ten to twelve aircraft in the initial wave, and hundreds of paratroopers died. Aircraft and parachutists nearly blackened the sky.
Confusion struck the Germans and most of the paratroopers did not land where they intended. Some fell too far away and others right into the arms of the Australians, these troops suffered heavy casualties.
The Paratroopers who made it to the ground had to find their weapons that were dropped with them. The Australians needed those weapons also and the hand to hand battles were on. One transport crashed in the centre of the 2nd/11th area and immediately blew up with bits of bodies blown all over the place, Roy recalls having to bury all the parts and other bodies of dead Germans to keep the smell down.
As the Germans gained more arms and were reinforced from other areas, A Company could not hold the Germans back and gave ground. The machine gun battalion had run out of ammunition and had to fall back. By evening the outcome of Rethymno hung in the balance. If the Germans took Hill A, they could use their superior fire power to wipe the Australians out.
Roy recalls they captured a crashed recognisance aircraft with a code book about the air drops. Major Sandover broke these codes and placed the correct markers on the ground to have weapons and ammunition delivered to their doorstep. This worked for a while and the Allies gained a little more fire power. The different weapons had different colour parachutes.
At 0600hrs a counter attack on Hill A was unsuccessful with A Company having to abandon the entire hill. Every available man was then gathered for the next assault, they had to take back Hill A or Rethymno would be lost. Another counter attack began at 0900hrs and it was back in Australian hands by 1015hrs. This secured the airfield to prevent German aircraft from landing with reinforcements.
Buy the end of the second day the Australians had the Germans pinned in two enclaves, held the enemy commander prisoner and captured 500 Germans. Colonel Campbell did not wait for the Germans to come, he sent out patrols to destroy them. This caused casualties’ amongst his men for not a lot of gain.
Campbell had two Matilda tanks but these ineffective and constantly broke down.
Rations were short and Roy and his companions were told to take the food from the Greek gardens and the farmers would be repaid, they were. But the Greeks were smart and took all their goats and sheep up into the hills away from these hungry men. The German troops had food with them so the occasional loaves of bread and biscuits were on the menu. There was no contact with the rest of the island because of the poor communication setup before the battle began.
The Rethymno troops held out longer than any other troops on the island and about 0600hrs on the 30th May, Roy recalls they could hear the sound of engines approaching from the west and a column of German motorcyclists supported by two Panzer II tanks arrived. The commander on one of the tanks opened his hatch and said the rest of the island surrendered three days ago and for us to surrender, he was answered with a burst from a Bren gun. He closed his hatch and fired everything they had at the weary force. The Rethymno force soon realised this was serious and they capitulated also. The game was up.
The Rethymno troops were the only ones not to loose the area they were defending, but they were now prisoners of war and were sent to Greece by ship. Thousands of allies had retreated into the hills and escaped through various means back to Egypt.
Roy was a prisoner of war.
Casualties of the fall of Crete
German war cemetery at Maleme contains 4,465 soldiers
A further 2,600 were wounded
50% of their transporters were destroyed
The Allies cemetery at Suda bay contains 1,509 soldiers
And a further 12,000 men were held as prisoners of war
Airborne invasions were never considered again by the Germans during the rest of the war.
The brutal Germans occupied Crete until the end of the war.
To be continued
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