18 Battalion and Armoured Regiment

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Spine

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Title Page

Bayonet charge in the Desert Black and white photograph of men in a field

Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–45 18 Battalion and Armoured Regiment W. D. DAWSON WAR HISTORY BRANCH DEPARTMENT OF INTERNAL AFFAIRSWELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND1961 The authors of the volumes in this series of histories prepared under the supervision of the War History Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs have been given full access to official documents. They and the Editor-in-Chief are responsible for the statements made and the views expressed by them. printed and distributed by WHITCOMBE AND TOMBS LIMITED christchurch auckland hamilton hastings lower hutt wellington timaru dunedin invercargill london melbourne sydney geelong perth

windsor castleBlack and white photograph of an army emblem Foreword

By Lieutenant-General The Lord Freyberg, vc, gcmg, kcb, kbe, dso

It gives me great pleasure to write a foreword for the history of the 18th Battalion, later the 18th Armoured Regiment, for unit histories such as this provide the opportunity of paying a well-earned tribute to the officers and men who served in them.

The 18th Battalion was one of the First Echelon units and has an impressive record. It served as infantry in the early period of the war under Colonels Gray, Peart, Lynch and Pleasants in arduous fighting at Servia Pass in Greece, at Galatas in Crete, at Gambut and Belhamed in Libya, and at Minqar Qaim, Ruweisat Ridge and El Mreir in the defence of Egypt.

These were trying days, but the Battalion carried out its duties with skill and fortitude. I remember with gratitude the attention given me by its stretcher-bearers when I was wounded at Minqar Qaim.

When, after converting from an infantry battalion to an armoured regiment under Colonel Pleasants, the 18th Armoured Regiment was again employed operationally, the Division had moved to Italy where conditions were in marked contrast to those of the desert. The Regiment had often to contend with bad going, with mountainous country, with snow, rain and clinging mud. Under Colonels Pleasants, Ferguson, Robinson, Elliott and Parata it fought at Guardiagrele and Orsogna, at Cassino, in the advance to Florence, in the arduous winter in the Romagna, and finally in the victorious Battle of the Senio and the advance to Trieste, which marked the end of the war.

This is a great story of a very worthy unit which I hope will be widely read.

Black and white photograph of a signatureDeputy Constable and Lieutenant Governor,

Windsor Castle

30 June 1961

Acknowledgments

I acknowledge with pleasure and grateful thanks the generous help received from many people in the writing of this history. In particular my thanks are due:

to the Editor-in-Chief and staff of the New Zealand War History Branch for the privilege of writing the history, for free access to all official records, and for friendly, constructive criticism;

to ex-members of the 18th who have extended me hospitality, lent diaries and photographs, and given their time freely to write detailed replies to my persistent queries;

and to my wife, to whom I have been a poor companion in the evenings for several years, but who has given me nothing but encouragement.

W. D. Dawson

Wellington

August, 1961

Contents

Page foreword v acknowledgment vii 1 early days 1 2 the ‘orion’ 15 3 maadi camp 28 4 garawla interludes 48 5 ‘freyberg's wogs’ 57 6 over the water 67 7 the first encounter 78 8 withdrawal from servia 97 9 out of greece 109 10 airborne invasion 123 11 the crete debacle 143 12 reconstruction 169 13 attack in the desert 181 14 calamity in the desert 205 15 the pendulum swings 220 16 fresh woods 231 17 interrupted holiday 246 18 battle at minqar qaim 253 19 alamein chessboard 265 20 disaster at ruweisat 277 21 the el mreir fiasco 295 22 trial by heat 306 23 farewell to the blue 318 24 ‘tanks of our own’ 329 25 back to europe 348 26 the brick wall—guardiagrele 363 27 the brick wall—orsogna 386 28 on the orsogna road 405 29 winter and spring 417 30 east of cassino 432 31 cassino and the mountains 446 32 the impassable hills 460 33 beyond the liri 477 34 northwards 493 35 tiger country 502 36 florence—but not quite 523 37 the road to the plains 539 38 mud scramble in the romagna 550 39 armoured attack 568 40 through mud and water to the senio 583 41 dark winter 603 42 the surging wave 616 43 flood tide 633 44 retrospect 651 roll of honour 655 summary of casualties 663 honours and awards 664 commanding officers 666 index 667

List of Illustrations

Frontispiece Bayonet charge in the Desert J. A. T. G. Smith collection Following page 18 Battalion marches into Papakura 100 Filling palliasses, Papakura 100 Troopship amusements—Boxing G. B. Nelson collection 100 Troopship amusements—Race Day Eric Firth 100 The Battalion goes ashore at Tewfik W. Ross collection 100 A Company signal office, Maadi, 1940 C. W. Dudding 100 18 Battalion in the desert behind Maadi Camp G. R. Andrews 100 Battalion transport at Kasr-el-Nil Barracks R. T. Bishop collection 100 Cooking in the field E. Firth 116 Wadi Naghamish R. A. Pickett collection 116 Dinner time, Baggush R. A. Pickett collection 116 Dinner time, Mikri Milia, Greece R. T. Bishop collection 116 Pause on roadside, Greece NZ Army 116 Looking down on Servia R. A. Pickett collection 116 Crete—7 General Hospital after a bombing raid J. L. Richards collection 116 German troops on the march towards Sfakia German photograph 116 Crete survivors—8 Platoon, A Company L. Rawley 150 Combined training—Assault Landing Craft on HMS Glenroy L. Rawley 150 Combined training—landing from the Assault Craft L. Rawley 150 Gambut airfield H. R. Lapwood collection 150 18 Battalion convoy being shelled L. Rawley collection 150 Belhamed—18 Battalion advances on the German pocket W. E. Higgins collection 150 German prisoners at Belhamed R. D. Coats collection 150 18 Battalion Signal truck after hitting a mine J. A. T. G. Smith collection 150 Battalion Headquarters on Belhamed S. N. S. Crump 182 Section post, Belhamed R. A. Pickett collection 182 18 Battalion Headquarters in the escarpment below Belhamed S. N. S. Crump 182 ‘Fishing’ in the Orontes R. T. Bishop collection 182 Route march in the Syrian hills W. E. Higgins collection 182 Alamein line—after the Stukas left J. R. Marra collection 182 B Company platoon post, Alamein line R. A. Pickett collection 182 Armoured training at Maadi—gunnery class 18 Regiment collection 182 Reunion dinner, Cairo, 1943 NZ Army (G. R. Bull) 380 Fording the Biferno River A. H. Dickinson collection 380 A Squadron tanks on Torretta 18 Regiment collection 380 18 Regiment moves up towards the Sangro O. H. Burn collection 380 On the Orsogna-Ortona road 18 Regiment collection 380 New Year's Day at Castelfrentano O. H. Burn collection 380 The last of the ‘originals’ go home on furlough 18 Regiment collection 380 In the gun line at Trocchio 18 Regiment collection 412 Cassino railway station W. H. Reynolds collection 412 A tank bivvy 18 Regiment collection 412 A Squadron's ‘well-diver’ A. H. Dickinson collection 412 18 Regiment halts on the way north from Veroli 18 Regiment collection 412 A Sherman tank boards its transporter 18 Regiment collection 412 The Regiment's first Tiger, 23 July 1944 From inside a Sherman—anti-tank gun on the road ahead G. R. McIntosh collection 412 Panther turret on Rimini airfield NZ Army (G. F. Kaye) 542 Prepared for rain—a Reconnaissance Troop Honey tank P. L. Collins collection 542 B Squadron troop out of action, 19 October 1944 Rev. R. M. Gourdie collection 542 C Squadron gun line at Faenza G. R. McIntosh collection 542 Over the bank at the Scolo Tratturo, 10 April 1945 J. W. Brook collection 542 Stuck in the ditch, 13 April 1945 R. Thomas collection 542 Maori infantry ride on the tanks R. J. Toon collection 542 Recovery tank drags out a Tiger J. W. Brook collection 542 Loaded up for the final advance A. J. Williamson collection 574 Crossing the Reno R. J. Toon collection 574 Across the big rivers—the Po R. Thomas collection 574 Across the big rivers—the Adige NZ Army (G. F. Kaye) 574 July 1945—tanks ready to leave the Regiment for the last time J. W. Brook collection 574 Lt-Cols J. R. Gray and J. N. Peart NZ Herald, Auckland 574 Lt-Col R. J. Lynch NZ Army 574 Lt-Col C. L. Pleasants NZ Army (G. R. Bull) 574 Lt-Col J. B. Ferguson J. B. Ferguson collection 574 Lt-Col H. H. Parata NZ Army 574

List of Maps

Facing page Egypt and Cyrenaica 49 Greece 67 Crete 117 Central and Eastern Mediterranean 231 El Alamein 265 Southern Italy 347 Northern Italy 509 In text Page 18 Battalion at Servia Pass 89 4 Brigade rearguard in the Kriekouki Pass, 26 April 1941 111 18 Battalion at Porto Rafti 117 Dispositions in Galatas area, 20 May 1941 130 18 Battalion, 25 May 1941 147 18 Battalion at Bardia, 22 November 1941 187 18 Battalion's advance to Belhamed, 24–26 November 1941 194 18 Battalion at Belhamed 201 Eastern Mediterranean 236 Minqar Qaim, 27 June 1942 254 18 Battalion's moves, 28 Jun–11 Jul 1942 266 Attack at Ruweisat, 14–15 July 1942 278 Plan of El Mreir attack, 21 July 1942 296 18 Battalion at Alamein, August 1942 309 18 Armoured Regiment—the Sangro to Guardiagrele 364 Moves of 18 Regiment at Orsogna, 3–20 December 1943 380 18 Regiment on the Orsogna Road, December 1943 387 18 Regiment, March-May 1944 426 18 Regiment tanks in Cassino 447 18 Regiment in the Liri Valley, 25–31 May 1944 463 18 Regiment from the Liri River past Veroli, 31 May-4 June 1944 479 18 Regiment in the Florence campaign, 23–27 July 1944 505 18 Regiment in the Florence campaign, 27 July-15 August 1944 525 C Squadron at Rimini airfield, September 1944 543 18 Regiment at Rimini and in the Romagna, 15 September-21 October 1944 551 18 Regiment, 21–23 September 1944 554 C Squadron and 22 Battalion attack, 30 November 1944 588 18 Regiment at Celle and the Senio River, December 1944 593 Senio River to Zaniolo Canal, 9–13 April 1945 617 18 Regiment at the Idice River and Cazzano, 20–21 April 1945 629 From the Idice River to Padua, 22–29 April 1945 634 Padua to Trieste, April-June 1945 638–9

The occupations given in the biographical footnotes are those on enlistment. The ranks are those held on discharge or at the date of death.

CHAPTER 1 Early Days

They didn't look much like pioneers, the men who tramped into Hopuhopu Camp just before lunchtime on that October day. They looked like young fellows picked up at random out of offices in Auckland, orchards in Northland, farms in the Waikato, except that they wore their civvy clothes self-consciously, as if they really had no right to them any more. That they were to become the Old Men of a great fighting division it would have been hard to guess. Into Hopuhopu they tramped; and what they saw of Hopuhopu they didn't like much.

That was not altogether surprising. Hopuhopu, though fair enough by 1914 standards, wasn't too good by the changed standards of 1939. The bell tents, dug out from stores where they had lain for years, were by no means waterproof. The cookhouses were inconvenient and outdated. You had to line up for a wash, and rip your whiskers off in cold water. The whole camp had been hurriedly patched up on the outbreak of war to hold nearly twice the numbers it was designed for.

To cap everything, there was a ready-made reception committee of officers and NCOs, who had already been put through it for a solid week by Regular Force instructors, and were now thirsting to pass on the process.

All this had begun some weeks before, after the Government's announcement on 8 September that a Special Force was to be raised for service within or beyond New Zealand. Volunteers, all of them. To enlist ‘for the duration and twelve months’. From 21 to 35 years old. Medically fit for service anywhere in the world. In other words, the Government said, ‘We want the pick of the young men of New Zealand.’ Then, as if to dampen any possible excitement, it added, ‘We will train you for at least three months, and if you are not needed after that, you can go back home.’

If they were not needed after that! Good Heavens!

Not that the men who thronged the recruiting offices would have regarded themselves as the pick of New Zealand. Probably they couldn't have said just why they were volunteering, except the non-committal ‘May as well, I suppose’. They were quite matter-of-fact about it, so much so that the New Zealand Herald remarked, ‘The most striking feature of the recruiting was the entire absence of excitement.’ But the offices were packed to the doors; men queued up from 7 a.m. for the doors to open at 9; two offices in the Northern Military District ran out of enrolment forms on the first day; the District's quota of 2200 men was exceeded that day, and nearly doubled by the end of the week.

It was also noteworthy that a great many of the recruits had never been in the Territorials—to quote the Herald again, ‘Active service always had an appeal to the adventurous which routine training did not possess.’ But there were old soldiers, too, some with war service from 1914–18 to their credit. Some, try as they might, could not even pretend to look under 35, and didn't get past the doors of the recruiting offices. Others did— many who would never see 35 again trained, sailed and fought with the First Echelon. So did many whose twenty-first birthdays were celebrated among desert sands.

The volunteers could choose their own branch of the service. You might ask, ‘Who in his sane senses would volunteer for the footsloggers when there are so many other more attractive and safer jobs to get into?’ Well, many did. More than enough to fill up the Rifle Brigade which was to be the infantry of the Special Force. From the Northern Military District, more than enough to fill up 1 NZ Rifle Battalion, which later became 18 Battalion.

The men who volunteered in the first week were medically examined in the second, and then sent home to await their call into camp, while the Public Works Department got busy preparing camps for them: new permanent camps (for example, one at Papakura, 19 miles south of Auckland); temporary camps like Hopuhopu to tide over until the others were ready. There, on 27 September, assembled 160 officers, NCOs and men of 1 Rifle Battalion. And there to join them, on 3 October, came the main body of the battalion, 546 of them, followed next day by another small party of 32. So the battalion assembled.

Auckland, Whangarei, Hamilton and Paeroa all farewelled advance party and main body in style, with bands and civic functions. Then they went back to their everyday life, while the battalion settled down to work at Hopuhopu in the rain.

The first commander was Lieutenant-Colonel Gray,

Brig J. R. Gray, ED, m.i.d.; born Wellington, 7 Aug 1900; barrister and solicitor; CO 18 Bn Sep 1939-Nov 1941, Mar-Jun 1942; comd 4 Bde 29 Jun-5 Jul 1942; killed in action 5 Jul 1942.

an officer with many years of Territorial experience, young, keen and vigorous, who set high standards and worked ruthlessly to realise them. As second-in-command he had Major Allen,

Lt-Col J. M. Allen, m.i.d.; born Cheadle, England, 3 Aug 1901; farmer; MP (Hauraki) 1938–41; CO 21 Bn May-Nov 1941; killed in action 28 Nov 1941.

Member of Parliament for Hauraki; the company commanders were Major Peart

Lt-Col J. N. Peart, DSO, m.i.d.; born Collingwood, 12 Feb 1900; schoolmaster; CO 18 Bn Nov 1941-Mar 1942; 26 Bn 1 May-20 Jun 1942, 29 Jun-4 Sep 1942; died of wounds 4 Sep 1942.

(HQ Company), Captain Fussell

Capt G. K. Fussell; born Auckland, 1 Jan 1909; accountant; killed in action 20 May 1941.

(A Company), Major Evans

Maj W. H. Evans, ED; born NZ 7 Mar 1899; schoolmaster; killed in action 24 May 1941.

(B Company), Major Petrie

Maj M. de R. Petrie; Wellington; born Christchurch, 9 Aug 1895; company secretary; 2 i/c 18 Bn 1940–41.

(C Company), and Captain Day

Maj L. I. Day, ED; Hamilton; born Wanganui, 29 Oct 1898; school-teacher.

(D Company). On these men fell the main responsibility for forging a team out of the collection of individuals that could, as yet, be called a battalion only by courtesy. How they succeeded will be seen as the battalion's story progresses.

The battalion did not yet have its full complement of junior officers. Down to the rank of captain, yes; but on 3 October it had only eleven subalterns. Six more, who entered camp as warrant officers, were commissioned a few days later. The rest were to come from the ranks.

The backbone of the battalion, the four rifle companies, were organised to keep together men from the same districts. A Company was drawn from Auckland city and its surroundings; B from Hauraki, the Bay of Plenty and the Rotorua area; C from North Auckland; D from the Waikato. Each company wore the badge of its home Territorial regiment in the meantime. Headquarters Company comprised the specialists— signallers, light anti-aircraft platoon, 3-inch mortar platoon, carrier and pioneer platoons, besides the huge ‘administrative’ platoon which includes cooks, drivers, and the various bits and pieces that make a battalion tick.

Unfortunately, the battalion's weapon strength in those early days lay more on paper than in reality; apart from its rifles and bayonets, there were only eighteen Lewis guns, which served as machine guns and light anti-aircraft guns. In its early manoeuvring round Hopuhopu, the battalion had to ‘play soldiers’ with crossed sticks to represent machine guns, anti-tank rifles and all the rest. Such things as 2-inch mortars still lay in the dim future. The signallers had a few field telephones, signal flags and lamps, but no wireless sets.

The transport establishment was also largely imaginary. In theory each rifle company had five motor-cycles, HQ Company fourteen of them and ten push-bikes. Actually there were altogether half a dozen old civilian and Railways lorries—enough to be tantalising, but not enough to do anything much with. The Bren carriers were non-existent. There was a carrier platoon, but its members were ordinary footsloggers in the meantime.

On the second day in camp army clothing was issued, and everyone got a ‘reconditioned Territorial uniform’, or in the vernacular, ‘giggle suit’. Stove-pipe trousers; tunic with lots of brass buttons to be cleaned, and cut to fit where it touched; antique greatcoat. And, of course, the felt hat that marked the New Zealand soldier wherever he went. Collarless grey shirts and heavy woollen underclothes. Web equipment dating back to the Great War, a mass of brass knobs and buckles. The best thing about the whole outfit was the boots. There were no spare uniforms, which was unfortunate considering the weather. It was not until early November that denim working suits were issued. However, in view of the shortage of army gear in New Zealand, the equipping of the battalion with even one suit on the second day was a good effort.

Thinking back, those who were at Hopuhopu in those early days find that the most lasting impression on their minds is one of wetness. Rain that turned the camp roads into morasses, that penetrated the tents both upwards and downwards, that soaked gear and clothes so that at times men had to go round with only greatcoats preserving their modesty while trousers dried in the boiler room—and the greatcoats were saturated, too. No wonder there were a lot of colds and influenza. There was a real epidemic at the end of October, and patients were sent to Hamilton Hospital when the camp's facilities became overtaxed. The epidemic lingered on long after the battalion had left the damp of Hopuhopu behind, and was not really mastered until late November.

But the rain did not damp Lieutenant-Colonel Gray's keenness. His battalion was going to be a good one if he had anything to do with it. And his officers and NCOs were ‘raring to go’. So the training began. At Hopuhopu this was mainly elementary foot and arms drill, beginning with the painful ‘turn to the right by numbers’, ‘salute to the front by numbers’, ‘slope arms by numbers’. But this stage passed. From week to week it was noticeable how the men became steadier, how the battalion began to gain cohesion and to learn the use of its tools of trade. Potential leaders were sorted out and marked down for promotion. In mid-October a party of twenty-one left for Trentham to be trained as officers, and eight of these came back to the battalion as second-lieutenants at the end of November.

Physically, too, the battalion got harder, helped by physical training and weekly sports. The men's bearing improved steadily. Route marches (including night marches) got longer, sore feet fewer. This process was aided by the regular hours which are one of the best, but least appreciated, aspects of camp life. Good food and plenty of it was wanted.

This was not always available, however. The inconvenience of the Hopuhopu cookhouses has already been remarked on. Some of the cooks were cooks only in name. The quality of the food, the men said, was all right, but the cooks did some fearful things to it. Worst of all was the washing up—come out of the mess marquees and fight for room to dunk your tin plates in a bucket of greasy, lukewarm soup masquerading as washing water. There were a lot of complaints, some justified and some exaggerated, all quieted by the promise of something better when the battalion moved to the palatial new camp at Papakura.

The five weeks at Hopuhopu were weeks of hard work. Fatigues, that curse of camp life, were few, so the training was not seriously interrupted. There wasn't much chance of recreation in the evenings apart from an occasional film or concert in the YMCA marquee—you could go there and write, read or have a cup of tea, but it was always overcrowded, and the only alternative was to make the most of a book or a game of cards in your leaky tent by candlelight. The weekends, except for Saturday mornings and Sunday church parade, were free, and there was generous weekend leave. Hamilton was not far away, and special weekend trains ran to Auckland.

But weeks, even weeks of hard work and discomfort, always come to an end. October went, November came, and with it the promise of a shift very soon to the Eldorado of Papakura.

In the meantime the battalion had been renamed. The original names, ‘Special Force’, ‘1 NZ Rifle Battalion’, and so on, had been stopgaps, created for temporary convenience. Now, late in October, the important question of permanent names was settled. The Special Force was to be the nucleus of a New Zealand Division. Battalions were to be numbered from north to south, carrying on from the 17th (Waikato) Regiment of the Territorial Army. So to 1 Rifle Battalion fell the honour of heading the list. With its death 18 Battalion was born. Along with 19 and 20 Battalions from farther south, it made up 4 Brigade, the infantry of the First Echelon.

On 7 November 18 Battalion, with very few regrets, packed its gear at Hopuhopu for the last time. A special train took it north to Tironui railway siding, and from there the men marched into Papakura Camp, realising for the first time how much army gear weighs when it all has to be carried at once. The battalion's heavy stores went to Papakura by truck at the same time.

Two months earlier Papakura Camp had been bare pasture land.Then the Public Works had moved in, and ever since had been working flat out to make what was to be the best training camp in New Zealand, with new standards of comfort. Its battalion ‘blocks’ with their rows of 40-man wooden huts, slat beds, cubicles for officers and NCOs, messrooms connected to the kitchens by servery hatches, hot showers and closed ablution sheds, later to become the normal thing in New Zealand camps, were novelties in 1939. Papakura's accommodation was ‘considered to surpass average housing conditions’, and, though this statement is open to doubt, it was certainly a great advance on Hopuhopu. Instead of a candle stuck into an old bayonet, there was electric light. Instead of mud there was asphalt, and hot water to shave with instead of cold. There was a reasonable amount of room for gear, and room to move round in the huts. You could hang your greatcoat up instead of trampling it underfoot. True, you still had to lay your kit out in inspection order every day, but you weren't working under the same disadvantages. There were better facilities for drying clothes too.

The improvement most appreciated was in the food. With up-to-date cookhouses the cooks could at last turn out something edible. It was served direct from the cookhouses without having to be carried out into the open, which meant that the hot meals really were hot. Complaints didn't die out—it wouldn't have been the Army if they had—but they simmered down to normal.

Only a short hop from the camp was Papakura township, which offered the attractions of a pub and a change of diet in the local restaurants. And Auckland was within easy hitchhiking distance. Weekend leave was still generous, and there was now evening leave as well.

The camp wasn't complete when 18 Battalion moved in. Canteen, recreation huts and other facilities were still under construction or not even begun, but there was enough to carry on with, and more were opened as they were finished. Notably the wet canteen. After a lot of controversy the Government finally decided on 15 November to establish wet canteens in New Zealand camps, and the following Monday (the 20th) the first beer flowed at Papakura. For once nobody grumbled at having to queue up.

Papakura, being the Army's show place, attracted plenty of visitors, both high and humble. Every Sunday it was thronged with the men's relations and friends, along with hundreds of others out from Auckland just to see the camp. Before 18 Battalion had been there a month it had been inspected by Major-General J. E. Duigan

Maj-Gen Sir John Duigan, KBE, CB, DSO, m.i.d.; born NZ 30 Mar 1882; served South Africa, 1900–1; 1 NZEF 1915–18; Chief of General Staff, NZ Military Forces, 1937–41; died 9 Jan 1950.

(Chief of the General Staff), by the Minister of Defence and by the Governor-General— probably a record number of important visitors in such a short time.

Three days after moving to Papakura 18 Battalion got its first reinforcement draft of ninety men, replacing those who had gone to train as officers, or had been found unfit, or had fallen by the wayside. Some of the newcomers had been in the Papakura camp guard before 18 Battalion arrived. They made a brand-new company, 1 Reinforcement Company, under Captain Lyon

Capt W. J. Lyon; born London, 15 Feb 1898; MP (Waitemata) 1935–41; served in 1914–18 war; killed in action 26 May 1941.

(Member of Parliament for Waitemata). From then on most new arrivals went to this company, which (as its name implies) was drawn on when necessary to keep the other companies up to strength.

The battalion now resumed its training where it had left off, and that training was solid. It had to be, if the battalion was to be knit together into an efficient fighting unit in another two months. There was still a lot of parade-ground work, but this was varied with section, platoon and company exercises, and more route marches, including a couple of night compass marches over the countryside. There were extra night classes for the NCOs, most of whom were only one jump ahead of the privates in their military knowledge. At Penrose the men had their first rifle-range practice, and at Duder's Beach (14 miles from Papakura on the coast of the Hauraki Gulf) they fired rifles and Lewis guns on the range.

The march to Duder's Beach was made partly on foot, partly in the battalion's own transport. The battalion had progressed since Hopuhopu days, and now had more than twenty trucks, Fords and Bedfords, enough to carry a third of the men. For moves such as that to Duder's Beach these trucks ran a shuttle service to a complicated timetable, worked out so that everyone marched and rode approximately the same distance, and so that the whole battalion arrived at its destination together. The organisation of such a timetable was the kind of thing in which Colonel Gray took particular delight.

The progress made was remarkable. The men, as befitted volunteers, were keen, and their keenness was increased by the knowledge that they would not be going home when their three months were over. Of course few, if any, had ever believed they would be. Almost as soon as they had set foot in camp, Rumour had them halfway across the globe and in the most unlikely spots. Any lingering fears were killed for good on 24 November, when the Prime Minister announced that the Special Force would go overseas after its training was satisfactorily completed, as ships and escorts became available. This was definite enough. Rumour still had the question, ‘Where are we going?’ to play with—but it was quite certain now that they were going.

However, a lot of things have to be done to soldiers before they go off to war. Both at Hopuhopu and Papakura the 18 Battalion men lined up for blood tests, typhoid and tetanus inoculations, dental inspections. The first typhoid ‘jab’ was a major disaster, putting scores of men out of action, some for several days. Many more men found, to their surprise, that they had to spend uncomfortable hours in the dentist's chair.

Episodes there were in plenty. Who among the 18 Battalion originals will forget the First Conscript, an unwilling white goat smuggled into camp and tethered outside the battalion orderly room, and later exercised on the parade ground at 3 a.m. by a subaltern caught introducing it into the officers' quarters? Or the martyr put ‘on the mat’ by the RQMS after an argument over the breakfast sausages? Or Captain Day cancelling his company's weekend leave because some unknown person had misused one of its more delicate domestic facilities? You will always have these incidents, dozens of them, in the Army.

On 14 December the battalion went ‘on active service’. The same day it went on leave.

This leave was a solemn rather than a joyous one. Its official name was ‘Christmas leave’, not ‘final leave’; yet it was final leave, everybody knew that. The exodus from Papakura took all morning, beginning when the first trainload (the North Auckland men) crawled out of their blankets at 4 a.m. At eleven o'clock the last train left, and Papakura lay desolate, while for a swift fortnight the men banished reveille and parades from their minds.

Then the first wartime Christmas was over, it was 28 December, and back streamed the men. But not for long. Departure was in the air, and everyone was keyed up to it. The battalion might not be trained to the last click of the heels, but it was well on the way to fighting trim—a very different body of men from the one which had straggled into Hopuhopu three months before. Now the men had almost forgotten what civvy clothes felt like, they walked with a new swing, their speech was sprinkled with curious jargon and complicated oaths. Some had for the first time learnt the art of living among men. The first matter-of-fact approach to the Army had changed, too, replaced by a unit pride, though the men would have been embarrassed to hear it put that way. There was a notably good spirit in the battalion, that comradeship which can never be fully grasped by those who have not experienced it. The closer the prospect of adventure and danger, the better the spirit. With departure imminent even officers and sergeants could be tolerated. Significant of this change was the most effective threat to wrong-doers in those days—unless they mended their ways, they wouldn't be allowed to go overseas!

On New Year's Day 18 Battalion entered a rifle team of four to compete at Penrose against all comers, including rifle clubs. The team nearly brought home the bacon, being beaten by only one point; but individual members collected five trophies among them, a good performance in competition with Auckland's best.

One ceremony yet remained. Auckland, though it had showered hospitality on the troops, had not seen them en masse, and it was to get the chance on 3 January, when the men from Papakura and Hopuhopu would parade at the Domain and then march through the city. So after its return from leave the battalion went back to the parade ground to smarten up and rehearse its part. The parade ground is normally a most unpopular place, but this time everyone entered into it with zest— there were going to be thousands of eyes on them on 3 January, and the show had to be good.

The day before the parade the battalion had a visit from the commander of the Expeditionary Force, Major-General B. C. Freyberg,

Lt-Gen Lord Freyberg, VC, GCMG, KCB, KBE, DSO and 3 bars, m.i.d., Order of Valour and MC (Gk); born Richmond, Surrey, 21 Mar 1889; CO Hood Bn 1914–16; comd 173 Bde, 58 Div, and 88 Bde, 29 Div, 1917–18; GOC 2 NZEF Nov 1939-Nov 1945; twice wounded; Governor-General of New Zealand Jun 1946-Aug 1952.

just arrived from England to take over his command. ‘Tiny’ was to become a familiar figure to the men of his division in all sorts of places and situations, but now he was meeting them for the first time. It was a brief glimpse, but the General was pleased with the look of his troops. And vice versa. A ‘man's man’ was the popular verdict.

If the General was pleased, so was Auckland next day; and its way of saying it was much less restrained. From quite early that day there was a current of excitement running through the city, and all roads led to the Domain, for this was its first mass parade since the war had begun. They had a brilliantly fine day for it—in fact, the men in their heavy serge found it too hot until midday, when a merciful breeze sprang up to take the edge off the heat.

The battalion made an early start that day. Brass was polished as never before. The troops left Papakura on a special train at 9.30 a.m., and at Auckland station formed up with the rest of the parade, which marched with three bands to the Domain and took up mass formation before a crowd of at least 15,000. There were over 2500 men on parade; of these 18 Battalion, by far the largest unit, formed a third.

After marching on, the parade gave a general salute, and was then addressed by the commander of the Northern Military District (Colonel N. W. McD. Weir

Maj-Gen Sir Norman Weir, KBE, CB, m.i.d., Legion of Merit (US); born Christchurch, 6 Jul 1893; Regular soldier; Auck Regt (Lt) 1914–17; GOC 4 NZ Div, 1942; OC NZ Tps in Egypt, 1943–44; QMG, Army HQ, 1945; CGS 1946–1949; died Hamilton, 11 Jul 1961.

), the Mayor of Auckland, and the Hon. Walter Nash. Colonel Weir's popularity took a leap that morning when he ordered the parade to sit down before he began to speak. An officer who shows this consideration is always regarded with favour, and you feel more like listening to him, too. Not that any of the speakers said anything out of the ordinary. They gave you a pat on the back, and you stirred restlessly and muttered to your neighbour, ‘Why can't the old … dry up?’, even though deep inside you felt quite pleased.

This part of the proceedings didn't last very long. The parade marched off to the outer Domain, had lunch, and at midday set off again on its farewell march, past the Hospital and through the city by the main streets.

Then it was that heads really went up, shoulders straightened that extra fraction of an inch, marching took on an added swing, all quite involuntarily. The route was thronged. Auckland's everyday business affairs came to a standstill, shops and offices were emptied, every roof, window and verandah top was full of spectators. And they cheered, and they cheered, and they cheered. Probably not one of those 2500 men had ever been the object of such cheering before, nor would be again. Excited people ran alongside the parade—Great War veterans, wearing their medals, joined in the march. Some men had gifts thrust into their hands, others had their rifles carried for them by admiring girls. At the Town Hall Colonel Weir and the Mayor took the salute, and on went the parade in its triumphal progress down Queen Street, along Customs Street and Beach Road, before disappearing into the railway station, where the crowd could not follow. At 1.30 p.m. the trains began to pull out for Papakura. The public followed at leisure, and at 3 p.m., when the camp was opened to them, in they swarmed in thousands. There had never been so many visitors there before, and a sort of hysteria was in the air. Even after the visitors had gone the camp's atmosphere was tense.

A soldier is a matter-of-fact animal—once a thing is finished, his normal attitude is, ‘Well, that's that. What happens now?’ But this time it wasn't like that. This was an occasion that happens once in a lifetime, and you couldn't help being affected by it, although you might sneer at yourself for getting sentimental. The anticipation of adventure ahead was tinged with an almost furtive regret for what was to be left behind.

The tension was still there next morning, but toned down by the bustle of departure. There was a general tidying up, final equipment issues were made, kitbags packed and stacked for loading. All equipment was handed in, except rifles and personal gear. After lunch, though relatives and friends were not allowed into the camp, there were many of them just outside the gates or at the boundary fences, and for two more precious hours discipline relaxed. All too soon the time was over, the last goodbyes said, the parades called, and at 4 p.m. 18 Battalion marched off to Papakura station.

The blanket of security silence officially fell on the battalion when it left Papakura. For weeks everyone had been lectured on the necessity for henceforth keeping a tightly closed mouth. Anyone letting out the strictly guarded secret of departure would be severely dealt with. The newspapers, which had been chronicling the doings of the First Echelon since October, described the Auckland parade with enthusiasm, then fell suddenly silent.

But these security measures didn't baffle the people of the North Island. Everyone knew that the men were headed for Wellington to embark on the liners that (said the grapevine) had arrived there. The ships certainly weren't there just on a pleasure cruise, and neither was the battleship Ramillies, whose bearded sailors had been the admiration of Wellington for the past three days. So the journey south became a triumphal procession nearly comparable with the one in Auckland. Station platforms were packed with people eager to bid the troops farewell, and to speed them with food parcels and drinks. Bands turned out, songs were sung. It was late that night before the men settled down to sleep in their cramped carriages.

The ‘security’ at Wellington took a rather ridiculous turn. On leaving the station for the wharf all the carriage blinds were pulled down and the men ordered to stay inside and keep quiet. For those last few hundred yards on New Zealand soil they travelled blind, something like men going to execution.

At ten o'clock on the morning of 5 January 18 Battalion carted its gear, seakits, packs, rifles and all, on to HMNZT Z4 (in normal times the Orient liner Orion). The men's big kitbags, which had come down from Papakura in bulk in the care of a baggage party, disappeared into the holds.

The Orion left the wharf at 2 p.m. that day and anchored in Port Nicholson with the rest of its convoy, containing the North Island part of the First Echelon; for the rest of the afternoon the men hung over the rails and gazed down on the sightseers of Wellington, who flitted round from ship to ship in small boats of every description.

At six o'clock next morning the ships—four big liners, with HMS Ramillies and HMAS Canberra—moved off down the harbour. Even at that hour the waterfront road was lined with hundreds of cars, and hundreds of horns tooted farewell. Through the Heads went the line of ships, and out into Cook Strait, where they were joined by two more liners bearing the South Island contingent, along with HMNZS Leander. At last, though there wasn't any opportunity yet to get to know each other, the entire First Echelon was together, and it was off to the war.

All that day the convoy steamed in bright sunshine up the west coast of the North Island. Apart from getting organised into boat stations and running through the emergency drill procedure, there wasn't much to do except lean over the rail and watch the coast slip by. In the evening the peak of Egmont was still visible above the mist on the horizon. Then darkness fell, and the last glimpse of New Zealand was lost.

CHAPTER 2 The Orion

There are well-defined differences of opinion about troopships. Some men can get a kick out of them, some can't. To the former, troopship life abounds in interest; to the latter it is deadly dull. Some can stand happily for hours gazing over tMhe rails into the swirling water; others think every moment wasted that keeps them away from their cards or crown-and-anchor. Eighteenth Battalion had its quota of both types, so it would be idle to try to prove that the voyage was interesting and enjoyable, or dull and monotonous. It was as each man found it.

There could be no doubt, however, that the accommodation was good. The Orion, fitted up to carry 1140 civilian passengers, had 1500 troops on board, mostly 18 Battalion and the ASC. She was not overcrowded. An old soldier of 1914 who had spent six weeks in the packed, airless hold of a rolling cargo tramp might be excused for reflecting on the degeneracy of the next age when he saw the Orion's cabins, most of them unchanged from peacetime. And if the men in the ‘tourist’ class cabins had little to complain of, what about the officers and sergeants in the luxury of the first class? They had every right to think that this war wasn't a bad sort of racket.

Messing accommodation was also palatial by any troopship standards, though meals had to be served in several sittings. The dining saloons were unaltered. The ship's stewards were there to supervise the waiting, which in the men's mess was done by fatigue parties. The food was good, and there was plenty of it, including supper of cocoa and ship's biscuits. It became somewhat lacking in variety after a while, but that is inevitable on a troopship, especially for men used to fresh New Zealand food.

The wet canteen was a very fine institution, with one snag— you had to wait in long queues for your beer. It was open twice a day and in the evening, and the official ration was two pints a day, though you could always get more, as there were a lot of men who didn't bother because of the queues. Prices were low— New Zealand beer at tenpence a quart bottle, Danish lager at eightpence a pint. For the officers and sergeants there were spirits at comparable prices. There was a dry canteen, too, where you could buy plenty of cigarettes at 15. 8d. for fifty.

On the first day out from Wellington there were naturally some who didn't take kindly to the unaccustomed motion, but thanks to the fine weather, they were not many. Vaccination, carried out on the second day, prostrated many more towards the end of the first week, but only for a day or two. On the whole, health was good throughout the trip.

On that first day out, 6 January, 18 Battalion's Routine Order No. 64 was issued.

Routine orders are one of the Army's standing jokes. As a rule they are most uninspiring documents. But this one, Routine Order No. 64, deserves to be quoted almost in full, as it covers much of the shipboard routine followed by the battalion on the Orion. Here are its items:

Unit For Duty. This Unit is alternating weekly periods as duty with the A.S.C., and will be Unit for duty until Reveille, 12.1.40. When we are Unit for duty, the Duty Coy. will supply the following details daily:—

Guard. 2 Officers, 1 W.O., 2 Sjts, 4 Cpls, 54 O.R.'s Mess Room. A fatigue of an N.C.O. and 6 men…. Washing Up. A fatigue of an N.C.O. and 10 men….

Guards. Guards will wear lifebelts during guard mounting. They will be carried to their posts and left in a handy position. In case of emergency they will don the lifebelt before taking the necessary action.

The guard kept fire and blackout watch from posts scattered all over the ship, and provided submarine lookouts and anti-aircraft posts, the latter armed with Lewis guns. A Lewis-gun post on the forward well-deck provided a purple patch one day, when an 18 Battalion crew, in stripping the gun for cleaning, inadvertently let a burst go in the general direction of the lookout in the crow's nest. Even 18 Battalion stood lost in admiration at the command of English employed by the lookout when he came down.

Daily Routine. Until further notice the routine for this will be as follows:—

0900 hours Coy. parades. 1030 hours Dismiss and proceed to cabins for ship's inspection. 1100 hours Parade with pannikins for wet canteen. Afternoon free for sports and games.

From the third day out, the working hours were mainly taken up with lectures in such things as signals, tactics, map-reading, first aid, and so on, to which nobody paid very serious attention. For variety there were physical jerks and short ‘route’ marches round the decks daily. Sunday church parades, of course. Nothing very strenuous. There is never room for that on a troopship, and even the work has a sort of holiday atmosphere about it. The most earnest business of life took place in the evenings, when the crown-and-anchor kings braved the threat of dire punishment to set up shop in the cabins, and the pontoon and poker schools flourished in the troops' lounge, vanishing miraculously when the duty officer hove in sight on his rounds. Whenever he entered the lounge only the legal ‘housie’ remained. Whether he was taken in by the law-abiding demeanour of the men nobody can be sure, but even duty officers are human.

Swimming Bath. The aft bath is available for swimming at all times. Costumes must not be worn in this bath.

The forward bath is reserved for officers in the morning until 0900 hours; it is then available to all. Costumes Must be worn in this bath.

These baths were a main centre of attraction. There was a continuous jam of troops in and round them; usually it was open slather, all in and no holds barred, but occasionally the exhilarating pastime of boom fighting was organised. The baths, unfortunately, were too small for serious swimming, but the battalion ran a ‘learn to swim’ campaign, and by the end of the voyage nearly all its members could at least keep themselves afloat. With the extra advantage of complete nudity, the aft bath was a rowdy, uninhibited place, more popular than the more sedate forward bath, which could be seen from the deck allotted to the officers and nursing sisters.

Mail. All outgoing mail will be censored from now on. This will be done under Coy. arrangements….

There are two points of view about censorship of mail—that of the men, who imagine the officers rubbing their hands and gloating over every spelling mistake and every touch of sentiment, and that of the officers, who one and all consider it a most distasteful chore. To both officers and men, however, it served to emphasise the thought, ‘We're on active service now, all right.’

Alarms And Stations…. On the sounding of ‘fire’ or ‘Emergency Stations’, men will immediately don life belts and proceed to the muster stations. On ‘Man Overboard’ sounding, all personnel will remain quiet, those below decks remaining there.

Drop what you are doing, drag on your life jackets, climb up to your boat stations, and hang round there like a lot of dummies until you are released—that is boat drill. It is a drudgery common to all troopships, and everybody despises it until the day when it has to be carried out in grim earnest. For 18 Battalion, fortunately, that day never came. However, they practised it day and night. Lifeboat guards were detailed to attend the drills in full web equipment, with rifles and live ammunition.

Sunset. At sunset one ‘G’ will be sounded round the ship by bugles. Rubbish will then be dumped overboard. All scuttles and ports closed. Entrance doors from decks to accommodation rooms and passages closed. No lights to be shown at all. No matches struck on the deck. Use of torches is prohibited on decks. These orders remain in force until one hour after sunrise.

The safety of the vessel depends on darkness, and the severest disciplinary action will be taken against offenders….

The blackout was good, and was strictly enforced. Later in the voyage this made some cabins almost unbearably stuffy, but was overcome by ingenious souls who, before retiring, took the bulbs out of the lights and opened the portholes.

It was also forbidden to dump rubbish overboard during the day. At times, however, a prowling raider might have guessed at the identity of the troops in the convoy from the odd empty New Zealand beer bottle, or New Zealand felt hat, left irretrievably behind as the Orion ploughed on.

Footware [sic]. Canvas shoes will be worn throughout the voyage.

Army boots are dangerous on the steep, slippery companion ladders of a ship. In this connection, dress for the whole trip was ‘easy’. Jerseys and denim slacks or shorts were the usual wear, and later on this was reduced in most cases to shorts or bathing trunks only, except at parade times.

Use Of Fresh Water. Great care must be taken to avoid waste of fresh water.

The need for going slow on the fresh water was a bit unpopular, but that is just another of the things that must be done on a troopship.

Rifles. All rifles will be kept in wardrobes in cabins.

You lugged your rifle up the gangway at Wellington with the rest of your gear, and down the gangway on arrival in Egypt; but in between it didn't see the light of day except for an occasional cleaning.

Discipline. Climbing into rigging, or boats, or sitting on the rails will be treated as a serious offence.

This order was relaxed as the convoy left Wellington, but at sea it was insisted on. It was a sensible precaution. A convoy can't stop, as a rule, to pick up a man who falls overboard.

Care Of The Ship. All ranks must exercise the greatest care to avoid damaging the ship in any way….

So they did, in most matters. But this rule did not prevent a certain number of men from carving their names on the ship's rails, just as happened on all troopships that carried New Zealanders.

And there, in brief, you have the everyday life of 18 Battalion on board the Orion.

The first day on board saw the birth of the 18 Battalion band, formed from scratch by Lance-Corporal Fred Bowes

Capt F. Bowes, BEM; Auckland; born England, 5 Oct 1907; truck driver; wounded 18 Nov 1940.

under Lieutenant-Colonel Gray's orders. Nobody could pretend that it was a first-class band, but it gave an extra fillip to the church parades and helped the battalion on its daily tramp round and round the decks. Its masterpiece was ‘Sussex by the Sea’; to this day many an 18 Battalion original cannot hear the tune without once more smelling the shipboard smells and feeling the deck under his feet again as he sets out on another lap. ‘Sussex’ for the time became the battalion's own personal property.

Some small but important items of equipment were issued to the troops during the first few days on board. Identity discs (or ‘meat tickets’), henceforward to be worn round the neck at all times. Field dressings, an omen of things to come. Lastly, the new, specially designed NZEF hat and collar badges, and distinguishing patches to be sewn on the shoulders of the serge jackets.

On 10 January the convoy was almost doubled in size by the appearance from the north of four liners full of Australian troops, escorted by HMAS Australia and HMAS Sydney. Yet another liner joined on the 12th, and the convoy that passed through Bass Strait into the Australian Bight had now grown to impressive size. The Bight didn't behave too well—the ships ran into cold winds and the heaviest seas yet, and some men who had prided themselves on lasting the distance found that they had boasted too soon.

During the night of 17 January the convoy rounded Cape Leeuwin and swung north up the coast of Western Australia towards Fremantle, which came in sight about 3 p.m. on the 18th. The men of 18 Battalion who lined the Orion's rail for the first glimpse of an overseas port saw nothing to be excited about—a low, dry-looking shore line, a few factory chimneys, a gasometer—but that was from a distance. On closer examination Fremantle turned out quite different.

After dinner that evening the first of many tidal waves of New Zealand troops hit Fremantle, swept through the town, carried on up the Swan river with slightly diminished vigour, and gatecrashed the defences of Perth.

The atmosphere in both towns that night was later described by the First Echelon's commander as one of almost hysterical goodwill and comradeship. There was general leave until midnight. Hotels were open, and though the New Zealanders found difficulty at first in changing their money, this eased up as the evening wore on and the bonds of international friendship were woven more tightly. The New Zealanders' behaviour could not be classed as excellent, but considering that the whole First Echelon was getting together for the first time, along with the Aussies into the bargain, it wasn't too bad.

Next day (19 January) will live for ever in the minds of those who were there as the day of the Great Trek. The troops from the Orion had to turn to that morning, rip their nice new shoulder patches off their ‘giggle suits’ and sew them on the lighter drill tunics. Then at 10 a.m. they paraded and set out for Perth, 12 miles away. They marched in boots for the first time since leaving Wellington. Some of them were suffering from a re-vaccination, and many more from the effects of the previous night. The sun was blazing, the temperature nearly 100 in the shade; though there wasn't any shade to speak of.

Nearly four hours later a weary body of men came to a ragged halt outside the Anzac Club in Perth, and was dismissed with leave until midnight. Weary, but almost intact— wonderful to relate, out of more than 1400 men only eight had fallen out! The battalion band had given them an occasional boost along, and gifts of fruit and beer had been pressed on them by the people living along the route; but they were fit.

They had also made history, though they didn't realise it until later. Long after the sweat and discomfort of the march were forgotten, its honour remained, boasted of wherever 18 Battalion went, and recounted with more and more fearsome exaggeration as the years went on. It was an exclusive affair, too, entitling its participants to a certain deference from all other New Zealanders. Campaigns were danger and hardship shared by all; but the march to Perth was the monopoly of 18 Battalion and the ASC, and jealously they guarded its memory.

Controversy followed the march. The ineffable Smith's Weekly commented on it as follows:

March by the New Zealanders from Fremantle to Perth— 12½ miles—will never be forgotten, not only by the unfortunates who took part, but by the silent sympathetic crowd which lined Perth's streets watching the troops pass through the city. One hundred degrees in the shade it was that day, and the troops arrived in Perth at the peak of the heat—after 1 p.m. Some of them were reeling, and doggedly persisted, only to collapse in the main streets. These men had not had boots on for a fortnight, and then to trudge 12½ miles in the heavy unyielding military issue was asking too much of them. When the Enzeds had gone through the city and were allowed to dismiss, most of them did not worry about food. They were too eager to get to the nearest water-tap to cool their feet, on which blisters, the size of an egg in some cases, had formed. It was rumoured that the march had been a disciplinary one. If so, the troops paid not only by the sweat of their brows, but in weariness, exhaustion and blistered feet.

Not only the allegation of ill-treatment, but even more the suggestion that the New Zealanders' conduct might have been anything but exemplary, raised quite a storm in New Zealand. Parents deluged the Government with inquiries and requests to investigate, and the Government, concerned at this ‘undesirable publicity’, asked Australia for the facts behind the article, adding, ‘Our newspapers have not been allowed to mention the departure of the First Echelon—what is the idea letting Smith's Weekly do it?’

The soft answer came back. The editor of Smith's Weekly had been rapped over the knuckles for his indiscretion. As for the New Zealand soldiers—well, boys will be boys! ‘The only complaints made,’said the Australian Government, ‘emanated from temperance organisations and the Railway Department….At no time did the behaviour of the troops become vicious….No exception seems to have been taken by the general public to the conduct of the troops.’

Major-General Freyberg also said that the allegations of uncouth conduct were uncalled for, and that the march had not been disciplinary, but had been made to keep the men's feet in condition. This last statement would have been greeted with raised eyebrows by those with raw feet to show for it, but it was official exoneration for misdeeds committed in Perth and Fremantle.

To penetrate behind the scenes briefly, the march had been thought up by Lieutenant-Colonel Gray and Lieutenant-Colonel Crump

Brig S. H. Crump, CBE, DSO, m.i.d., Bronze Star (US); Lower Hutt; born Wellington, 25 Jan 1889; Regular soldier; NZASC 1915–19; Commander NZASC 2 NZ Div, 1940–45; comd 2 NZEF, Japan, Jun-Sep 1947; on staff HQ BCOF and NZ representative on Disposals Board in Japan, 1948–49.

of the ASC (commander of the troops on the Orion), officially as a training march, but also as a means of getting the men another day's leave ashore. Without it they would have had to spend the day aboard the Orion, on orders from the convoy commander, while the men from other ships had leave. As it was, nearly every New Zealander from every ship was in Perth that day.

We left 18 Battalion, tired and soaked with sweat, let loose in Perth until midnight. Tired, yes, but not too tired to let itself go. Like the rest of the New Zealanders, it was out to enjoy itself, and enjoy itself it did. The Australian soldiers in town joined whole-heartedly in the fun, and Kiwis and Aussies together proceeded to take Perth over, to ‘control’ its traffic, to commit mild mayhem on its movable objects, to souvenir advertising posters, and generally to fraternise with each other and with the citizens in the streets and hotels. Pot plants and furniture from the Wentworth Hotel were taken out and put up gaily for auction in the street. Some incidents, such as the carrying of a baby Austin car bodily up the steps of the General Post Office, undoubtedly caused some inconvenience, but even this sort of escapade was tolerated by Perth, which accepted the foreign invasion with the utmost good humour and hospitality. Some New Zealanders, looking back from the viewpoint of the next morning's head, may have considered the hospitality overdone; but it established Perth in the good opinion of the New Zealand soldier, an opinion that the experience of later contingents was to confirm and heighten.

Trains and buses took the men back to Fremantle that night, but there were many whose sudden affection for Perth made it necessary to drag them away. A picket went the rounds and removed the stragglers, and the last to be rounded up rejoined the convoy in the stream off Fremantle next morning, though there was nobody from 18 Battalion in this select band. Every member of the battalion was safe home on the Orion when she left the port at 9 a.m. on 20 January. There were even some who had finished the evening flat broke, and had to tramp the whole way back to Fremantle; but they made it.

A check parade held on deck that morning revealed some quaint international variations of costume. Some men had merely swapped hats with the Aussies, some jackets as well, while some, obviously unwilling to spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar, had included trousers in the exchange. Many of the new badges issued only a day or two before had vanished, replaced by a bewildering assortment of Australian badges. Naval headgear, both British and French, dotted the parade. Official recognition of the exchanges was given in the battalion's next routine order, where appeared the names of 84 men—HQ Company headed the list with 23, A and C Companies shared the wooden spoon with four each. The fine was a flat rate of 7s. 6d. for each missing article.

On went the convoy, north-west this time, straight out into the Indian Ocean. The Australian escorts were replaced by HMS Kent and the French cruiser Suffren. The heat increased daily, and clothing became scantier in proportion. Some men forsook their cabins and spread blankets on deck at night. The wet canteen and the swimming pools became even more popular places.

Journalistic collaboration between 18 Battalion and the ASC bore fruit on 21 January with the publication of NZ Abroad, Vol. 1, No. 1. Its eight cyclostyled pages embodied the usual ingredients of a troopship magazine—verse, serious and not so serious, sketches, topical allusions to events and personalities, mild pornography—nothing to distinguish it from scores of others. But it was a pioneering venture. The editors expressed their intention of publishing NZ Abroad twice a week while the voyage lasted, but this was optimistic, as it ran to only three numbers, the third on a grander scale printed in Cairo shortly after the First Echelon's arrival.

Highlights were few during the voyage across the Indian Ocean. The first flying fish caused a buzz of excitement as they leaped away from the Orion's forefoot. On 23 January the men were officially told (though it was already pretty widely known or guessed) that they were bound for Egypt. On the 25th Cocos Island was sighted on the horizon, and on the 28th, with none of the traditional ceremonies, the convoy crossed the Equator.

On board the Orion the troops celebrated their last afternoon in the Southern Hemisphere with a grand race meeting. The ‘nags’ were ingenious devices on the end of strings, wound in by the jockeys from start line to finishing post. Their pedigrees would hardly have been recognised in any stud book—Thirst (by Route March out of Fremantle), General Malaise (by Vaccination out of Emmo), Many Miles (by Cripes out of New Zealand), to quote a few of the brighter efforts. A sixpenny tote did brisk business. There were five races, after which the winners competed for the ‘Z4 Cup’—this trophy went to the ASC, but horses owned by 18 Battalion filled second and third places.

Shortly after 9 a.m. on 30 January the convoy filed in through the Colombo breakwater and anchored in the capacious harbour. Lighters were quickly at hand to take the men ashore. From the wharf 18 Battalion marched a mile and a half to Rifle Green, a small park in the middle of the town, where a hurried payout was made, each man getting 10.20 rupees, the equivalent of 16s.—they certainly were not to be allowed to squander their savings! Then they were turned loose with instructions to be back by 4.30 p.m.

The time was tantalisingly short for men having their first glimpse of the East, particularly such a colourful, cosmopolitan spot as Colombo. A look round the main part of the town, a little haggling for souvenirs in the native quarter, a rickshaw ride (nearly everybody had a rickshaw ride), and it was time to go back. A few roving spirits managed to get up into the interior of Ceylon, but most were content to stay in Colombo and see as much of the town as they could. Only three members of 18 Battalion missed the lighters back.

For the rest of the battalion's stay in port the main fun was provided by the bumboatmen, who swarmed round the Orion in their cockleshell craft, loaded down with fruit and curios. Trade and backchat were brisk. Both goods and money changed hands in baskets on the end of ropes, with invariable arguments as to which came first, the money or the goods. The New Zealanders, though new to the art of bargaining, were picking up its first principles well. Humour was maintained on both sides—the commercial ethics of the East were still a novelty, and the days were not yet when New Zealanders, soured by many bargaining defeats at the hands of ‘George Wog’, would lose their tempers and resort to boots instead of wits.

Shore leave on 31 January was limited to one man from each platoon, mainly those who had been on duty the day before. The officers and sergeants were taken over to pay a social call aboard the nearby HMS Sussex. They were shown over the ship, and stayed for dinner, but the visit was quieter than expected.

Incidentally, it was in connection with HMS Sussex that the 18 Battalion band had its brief hour of glory. No sooner had the Orion arrived at its anchorage astern of the cruiser than Lieutenant-Colonel Gray ordered the band forward smartly, to show the Navy what it could do. The same activity took place on the Sussex, and the two bands played alternately, the New Zealanders going through their full repertoire, beginning and ending with their own ‘Sussex by the Sea’. They had not long finished when a resplendent naval officer boarded the Orion, thanked the troops on behalf of HMS Sussex for the compliment paid the ship, but expressed his wonder how the New Zealanders had recognised her, as her name plate had been removed. He was not enlightened.

At 11.30 a.m. on 1 February the convoy left Colombo, cheered on by crowds of natives from the breakwater and the pilot station at the harbour entrance. The Ramillies was still in attendance, but the other escorts had again changed, and now included the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle. Due west sailed the convoy, towards the searing heat of Aden and the Red Sea.

The usual Sunday morning church parade on 4 February was violently interrupted when, not more than half a mile from the Orion, a plane from the Eagle crashed into the sea. Nearly everybody in 18 Battalion saw the crash, and the pilot's subsequent rescue by launch—for a time the church parade decidedly took a back seat.

Early on the morning of 8 February, off Aden, the convoy divided; most of the ships carried straight on into the Red Sea, while others, including the Orion, put into Aden to refuel. The stay was to be short, but not too short for a look round, so the troops were taken ashore by lighters just after midday and given leave until 4.30 p.m. They accepted the hospitality of the British garrison, heard all about the rain (the first for three years) that had fallen the day before, and took advantage of Aden's being a duty-free port to stock up with cigarettes and tobacco, although there was some difficulty in changing New Zealand money with the Jewish changers who abounded in the town. Apart from this there wasn't much to do but stroll around. By 5 p.m. they were back on board, and about breakfast time next morning away went the Orion on the last leg of the voyage. Through the Strait of Bab el Mandeb; up the Red Sea, with occasional glimpses of arid shores, Africa on the left and Asia on the right; then, on the night of 12 February, Tewfik, and gear packed for departure.

All that could be seen of Tewfik when the Orion first arrived was a line of twinkling lights low on the water. Next morning eager eyes looked on Egypt for the first time, and what did they see? A line of nondescript buildings and camouflaged oil tanks at the port, a few palm trees farther round to the left, a group of army tents; and between all these, and behind them, stretching away and away to the skyline—sand. Sand flat and shimmering, sand in long low ridges. That this sand was to play a dominating part in the whole existence of 18 Battalion for nearly four years was yet hidden in the future, but there it was, miles and miles of it, and more miles beyond the horizon. And near at hand, crowding round the Orion in their little boats, the Egyptians, shouting, spitting, filthy, holding up for sale oranges and cigarettes and wallets, brooches and bracelets. The troops, with lectures on the diseases and bad customs of Egypt fresh in their minds, mostly shied clear for the time being. It took some time to get used to the sight of George Wog in numbers, to his filth, his informal attire and wheedling ways.

Late that morning the battalion, for the third time in its life, piled into lighters and left the Orion. But this time the men weren't going off gaily for a few hours ashore and a return to their comfortable berths at night. This time they had all their worldly possessions on their shoulders; they were herded into rusty old lighters that had only too obviously been used for lime; they were deposited on the wharf, in this strange land, with even their immediate future a matter for conjecture. Another phase in the battalion's life was about to begin.

CHAPTER 3 Maadi Camp

Eighteenth Battalion had little time at Tewfik to stand and speculate. There was time to take in the hordes of loafers who swarmed round with demands for ‘baksheesh’ and fought over a coin or a cigarette thrown in their direction, and to shudder at the dirt and the sores which were evidently quite commonplace sights. Then on to the train and away, through the town and its palm trees, out into the desert.

The Egyptian State Railways’ third-class carriages are very far from models of comfort, with wooden seats set close together, and no conveniences at all. But the first of these can be got over by sitting on your pack, and as for the second, well, what are the open platforms at the end of the carriages for? Especially when travelling over an unpeopled waste, with nobody in sight.

The rail trip between Suez and Cairo is not attractive, but it is typical Egypt, ‘miles and miles of…all’, in military language. Every now and again there is a station, planted in mid-desert with no visible means of support, inhabited mainly by children in galabiehs or dirty British Army shirts, who flock round the trains with the inevitable cries for ‘baksheesh’. That is what the battalion saw during its first three hours in Egypt. Then signs of civilisation began, and suddenly the troops were in Cairo, among wealthy homes and well-kept gardens in violent contrast to the squalor elsewhere. Then past the enormous army depot at Abbassia; the Citadel looming up on the hill to the left; the eerie ‘Dead City’ with its jumble of roofless, decaying hovels; then the train stopped, and out piled the men.

The spot where I8 Battalion found itself was literally on the edge of the desert. On one side of the railway were trees, green and cool; on the other side was hard, glaring desert. Towards the desert the battalion now marched, led by the pipe band of the Highland Light Infantry. This band had been waiting for the battalion at the stopping place, and it came as a pleasant surprise to find it there, like meeting a friend in a strange land. The march to camp was almost exhilarating after the monotony of the train, even though the road was covered with coarse metal and the men were laden with all their gear. Up a gentle slope and out into the desert a couple of miles; then before them lay Maadi Camp, journey's end, and a reunion with the advance party.

This advance party of 110 New Zealanders, including two officers and six others from I8 Battalion, had left New Zealand at short notice on 11 December. Its destination had been a dark secret; the rest of the battalion knew it had gone, but only Rumour could say where. Anyway, here it was. It had arrived in Egypt, via Australia, on 8 January, and half its number had at once been sent off on courses of various kinds, while the rest had been taken to this desert waste outside Maadi and told to prepare a camp. Not on their own, of course. An Indian sapper unit helped to lay a water-pipe system to the camp site, and permanent orderly rooms, offices, cookhouses, shower rooms, wash benches and latrines were built by a horde of Egyptian labourers. A few days before the main body arrived, detachments from British regiments put up tents and mess marquees for them—for 18 Battalion the job was done by men from the Highland Light Infantry.

Later reinforcement drafts would have found it difficult to recognise the Maadi into which the battalion marched. The camp occupied only a corner of the huge area over which it later spread. The tents were in tight rows, neatly laid out, with the officers' lines at the end and company orderly rooms at the side. The water system didn't function for some days after the New Zealanders arrived—at first it had to be brought in water carts. Eighteenth Battalion had a half-finished NAAFI canteen which was completed about a fortnight later; it included a wet canteen. There was no lack of accommodation—six to a tent, which is quite comfortable. Low plank beds a few inches off the floor helped to keep the sand out of the blankets. There were kerosene lanterns in the tents.

The camp was situated on gently undulating sand slopes, with here and there a steep rocky outcrop. It wasn't very high up, but from it you could see a long way—to the east the desert stretching away for miles up Wadi Digla, with unlimited room for route marches and manoeuvres; to the north the long ridge of the Mokattam Hills, with the Cairo citadel visible at the left-hand end, and below it, unseen, the teeming streets of Cairo; to the west the trees of Maadi village sloping down to the Nile, and beyond it more sand, with the Pyramids of Gizeh dim on the skyline. For over six months, and again for long periods later, this was to be 18 Battalion's home.

It was lucky that the battalion arrived in Egypt in February, not July or August. The winter days were warm, nearly as warm as an Auckland summer, but it was not an enervating heat. Early morning and evening were delightfully cool, and the nights unexpectedly cold, so that you were glad to pile all your blankets on to your bed, and your greatcoat on top. Every now and again, for variety, there was a decidedly cold day.

Lieutenant-Colonel Gray didn't allow his battalion much time to get bored. Two days after its arrival it went on an all-day route march to the Citadel and on into Cairo, headed by the band. This was a combination of business and pleasure, for on reaching the centre of Cairo the men were released for a while to give it a swift inspection before marching back to Maadi. It was on this occasion that Colonel Gray, at the last halt before entering camp, put across his famous ‘This time you have done well—next time you will do better’, a phrase which became a sort of byword in the battalion. It was no idle threat, either. They did much better later on.

This private entry into Cairo caused a furore, for it was quite illegal. Armed troops are not supposed to march through capital cities without permission. However, official action was limited to explanations and apologies, but the strict warning went out that it must not happen again.

On 19 February training began in earnest. For the first fortnight much of it was repetition of the first steps in weapon training, bayonet fighting, signals, section tactics, parade-ground drill. There were sports, including rugby, once a week, all-day route marches on Fridays. Of more interest were the lessons on the new Bren light machine gun that was to replace the clumsy old Lewis, on the 2-inch mortar, and on the anti-tank rifle (later to attain dizzy heights of unpopularity). The battalion had been in Egypt only a few days when it received about half its establishment of these new weapons, and immediately set out to learn all about them in as short a time as possible. After about three weeks, too, it thankfully exchanged its antiquated web equipment for a new pattern with large pouches, made especially to carry Bren magazines, but just as good for a packet of biscuits or a cake of chocolate.

Considering the warmth of the days, working hours were long. Reveille at six o'clock, and training from 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m., with compass marches for officers and NCOs on two nights a week, and night manoeuvres for everyone on two more. In the third week the battalion was out in Wadi Digla for whole days and evenings, digging and wiring. In the fourth the companies went off one by one to the camp ranges with rifles and Bren guns, and the fifth was devoted mainly to platoon and company manoeuvres. At least, they were called manoeuvres, but they were actually glorified route marches. Lieutenant-Colonel Gray was pushing his battalion hard, and the emphasis was always on route-marching—longer, harder route-marching.

During the first month in Maadi a number of the battalion, both officers and men, went off on courses. Courses on the Bren gun, the anti-tank rifle, the 2-inch mortar, the Bren carrier; signal, tactical, cooking and drill courses. They came back from these with new knowledge and ideas, which they proceeded to put into practice and pass on to the rest. There was a lot to learn, and a lot of new weapons and ways in which the battalion had to become proficient before it could regard itself as a fighting unit. Its friends of the Highland Light Infantry helped, too. On 11 March a platoon of them came to live with the battalion for three weeks, to pass on their desert experience and give demonstrations in tactics, use of weapons, loading of trucks, and so on. You couldn't help admiring their drill and weapon handling, even though their tactics smelt of the drill book a little.

When 18 Battalion arrived in Maadi, of course, it had no transport save its own feet. There were numerous vehicles on its war establishment but their issue was not complete until many months later. Soon after its arrival it received about eight light trucks, a few motor-bikes and a water cart. After that the trucks kept trickling in, a few at a time, until by June the battalion had about nine-tenths of what it was supposed to have. Its fighting vehicles, the Bren carriers, came in still more slowly—three in March, no more for some months. Signal equipment was also very short, only a few telephones. It was early June before more arrived. After that the battalion had its full quota of telephones and exchanges, but suffered from a chronic shortage of telephone cable until the end of the year.

But this is looking too far ahead. In March 18 Battalion was still making do with very little, and learning as well as it could with what it had.

It had its share of ceremonial parades, too, along with the other New Zealand units. Within a month of its arrival the big parade ground beside its lines saw inspections by General Wavell (commander of the Middle East Forces), General Wilson (commander of British troops in Egypt), and the British Ambassador to Egypt. What these distinguished men thought of 18 Battalion we do not know. Towards them the battalion adopted what its members were already beginning to call a ‘maleesh’ attitude, plus a slight grievance at having to sweat out its Saturday mornings on the parade ground. For these parades the bands of 18 and 20 Battalions combined, the two of them together making up one good-sized band.

Life wasn't all work, though. There was plenty of leave into Cairo—from early March the official allowance was 50 per cent on week nights (if there was no night training) and 80 per cent on Saturday afternoons and Sundays after church parade. This meant in effect that everyone could have leave as often as he could afford it. A fast diesel train service ran from Maadi village to Bab-el-Louk station in the heart of Cairo. At first there was a three-mile walk from camp to Maadi station, but soon the units were given permission to run a truck service, and from early April the Maadi bus service began. This soon became a byword in camp. The buses were old rattletraps, held together apparently by prayer and string, which took you to and from the station for a piastre. Their load capacity was never accurately determined, as they could always cram one more on somewhere, even if it was on a front mudguard.

There was plenty to do in Cairo. You could explore the shops for presents to send home, or argue for bargains in the Mousky bazaar; the Egyptian money was easy to get the hang of, and you soon stopped thinking of the piastre (‘acker’) as twopence halfpenny and began to think in terms of the ackers themselves—a hundred of them to one Egyptian pound, which was a week's pay. You could relax at one of the British servicemen's clubs, or you could ‘do’ the bars and cabarets if you didn't mind risking a fight, an invasion by the provosts, or a sore head next morning. Less respectable still, you could head for the Wagh el Birket, where every imaginable vice was on display at varying prices.

The day after the New Zealanders' arrival at Maadi the Assistant Provost Marshal of Cairo gave them a talk on the city, with emphasis on the things not to do, and everybody was given a street map which looked like a sea of red with a small white island in the middle. The white was the ‘in bounds’ area, the red ‘out-of-bounds’, where it was regarded as unsafe to go. These out-of-bounds areas, despite the warning of disease, danger and drastic punishment, always had an irresistible fascination for some men.

The battalion's behaviour in Cairo was no better or worse than that of any other troops away from their own country. Every week brought its quota of men on the mat for drunkenness and other misdemeanours, most of them petty. On 9 March two privates earned the dubious distinction of being the first from the unit to go to the British detention barracks at the Citadel. It would be wrong, however, to think that the whole battalion proceeded to get drunk and take Cairo apart. As always, the majority behaved well, and managed to enjoy themselves every bit as much as the others.

Nearer home, that wonderful institution, the Maadi Tent, down on the outskirts of Maadi village, was opened on 24 February. You didn't need leave to go there, and you could get a snack or a cup of tea or a cold drink, or listen to a concert or just relax in a comfortable chair. The Maadi tennis and golf clubs were made available to the New Zealanders, too, and many of the British residents of Cairo and Maadi opened their doors to them.

If you didn't want to go even as far as Maadi village, there was always Shafto's picture theatre. This stark building in the centre of the camp, thrown together out of wood and sacking, was Maadi's best-known landmark. For three ackers you could get a seat on a hard wooden bench, and all the fun of the fair thrown in, reels screened out of order, breakdowns of the projector, audible comments from the audience, sound that vibrated round the theatre so much as to be often unintelligible. There was no doubt that you got your money's worth at ‘Shufti's’. Every now and then something really exciting would happen, like the April night when the whole front wall blew down, screen and all, in mid-performance. Or the celebrated occasion a week or so later when the audience, irritated by the evening's delays and breakdowns, got out of hand and wrecked the theatre.

The battalion's own social centre was the NAAFI canteen. You could go there in the evening for a game of ‘housie’, cards, or just for a ‘natter’ over a bottle of Stella beer, a plate of eggs and chips, pies or doughnuts. It was a noisy, friendly, smoky place, and although the building looked as if a good push would flatten it, it stood up to a lot of hard wear.

The meals in Maadi, after a shaky start, were plentiful, and surprisingly good. The cooking was still done centrally for the whole battalion, but there was little complaining. The men ate in big marquees at first; wooden mess huts (flimsy-looking edifices like the NAAFI) were built during the first two months, and came into use at the end of April.

In those days everybody was perpetually hard up. The pay wasn't much when there were all the delights of Cairo to spend it on. To relieve the position, there was a free issue of fifty cigarettes weekly, with chocolate for the non-smokers. Washing was collected and done free by a native contractor, if you didn't mind taking pot luck on getting your own clothes back.

Taken all round, 18 Battalion was comfortable enough. The main shortage was mail from home. The speedy airgraphs and air letter-cards that came in later had not yet been thought of. In 1940 mail came in once or twice a month on the average, and mail day was a special occasion.

During the early weeks the battalion was plagued by three things in particular—flies, a diarrhoea epidemic, and George Wog. In an attempt to deal with the first two, a great cleanliness campaign was organised, not only in 18 Battalion but right through Maadi Camp. Garbage cans and latrines were subjected to a new, stringent code of sanitation. Not only was the camp purified, but the desert all round was combed, and traces of the Egyptians' promiscuous presence removed.

The Egyptians themselves were not so easily removed. Hawkers of oranges and other delicacies were a curse to Maadi until banished, and after that they sat out in the desert just beyond the camp limits, or infiltrated inside if they could. News vendors bawling the virtues of the Egyptian Mail and Egyptian Gazette or proclaiming the loathsome diseases allegedly suffered by Hitler still roamed through the camp. The Egyptians' skill in quiet thievery was recognised early in March by the issue to every tent of a chain and padlock, with which all rifles were to be secured to the tent pole day and night. Rifles and other weapons were particularly beloved of the Wogs—they fetched high prices.

Easter was early in 1940, and 18 Battalion kept holiday from Good Friday to Monday. Nearly everybody went on leave, some on conducted tours to the Pyramids or north from Cairo to the Delta Barrage with its pleasant green gardens, others on a long weekend trip up the Nile to Luxor.

The training after Easter took a new turn. Not so much parade-ground stuff, more manoeuvres (company and battalion) away out up the wadi. In the first few days of April there were skirmishes, one company against another, and concerted battalion exercises in which the companies lived as separate entities (including cooking) for the first time. On 1 April, appropriately, 18 Battalion was caught by one of Egypt's rare rainstorms while on its way out to an all-night bivouac, and so thoroughly drenched that the night's work was abandoned. Then on 8 April the whole of 4 Brigade (18, 19 and 20 Battalions) marched out of Maadi for the first brigade exercise, lasting four days. Ten miles south to Helwan aerodrome by the main road running alongside the Nile, then off the asphalt on to the sand and stones of the desert for five more miles before the real manoeuvre began.

On its excursions up Wadi Digla and on this first brigade manoeuvre 18 Battalion learnt a lot. The lessons were no longer the elementary ones, but the more advanced aspects of living and fighting in the desert. The battalion had now been hammered into shape, and was getting its first polish.

From a tactical point of view the desert is no different from anywhere else. The battalion's tasks in the brigade manoeuvre were much as they would have been on a similar occasion in New Zealand. Occupation of an outpost line; reserve position in an attack; a night attack, withdrawal, and fortifying a defensive position. Not that the rank and file knew or cared that they were doing all this. All they knew was that they were shoved round over miles of hard, dry desert, marching till they nearly dropped and then digging holes. What they learnt was different. They learnt how hard it is, on a hot dusty day, not to drink deeply from your water bottle, and how fatal it is to succumb to the temptation. They learnt how tiring it is to march over soft sand, and how at night small wadis and bumps in the ground become traps for the unwary. They learnt that it is easy to lose direction at night, and how little you can rely on landmarks that look quite clear in the daytime. They learnt how to travel light, with food, toilet gear, rifle and ammunition, and as little else as possible. The truck drivers learnt (if they didn't know already) that driving across country at night without lights is difficult. The quartermaster's staff learnt something of the technique of getting supplies to a battalion out in the ‘blue’, and distributing them to the companies—the question of supplies is of the highest importance in the desert, and 4 Brigade tried to make this manoeuvre as like the real thing as possible in this respect. The 18 Battalion cooks did their cooking on patent oil-drip burners, long home-made iron boxes dug into the sand, with tall chimneys at the back. The battalion was proud of these burners, which worked very well on used engine oil and water.

For three days the battalion floundered in the sand, advanced six miles and retired again, something like the manoeuvres of the Grand Old Duke of York. Then for another day it sat in a defensive position, and next morning the whole brigade went back to Maadi.

On 22 April another full-scale manoeuvre, this time a divisional one, began away out beyond Helwan. For the men the procedure was much the same as before—rush round the desert, or bed down miles from nowhere, with no idea of the general picture. They only realised that they were hot, thirsty and grimy, and that they couldn't do anything about it in the meantime. This exercise ended at dawn on 25 April with a combined Anzac Day service out in the desert, after which everybody returned to Maadi. Those who had been on the manoeuvre had all-day leave on the 26th.

In both these exercises 18 Battalion was handicapped by another outbreak of diarrhoea far worse than the one in March. This ailment, elegantly known as ‘Gyppo tummy’ or ‘Wog guts’, was never far away while the New Zealanders were in Egypt. Strict sanitary precautions might lessen the hordes of flies and the severity of the epidemics, but they couldn't banish them altogether. It laid you out for three or four days if you got it badly, and even with a light dose of it you crept round like a ghost and were happy to leave all food alone for a while. The battalion was smitten in mid-April—from the 15th to the 21st 107 men were sent off to hospital, and many more to the battalion's own isolation tent, and thus missed the divisional manoeuvre, as all who had been ill within the last ten days stayed behind in camp.

Part of the blame for the outbreak was attributed, whether justly or not, to the first bad khamsin the New Zealanders had experienced. This hot desert wind, bringing with it fine sand which penetrated clothes, blankets and kitbags, eyes, mouths and noses, hit Maadi on 13 April. The battalion was to experience worse ones later, but at the time it seemed as if nothing could be worse. Egypt's stocks went down with a bump.

April in Egypt is a transitional month from the comparative cool of winter to the blistering heat of summer, and was therefore a month of changes in 18 Battalion's domestic arrangements. On the 13th, immediately after the Helwan manoeuvre, the battalion got its first issue of summer clothing. For a fortnight yet the men had to struggle into ‘giggle suits’ for dinner in the evening, and not until the end of April were they allowed to wear drill suits in the evenings, and shorts on leave. The drill was comfortable enough, but the original issue was now getting a bit the worse for wear; many of the men had had new ones made by a local tailor, who would fit you out with a drill uniform in under twelve hours for just over a pound.

Of the new summer clothes, the light khaki shirts and underpants found immediate favour; the woollen hose tops and puttees not so much, because they were finicky to put on. The topees weren't as comfortable as the old New Zealand peaked hats, and were rather looked down on. The gem of the lot was the shorts, cut long and wide, the greatest possible contrast to the ‘snake-proof’ serge. Still, they were comfortable, and it was a great thing to have the air getting at your legs.

Nobody works all day in an Egyptian summer—it would be foolish to expect it. So on 29 April the unit changed over to a summer routine. Reveille at 5.30 a.m. from now on; work from 6 to 11.30 a.m., with a halt for breakfast; after lunch, no work until 4.30 p.m. You can't escape the summer afternoon heat in Egypt, but by staying in the shade of your tent you can make it a little more bearable. At the same time every tent was issued with that necessary instrument, a fly swatter.

It was about now that ‘zirs’ began to appear in large numbers in Maadi. These porous pots, bought from Egyptian hawkers, did great service in keeping water down to a drinkable temperature, and the tent without one was poorly off indeed. They had to be filled often because the water in them evaporated fast, but that was a trifling inconvenience to put up with for the sake of having a mouthful of cool water always handy.

The training wasn't so strenuous as it had been. Energetic stuff like physical training and bayonet fighting was kept for the beginning of the day, 6 to 7 a.m., before the sun really got fierce. Later in the day the battalion practised the more complicated handling of Bren gun and anti-tank rifle, or learnt how to camouflage itself away from the enemy's view. There was still the occasional night exercise, but not so much route-marching as before.

The summer was made much less unpleasant by the Maadi swimming baths, opened at the beginning of April. Inevitably, they at once became one of the camp's most popular institutions, a position which they held until the last Kiwi left Maadi in 1946. Their only drawback was their distance from camp—two miles down the road towards Maadi village, not far from the railway siding where the Kiwis had first arrived. But to immerse yourself in the cool water, to laze about with nothing on, that was worth the walk down. It was difficult sometimes to find a spare space in the water, and almost from the beginning the baths had to be rationed, different units using them at different times. Swimming became 18 Battalion's main recreation. At the end of May a relay team of twenty from the battalion won the divisional inter-unit championship and a cup presented by General Freyberg.

With the coming of May, the war moved closer.

Before this, though the New Zealanders were on active service, the war had been something remote. Now the possibility of Italy's joining in began to loom larger, and the British command in Egypt began to sit up and think how silly it would look if the Italians took it into their heads to invade Egypt by air. Egypt (Cairo in particular) was stiff with Italians and Italian sympathisers. Anything might happen. So the Army began to think up plans to counter this.

In Maadi Camp the precautions were mostly defensive. Blackout after 7 p.m.; an air-raid warning system; anti-aircraft and gas sentries; fire-fighting teams; first-aid and decontamination posts. Fourth Brigade Headquarters set up some anti-aircraft machine-gun posts, but the battalions had nothing heavy that could be used against attacking planes, and so their main role could only be to sit and take it, and clean up the mess afterwards. New gas masks were hurriedly handed out to everybody.

The first blackout practice was held on 5 May. You could still use a lantern, carefully dimmed with blue paint, in your tent, but all else was black. Truck headlights were also dimmed with paint. From 7 May there was a full week's try-out of the precautions. Most of 18 Battalion took a poor view of this, as they had nothing to do. There were active jobs for fewer than a hundred of its members, and the rest simply went about their normal business, with the great disadvantage that evening leave was cancelled. You could still go to Cairo in the afternoon if you cared to brave the heat, but you had to be back by 7 p.m.

For the time being there were no desert exercises, but while the week's try-out was in progress 18 Battalion (except for those on air defence duty) went up Wadi Digla, along with 19 and 20 Battalions, and dug. Digging in the May heat was no joke, but they dug, and wired, and laid stones to represent mines, until in five days they had a complete model battalion position, with full-sized trenches, dug away out there in the middle of nowhere. Then for a day and a night the battalion manned the position before moving back to Maadi. When the men came back they learnt that Maadi would only be a brief stopping place on their way into Cairo.

This was where the Cairo Internal Security Scheme came in. This plan rather optimistically entailed co-operation between British and Egyptian troops if the skies over Cairo suddenly began raining Italians. Egyptian battalions were made responsible for the city, and as their immediate support 4 Brigade Headquarters and 18 battalion were to move into town during the early hours of 16 May.

The move was made in good old army style, at very short notice. The battalion went to bed up Wadi Digla quite unsuspecting on the 15th, was roused from its dreams at 3.30 a.m., and by six o'clock was piled into ASC trucks at Maadi and on its way to Kasr-el-Nil, the big British barracks beside the Nile in the heart of Cairo. Only the Reinforcement Company stayed behind.

Not until 18 Battalion was in Kasr-el-Nil did it know what the fuss was all about. After seeing the battalion installed, Lieutenant-Colonel Gray went off to GHQ and was told the story—if trouble broke out, a number of known Italian agents in the city were to be rounded up. The battalion was to be on four hours' notice all the time, and nobody was to be on leave in the evenings. Liaison officers went off to live with the two Egyptian battalions in Cairo. The same day the men got their first steel helmets since leaving New Zealand.

Kasr-el-Nil was a come-down after Maadi, which by now was home to the Kiwis. Instead of the wide open spaces, the tents, and the comparative freedom, there was a gloomy old E-shaped brick barn built round a paved yard, with the Nile as the fourth wall. It seemed like a jail to 18 Battalion. The six days it spent there were long, hot, boring days. Nothing happened; not even one small Fascist made any trouble. After all the early morning rush and bustle, with its attendant rumours, this was an anticlimax.

Only the keg incident livened things up for a time. This began when a large keg of beer vanished off a truck unloading at the barracks canteen, and led to a fruitless full-scale search. Lieutenant-Colonel Gray told a poker-faced battalion that the whole thing was very mysterious, so much so that he would be pleased to be told at some future date just where the keg had been hidden.

Despite this brief excitement, the six days dragged badly; then, just at lunchtime on 21 May, more rush orders, more tumult and shouting, and an hour later the battalion was on its way back to Maadi. No drastic change in the situation, no spectacular action ahead, in spite of the rumour-mongers—the battalion was to stay on four hours' notice to carry out exactly the same job as before. No wonder it asked itself bitterly, ‘What does the Army think it's up to?’

Even this wasn't all. The battalion now spent nine days on edge at Maadi, doing a little sporadic training and taking day about with 19 and 20 Battalions to be on call in case things flared up. There was no leave on duty days, of course. The battalion was on 15 minutes' notice in the daytime, 30 minutes' at night, and during stand-to (3 to 5 a.m. and 6 to 8 p.m.) on five minutes' notice. This meant that for those two early morning hours, and again in the evening, the men packed all their gear, climbed into full web equipment, and sat in ASC trucks on the parade ground waiting vainly for something to happen. Then, as nothing ever did happen, they climbed out again and went about their lawful occasions. Training on duty days was pretty harmless; nobody who has been hauled out of bed before 3 a.m. can possibly get much kick out of a day's training. After the first day all the heavy gear, except what was actually in use, was left on the trucks, which stayed in readiness on the parade ground.

The rumours that flew during these few days were wonderful. The situation was made for rumour. The Germans had been pushed back in Belgium—the Germans had broken through in Belgium—the New Zealanders were going to France—Italy was in the war—the Italians had been knocked back on the Egyptian frontier—the Italians had pushed forward over the Egyptian frontier, and were advancing fast—the New Zealanders would be going up into the desert any time to stop them. This last was the favourite. Wishful thinking, of course. The last few weeks of playing round Maadi and Cairo had done much to glamourise the desert in the Kiwis' eyes. Also, 18 Battalion had responded well to the training it had been through; it was now fit to fight, and terrifically keen. ‘The blue’ was spoken of with a sort of wistfulness.

Then, on 30 May, another sudden call—everything had to be packed up right away, ready to move. Surely this was it. It must be. In a flurry the battalion packed, clambered on to its trucks, and away—where to? Back to Kasr-el-Nil. The comments were unprintable. Kasr-el-Nil was very far from being 18 Battalion's idea of a battleground. The only fighting to be done there was an inglorious campaign, not even against Italian agents, but against something one degree lower in the scheme of things—the bed-bug.

It is sad, but it must be recorded. To 18 Battalion goes the distinction of having introduced the bed-bug into the New Zealand Division. Out from the crevices in Kasr-el-Nil's bricks poured the invaders, infiltrated into blankets, clothes and packs, and there made the journey back to Maadi, where they established themselves, never again to leave. The story that they were planted by Fifth Columnists is quite groundless, but they might well have been, so much did they cost the Kiwis over the next five years in annoyance, wakefulness, bad temper, and time wasted hunting them. The honour of having brought them in is one that the battalion could well do without.

Six more days at Kasr-el-Nil, days of heat, boredom and parade-ground drill. The battalion was on two hours' notice now. Leave into Cairo was doled out two hours at a time, which is just enough to whet the appetite. Nobody was sorry when on 4 June the 18th was ordered back to Maadi again, its place at Kasr-el-Nil to be taken by 19 Battalion. It packed up next morning and left at 10 a.m., passing 19 Battalion's convoy on the way.

Back at Maadi the ‘duty battalion’ routine came into operation again, only now it was every second, not every third day. The situation was still uncertain, and anything was likely to happen any time, so the duty battalion had to be there waiting in its trucks for four hours daily. Leave was easier to come by this time, however. There was plenty of it after work on the off days.

Better than any Cairo leave was the divisional ‘change of air’ camp at Sidi Bishr, Alexandria, which opened in May. During the month 18 Battalion sent two big drafts there for a fortnight, the first of 65 men and the second of 75. These drafts were made up by company quotas, with preference for men recovering from sickness. There was never any trouble filling up the numbers—the sea air and salt water of Sidi Bishr were much sought after.

However, 140 men is only a fifth of a battalion, and those who were not lucky enough to get to Alexandria had to make the best of the monotony of Kasr-el-Nil and Maadi. It seemed as if this messing round was going to last to doomsday—until 10 June.

At 6 p.m. on that day the battalion climbed into its trucks for the usual two-hour stretch. At 8 p.m. it morosely climbed out again. At 8.30 the telephone wires began to hum. The news was round the battalion with amazing speed. Italy was in. One more enemy to face—but for 18 Battalion this was a matter for joy, not gloom. Now at last, thank God, the messing round would be over. Surely something would happen now.

And so it did, for a few hours. The rest was anticlimax.

No sooner had the news come through than Maadi Camp went into feverish action. Announcements in Shafto's, the canteens and the YMCA brought the men tumbling out. The battalion's carriers were sent out in haste up Wadi Digla to recall Reinforcement Company, which was out there by itself acting the part of ‘the enemy’ for another battalion. The plan prepared weeks ago for this emergency now became reality. Tents were struck, moved out of their tight precise rows, spread far apart over a big stretch of desert, re-erected. Working like demons, the men had their tents ready for occupation again soon after 2 a.m. Then they fell into bed, to be up again early next morning digging slit trenches beside the tents.

In the meantime, A Company (now under Captain Kelleway

Capt C. T. Kelleway, ED; Hamilton; born Aust., 15 May 1905; accountant; wounded 23 May 1941

.) had been spirited away on some obscure mission, from which it reappeared the following afternoon. It hadn't gone far; only to Tura, two miles up the Nile from Maadi, where one of the biggest ammunition dumps in the Middle East was tucked away in caves in the hillside. Here it had reinforced the British guard until permanent reinforcements arrived.

From now on there was a palpable change in the air of Maadi Camp. The troops were on a war footing now. Officers had to carry revolvers wherever they went, and everybody had to have his field dressing with him all the time. The excitement certainly sagged as the days passed and nothing more happened, and the old routine was kept on for a few days more, but there was an expectancy about that had not been so marked before.

Then, on 17 June, the news arrived. Eighteenth Battalion was going ‘up the blue’.

There wasn't going to be any chance for the battalion to cover itself with glory yet. It was to be away only about a fortnight, along with 19 Battalion, digging defences in the sand several hundred miles from the battlefield. A useful role, perhaps, but not spectacular.

This was the battalion's first long-distance move in convoy— that is, with its own trucks carrying all its stores and equipment, and the men travelling in ASC three-tonners. Everything was to be taken, tents and all; except for Reinforcement Company, the Cinderella company, which was to stay behind, as it always seemed to do when anything interesting was on. The three Bren carriers with their crews went up by train.

To the question, ‘What was the most important manoeuvre an infantry battalion had to carry out in the Second World War?’ a likely answer might be, ‘Move in convoy.’ It was the usual way of getting a battalion about from place to place, and was to be 18 Battalion's normal mode of travel for over two years. It sounds easy—jump into your trucks and rush away over the countryside—but it is really a highly complicated proceeding, demanding accurate timing and teamwork from a lot of people. One of the marks of a raw or ill-disciplined battalion is bad convoy work. The 18th was now no longer raw, and certainly not ill-disciplined, and this was reflected in the smoothness of its convoy work.

A convoy's timing and route are usually laid down by ‘higher up’, and if they are not kept to, other bodies of troops on the move are likely to be inconvenienced, and there may be traffic jams. The battalion must arrange meals, contact with its ASC trucks, petrol supplies, packing and loading, and all this sort of detail so as to ensure that it gets away on time. It must decide its order of march, and see that the trucks are marshalled in that order without muddle or waste of time. It must move at a speed which will keep the convoy to time. Its provosts must patrol the convoy, and sometimes act as traffic policemen at places where drivers are likely to go wrong. Each driver must keep his truck in such condition that it will not break down on the way. An advance party must go on ahead to see that the night's bivouac area is clear, to meet and direct the convoy when it arrives. The cooks must be ready to go into action immediately on arrival, and have a meal ready quickly. If necessary, supplies of petrol, oil, water and so on during the move must be arranged beforehand. The mechanics and the medical section must be always ready to repair trucks or men. And many other details.

At 8 a.m. on 18 June 18 Battalion's convoy left Maadi Camp.

The move was a ‘tactical’ one—that is, organised as if the unit was in the battle zone, with protection against any untoward event that might happen. Not that any were expected this time. It was mainly for practice. So the battalion moved well spaced out, 175 yards between trucks (in army parlance, ten vehicles to the mile, or VTM for short), ten-minute intervals between companies, Bren guns with each company set up on top of trucks for anti-aircraft defence, signallers with each company, every man wearing web equipment, with rifle and ammunition handy, and gas masks at the ‘alert’ position. Everybody carried his own lunch for the day, and a full water bottle.

Through the outskirts of Cairo and past the Pyramids streamed the convoy through the June heat. North along the Alexandria road, with the cultivated Nile delta on its right, and on its left ‘the blue’. It travelled slowly, much too slowly for the drivers and the troops, who fretted somewhat at having to crawl along this lovely tarsealed road. By 3 p.m. it was at Amiriya, only 70 miles from Cairo. Here it turned left off the road, and bumped across the desert for a few more miles before stopping for the night just after 4 p.m.

During the day, as has been seen, the anti-aircraft platoon had kept its Bren guns ready for action. Now at the bivouac area its men dug pits and set the guns up in them for the night. They weren't so very far from Alexandria, which was already being raided every now and again by Italian planes. You never knew.

Nobody bothered putting up tents, which aren't necessary in Egypt in June. Some of the men slept in their trucks, some under the stars. They were happier than they had been for a long time, even though the cooks, not yet experienced at getting meals on the move, didn't have dinner ready until 9 p.m. Camp life, with its rules and regulations and its messing about, was left behind, for a short time at any rate. The time was to come later when every man in 18 Battalion longed for the comparative comfort of Maadi and the luxuries of Cairo, but now they were enjoying a release from all that.

At 8 a.m. next day the battalion was on the move again, across the desert for a few more miles and then on to the sealed road running west along the coast, a road which it was to travel several times later under violently different circumstances. Now, as always, it was full of traffic in both directions— you never saw that road empty. The convoy's speed was stepped up considerably, which pleased everyone.

The Mediterranean—long stretches of the road ran within sight of it—looked tantalisingly cool on a hot summer day, while 18 Battalion sat and sweltered in its trucks. So its joy can be imagined when at 4 p.m. it reached its destination 12 miles short of Mersa Matruh, and found that its camp site was right on the coast. Despite a vicious dust-storm, the men had their tents up in quick time, so eager were they to get into the water. For most of them this was the first swim in the Mediterranean, and its clean sand and buoyant, salty water were blessings straight from Heaven.

While this move was going on, 10 Platoon of B Company, under Second-Lieutenant Sutton,

Capt H. B. J. Sutton; London; born England, 24 Feb 1908; civil engineer; p.w. Apr 1941; escaped; reported safe 30 Nov 1941; wounded and p.w. 15 Jul 1942.

had gone off 1200 miles in the other direction, escorting a trainload of arms and stores to Khartoum. Its journey was a long-drawn-out one, ten days in tropical heat, by train, river steamer, and train again. Mounting guard on open railway trucks in that heat was no joke, but the men were cordially greeted wherever they stopped, and again at Khartoum, where the local British commander welcomed them as the first New Zealand troops to enter the Sudan. They rejoined the battalion on 1 July.

The move away from Maadi meant the end of 18 Battalion's band, which was looked on as unnecessary away from base. It was disbanded, and its members went back to the companies. Most of them went to 4 Brigade Headquarters to help form the brigade band early in 1941, but the battalion never again enjoyed the luxury of its own band.

CHAPTER 4 Garawla Interludes

Mersa Matruh, apart from a luxurious tourist hotel or two on the waterfront, is a most insignificant little town. But placed where it is, on the only good harbour for hundreds of miles along that unfriendly coast, and near one of the few sources of water, it is of great strategic importance. No army invading Egypt along the coast can afford to neglect Mersa Matruh. That is why it was to be surrounded with a ring of defences, and why 18 Battalion went there to dig.

The battalion, for the time, was reasonably happy about its role. It would have preferred to be right up at the front taking a more active interest in the Italians on the border but in the meantime it had to make the best of its menial job. It was a good long step forward from Maadi, anyway, and the general feeling was that if the war on the frontier flared up they would probably be into it.

The spot where the battalion ended up was called Garawla. Nobody knew why it was called anything. There was a tiny railway station there, but nothing else to distinguish it from any other patch of desert: a dirty, sandy, stony hole, with a few stunted bushes poking up here and there. The coast in this region was cut by occasional steep-sided wadis running down to the sea, and it was in one of these, Wadi Naghamish by name, that 18 Battalion was to work. The wadi was to be transformed into an obstacle for tanks, with a five-foot ditch twelve feet wide at the bottom, and the spoil piled up into a long mound alongside.

There were two free days before the job began, but they were free in name only. To begin with, fifty unfortunates went off on 20 June and toiled through a hot afternoon on a new runway for the RAF, up on the escarpment some 15 miles east. Next day another party of fifty left for Sidi Haneish, on the coast 30 miles east, where they spent four unpleasant, hot, dusty, nearly waterless days clearing a landing ground. The rest of

Coloured map of Northern Egypt the battalion spent the two days digging slit trenches round their tents, digging the tents in, and, of course, popping in for frequent swims.

There was a major upheaval after lunch on the 20th, when a shocked battalion received orders to move inland away from its lovely spot on the coast. This would have been a catastrophe, but luckily the order was countermanded later in the afternoon. The reason given for the order was that the camp was visible from the sea; the reason for the later change, that the risk wasn't so very great. Whoever thought up these bright orders, 18 Battalion considered, was pretty jittery. It must be remembered that Italy's entry into the war was still very recent, and that the British had not yet acquired their later contempt for Italian military prowess and daring. But the battalion was to suffer more from the same cause within a few days.

Admittedly, the unit was in the danger zone, even if only in theory. While it was at Garawla there were air raids on Mersa Matruh almost nightly, and sometimes during the day. All the battalion usually got was disturbed sleep, noise, and the distant sight of tracer and gun flashes. But once or twice the Italians paid attention to the railway line not far from camp, and the odd formation of bombers flew overhead. Then everybody grabbed rifles and whooped off a few rounds at the planes for luck. Occasionally a few trigger-happy soldiers, overcome by the novelty of the proceedings, fired on low-flying British planes, but this novelty soon wore off, and the battalion began to treat the fireworks displays with indifference.

The air raids had their uses. The battalion drew canteen supplies from a NAAFI dump near Mersa Matruh. Occasionally while the trucks were loading at the dump the air-raid alarm would sound; all the Egyptian attendants would immediately go for cover, whereupon the drivers would load up the trucks and leave, plus a few extra items.

The battalion soon found that being up the blue wasn't all fun and games. It was terrifically hot, and you couldn't rush off to the NAAFI for a bottle of cool beer as you could in Maadi. The Matruh drinking water was warm and brackish, the food uninspiring. The company cooks did their best with it, but you can't do much with tinned bully, M & V, and herrings, especially when fresh vegetables are short. One thing, however, made up for a lot, and that was the Mediterranean. The men spent every spare minute in the water. There was plenty of opportunity for swimming; after a heavy digging session it was particularly delightful.

The Wadi Naghamish job began on 22 June. Despite the heat, and a fierce sandstorm that brought work to a standstill for two days, the battalion worked fast, and by 2 July had finished two-thirds of the 1200 yards allotted to it, more than had been expected in the time. The digging site, just inland from the coast road, was about a mile from camp. Working hours were from 7 a.m. until about midday, which left the worst heat of the day free for swimming or relaxation. The sun blazed down during working hours too, of course, but they were made more bearable by daily visits from the water cart and by a 10 a.m. break for a cup of tea. For the job the battalion borrowed extra picks and shovels from the Royal Engineers. At first mechanical tools were forbidden, with the idea of keeping the men fitter. Later this rule was relaxed, and 18 Battalion managed by some means to acquire a compressor and drill, which helped a lot, even though there was only about one man who could use it. Lieutenant Mackay

Maj J. G. Mackay, ED; Papakura; born NZ 19 Jun 1913; farmer; wounded 26 Nov 1941.

and CSM George Andrews

Capt G. R. Andrews, MC, DCM, m.i.d.; Waihou; born Cambridge, 12 Sep 1910; farmer and contractor; twice wounded.

of B Company also brought off a good stroke by commandeering a tractor from Mersa Matruh during an air raid; with the addition of a home-made scoop this greatly eased the labour of removing the spoil.

For their next attack of the jitters the authorities chose a fine time—just after midnight on 24 June. The battalion was suddenly dragged from its sleep, ordered out with all its machine guns, and pushed into the semblance of a defensive line along the beach. Nobody knew at the time what it was all about, but it transpired later that somebody had seen, or thought he had seen, a mysterious ship off the coast, and that an Italian deserter (probably mythical) had said that it contained an invasion force. At any rate, nothing happened. Poor excuse to haul us out of bed, thought 18 Battalion bitterly, as it stood down after several hours of waiting.

The affair didn't just blow over. On the 26th more orders came through. The battalion was to provide a protective force, a company strong, to defend Garawla, the coast and the railway, against any attack from air or sea. This idea had its good points—the duty company had a day off digging, and stayed in camp on an hour's notice to move wherever the Italians might come. One catch was that the company had to stand to from 4 to 5.15 a.m. and from 6.45 to 7.45 p.m., but by and large it simply meant a whole day free for swimming and loafing. If any trouble had blown up the company would have been able to give quite a good account of itself; not only did it have signallers and medical orderlies permanently with it, but it was specially allotted mortars, carriers and anti-aircraft machine guns from HQ Company, and the whole combination would have made a useful force had it been needed. But, as usual, nothing exciting happened, and it is doubtful if anyone really expected it.

On the 26th, too, 18 Battalion camouflaged its tents by the primitive method of throwing sea water over them, followed by sand and dirt. The idea of this was to give a rough surface to the canvas, and thus reduce reflection from the sun. It worked fairly well, too.

This duty company arrangement lasted for four days, and then there was a general switch round. Nineteenth Battalion took over, handing over to 18 Battalion its own previous task of running the prisoner-of-war camp at Mersa Matruh. At 10 a.m. on 30 June A Company left camp, and returned on the morning of 3 July, after quite a strenuous time guarding five times its own number of Italians and Libyans, supervising their working parties, distributing their food, and acting as their agents, postmen and nursemaids. ‘Owing to the inadequacy of the wire around the compounds and the disregard by prisoners of the sanitary arrangements,’ wrote Captain Kelleway in his report, ‘sentries had to be provided on a scale of one sentry to ten prisoners and a very close watch kept.’ This meant hard work for the three days. It was the first time anyone from 18 Battalion had come in contact with the enemy, and a scruffy, weedy bunch they looked. Italy, thought A Company, would have to produce something better if she was to win the war.

The last day of the digging was 2 July, and on the morning of the 3rd the battalion struck tents and packed to leave for Maadi, this time by train, as the ASC trucks were not available. The battalion's own trucks, with the anti-aircraft platoon for protection, set out immediately after lunch, carrying tents, heavy equipment and kitbags. The rest of the men spent their last afternoon in the water, and at 6 p.m. marched to Garawla station, about a mile from camp.

This train trip was no better than the last one for comfort— worse, because it was longer and lasted overnight. Some men slept on the floor, others made themselves as comfortable as possible on the seats, others slung blanket hammocks from whatever projections they could find. Whichever way they slept, it was a long restless night.

The train passed through Alexandria in an air raid as day was breaking, then headed south through the Nile delta (delightfully green and fresh after Garawla). After some messing about between Cairo and Abbassia it reached Maadi at 11.30 a.m., and back up the hill to camp straggled the men through the midday heat, weighed down under rifles and packs. Some ASC trucks from the camp were borrowed to help the battalion's trucks bring up the heavy gear, weapons and ammunition.

From one point of view 18 Battalion was glad to see Maadi again. It meant more leave, more comfort, better food. But it also meant a return to the dreadful round of security duties that had palled so badly before. There was no time to sit and think about it, for the duties began again the same afternoon.

They hadn't been back in camp three hours before orders came in. One company to take over a defence job at Heliopolis and Helwan aerodromes; another company to the Gezira Sporting Club on an island in the Nile just across from the centre of Cairo. The detachments set out at once, without even waiting for a meal—11 Platoon of B Company to Heliopolis, the rest of the company to Helwan, C Company to Gezira. What was left of the battalion re-erected its tents and prepared for another spell of the dreary Maadi routine—reveille at 5.30, early morning PT and route marches, weapon training and drill. Plenty of afternoon leave, which most men could better afford now that they had had the chance of accumulating a little credit in their paybooks.

At Heliopolis and Helwan B Company took over sectors of the airfield defences. The platoons had to man anti-aircraft Bren guns day and night; the men were free in their off hours during the day, but spent the nights patrolling their sectors, guarding hangars and petrol dumps. It was the same old story—nothing happened to disturb the peace. But apart from the long hours of night duty these few days were very pleasant. The men had their meals with the RAF, and had the run of the canteens and amenities. A number of them scored sightseeing trips by air over Cairo and the country round it. It was with a certain regret that they went back to Maadi on 10 July, when 19 Battalion, newly back from Garawla, took over the airfield jobs.

At Gezira Sporting Club, C Company found itself in different circumstances. This job was longer, and so was arranged on a more permanent basis, with afternoon and evening leave, and parties to the swimming baths at Kasr-el-Nil. The company slept in the grandstands of the Gezira racecourse. Its main job was to guard the sacred person of General Wavell, who lived next door. For this purpose the company kept a guard on the main gate, and three permanent anti-aircraft posts scattered round the grounds. From 6.30 to 7.30 every morning ten men patrolled the racecourse in pairs, with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets, while the General took his daily exercise on horseback round the ground.

C Company was ready for other jobs too. If there was an air raid or a riot, if the Italians came, the company had its course of action all planned to carry out at short notice. But none of these things happened. After three weeks the company was relieved by 19 Battalion and returned to the fold at Maadi.

These detachments had the best end of the stick in July 1940. So did some of the signal platoon, who went to the Divisional Signals on 14 July on a course of instruction that didn't finish until the end of November. For the rest of the battalion at Maadi it was a pretty dull month. Training had lost its appeal now that there was more serious business not so far away—even new work like assault bridging and river-crossing exercises was carried out half-heartedly. The heat got everyone down, and another outbreak of diarrhoea didn't help. The battalion was in the doldrums. About the only bright spots in the month were all-day picnics to the Delta Barrage and the Grotto at Gezira, where at least the men could see and feel a little grass. Even those excursions had the edge taken off them by the fact that everyone had to wear full web and carry rifle and ammunition.

As always happens under such conditions, discipline suffered. More men than ever before found themselves on the mat for drunkenness, insubordination, and the other minor offences that crop up when a unit is bored. Tents became untidier, rubbish was tossed into the slit trenches; even a sharp reminder in routine orders didn't help matters much.

From 5 July the battalion was back on the old Cairo security routine, but nobody was very interested in it any more. The companies left in Maadi took day about as an ‘inlying picket’, at short notice to move into Cairo to protect a couple of wireless stations; of this picket company one platoon stood-to morning and evening, but the only effect on the rest of the company was that it couldn't have leave on those days. From 8 July, when 19 Battalion came back from Garawla, the two battalions divided the duty day about.

On 19 July it was D Company's turn to get away from Maadi for a spell. It was detailed to accompany an ASC detachment, under command of the Division's DAAG (Major Maxwell

Brig D. T. Maxwell, OBE, m.i.d.; Wellington; born NZ 13 Jun 1898; Regular soldier; AA & QMG 2 NZ Div Oct 1941-Jun 1942; Commander, British Commonwealth Sub-Area, Tokyo, 1946–47; Commander, Central Military District, 1952–53.

), up the blue, and establish one of a chain of desert dumps of food, petrol and water. The spot chosen for this particular dump was almost on the edge of that vast sand swamp, the Qattara Depression, 22 miles south of a little insignificant wayside railway station which nobody had ever heard of. Its name was El Alamein.

This detachment (‘Maxforce’ by name) moved on 19 July to Burg el Arab, near the coast about 50 miles west of Alexandria, and set up camp beside the bulk supply dump from which its stores were to come. There it loaded its trucks up every morning, moved off along the coast road at 5 p.m., and after dark turned down south across the desert to the dump, where the men dug huge pits 15 feet square, filled them up with the stores, and covered them with sand. This went on for six nights. Each morning after work the convoy moved back up to the coast road before daylight, then headed for home, where the men relaxed once the trucks were reloaded, or made for the beach and cooled off in the water.

This was a good week, even though bouncing round over the desert by night in 3-ton lorries without lights may not be regarded as an ideal holiday. But in July 1940 anything away from Maadi was fine, particularly if it took you within reach of the coast.

On 28 July Maxforce went back to Maadi, where D Company found the rest of 18 Battalion getting ready to leave for Garawla again. There was just time for the company to have a wash and a brush-up and a night's rest. After breakfast on the 29th the battalion's convoy headed for the blue again, and reached Garawla at 2 p.m. on the 30th.

Once more the men pitched their tents beside the Mediterranean, grabbed picks and shovels, and got stuck into the work in Wadi Naghamish. There was still plenty to do.

Morale went up again with a bound. Everybody was glad to be back by the sea, and the atmosphere was more free and easy than that of Maadi. There was more comfort, too, because the battalion, profiting by its June experience, brought with it such luxuries as bed-boards, and organised its canteen and beer supply better.

The food, as in June, was inclined to be monotonous, nearly all out of tins. Even vegetables were very scarce up the blue— vitamin pills were handed out to make up the deficiency, but who can feel that he has dined well on a vitamin pill? C Company had one grand and glorious windfall when a well-fed calf wandered (or was enticed) into its lines from a nearby Wog camp. It found a gory grave and provided the company with roast dinner that evening. Unfortunately the owner located the remains, and his subsequent protest cost the company £20, but it was generally looked on as worth it.

So August came and went, in scorching heat and dust-storms, while 18 Battalion sweated and raised blisters on its hands in Wadi Naghamish six mornings a week, dozed off in its tents after lunch, spent the rest of its afternoons in the water, and its evenings on the beach with a bottle or two of beer. During the moonlight period working hours were at night, which everyone considered a good idea, as it dodged the terrible heat. Most of the senior officers were away for a week or two on courses of instruction, their absence making the camp atmosphere even more free and easy. Mussolini's airmen weren't so annoying this time. There were very few raids, and those a long way off, except very early on 24 August, when the ‘Ities’ paid a surprise visit and threw down a lot of bombs close by without hitting anything—18 Battalion lost a couple of hours' sleep, but nothing else.

Every second week the battalion had to provide a protective company, with mortars, carriers and machine guns, just as in June. But the chances of the Italians arriving seemed more remote than ever, and, though the protective company was always there geared for action, it would have been most surprising had anything happened.

There was a record crop of rumours when it became known late in the month that the battalion was to go back to Maadi, pick up the gear it had left behind, and strike camp completely before heading for the blue once more. Some people had the battalion really in action this time; others had it sailing to join the Second Echelon, which was reported to be having a lovely holiday in green, civilised English surroundings. Others doubted that they would ever have to do anything but dig ‘dirty big holes’ in the desert. The matter wasn't decided when, just after midday on 29 August, the battalion formed up in convoy and drove away eastwards. It bivouacked that night among the sand dunes of Burg el Arab, and reached Maadi late next morning.

CHAPTER 5 ‘Freyberg's Wogs’

The Lines of Communication Sub-Area East was a high-sounding name given in 1940 to the stretch of road, railway, sand and scrub along the Egyptian coast from Alexandria some 130 miles west to Qasaba. Fourth Brigade was ordered at the end of August to take over the command, protection and administration of this unexciting district, and it was to the western end of it that 18 Battalion, all unsuspecting, was directed. Once again hopes of action were to be frustrated.

The sector to be ‘commanded, protected and administered’ by the battalion lay between Fuka and Qasaba, a distance of 25 miles. It is clear from the size of this sector that the battalion wasn't expected to have much heavy work to do. There had to be someone there just in case, and that was about all.

The most prominent feature on a map of this new domain is Ras el Kanayis, a long sharp point of land sticking out into the Mediterranean. But militarily this is not very important. The focal point of the sector is at Maaten Baggush and Maaten Burbeita near its western end, where groups of wells provide the only reliable water supply for miles. At Baggush the whole battalion was to be concentrated, except for a company at the airfield at Sidi Haneish (2½ miles to the west) and one at Fuka, right at the other end of the sector, where another airfield had to be looked after.

Eighteenth Battalion, after a grand final weekend spree in Cairo, finished packing at Maadi on 2 September. An advance party left that day for the new sector to find out what was what, and to direct the main convoy when it arrived. Next morning, after an early breakfast, the battalion handed its base-kit bags in to be stored, took its last look at Maadi for many months, then headed north again with few regrets. A small rear party stayed behind for a couple of days to give the place a final clean up. As usual, the carriers (the battalion now had six) went up by train.

There was no Reinforcement Company to leave behind this time. This unfortunate company, after months of being cannibalised to fill the gaps in the battalion's ranks, had now been disbanded, the fittest men going to the rifle companies and the rest to the new Northern Infantry Training Depot at Maadi. Many of the latter found their way into 18 Battalion later on, but for the time their ways parted.

Before leaving Maadi, the battalion exchanged its felt hats for solar topees. This was a well-meant exchange, but the topees were neither popular nor comfortable, and were left off as much as possible.

Early on the afternoon of 4 September, after dropping D Company off at Fuka, the battalion reached Baggush. A Company went to Sidi Haneish, and the rest of the men piled out of their trucks and took stock of their new surroundings. There was a reasonably good beach near by, they were pleased to note. Not so good as the one at Garawla, but quite adequate.

The battalion was by no means the only New Zealand unit at Baggush. An assorted crowd, artillery, Divisional Cavalry, machine-gunners, had been in the vicinity for a week, digging up the desert round the Baggush and Burbeita wells. This was all right with 18 Battalion. Let them dig, was the attitude; we've had our whack of digging, we're quite happy to get on with our job of protecting the place.

For the first few days it looked like being a holiday. The men took their time putting up the tents and digging the camp in, but apart from that there wasn't much to do for nearly a week. The signal platoon set up a telephone office, and kept up communications to the companies and 4 Brigade Headquarters. The carriers, when they arrived, were split up between Fuka and Baggush. D Company spent its time patrolling the beach at Fuka, as much in the water as out of it. The rest of the battalion had the usual morning and evening stand-to, and manned the anti-aircraft machine guns round the camp, but that was about all.

They might have known that such a state of affairs wouldn't last. On 9 September the dream came to an end. Those in authority (much higher authority than 18 Battalion) weren't satisfied with a narrow ring of defences round Baggush and Burbeita. This ring was now to be expanded to a big semi- circlesemicircle about eight miles across; 18 Battalion was to take over part of it, unship its picks and shovels, and dig.

This wasn't according to 18 Battalion's ideas at all. The men had ‘had’ digging by now. It looked as if their fate for the whole war would be to dig holes in the desert. ‘Freyberg's bloody Wogs’ they called themselves with some bitterness. The officers had to do their best to counteract this attitude, but it was a half-hearted best; they weren't any keener on the idea than the men. However, there was no help for it. The battalion spat on its hands, cursed, and began once again to dig.

It dug, and it dug, and it dug. Six days a week, with no end to the job in sight. The terrible July and August heat had slackened a little now, but it was still hot and dusty. There were three miles of desert to cover, three back-breaking miles of rock guaranteed to test any pick. The battalion's sector was on the eastern side of the Baggush ‘box’, facing south-east, with its northern end two miles from the coast. The distance from camp (two to five miles) was vexing, as it slowed up the work— it didn't take long to get there in trucks, but there weren't enough trucks to go round, so most of the men had to walk there and back daily.

D Company's beach patrol at Fuka ended on the 15th, when it handed over to C Company. Back it came to Baggush, and next day it was digging too. B Company had a few days off later in September, manning anti-aircraft guns round Headquarters Western Desert Force on the coast near Baggush.

Once again the Italian airmen began to take a hand in the game. On 6 September 18 Battalion had its first battle casualties, when Privates Jimmy Roiall

Pte J. W. Roiall; Auckland; born Scotland, 10 Nov 1911; optical mechanic; wounded 6 Sep 1940.

and Reg Buckingham

Pte R. F. Buckingham; Cambridge; born NZ 17 Feb 1914; carpenter; wounded 6 Sep 1940.

were caught in an air raid while collecting petrol from Mersa Matruh. Their truck was damaged and both were wounded.

The Italians had a new ace up their sleeves now. One night (14 September it was) a bomber came flying low over Baggush, and next morning there lay on the ground dozens of small round things like Thermos flasks. The difference from ordinary Thermos flasks was that when you touched these they were apt to explode.

These were the moonlight nights, when the Ities might be expected to turn on more raids. All the sentries were specially alerted. Battalion orders were brief and clear: ‘Paste hell out of the bastards.’

Again next night the lone Itie was on the prowl. In obedience to orders, every machine gun and rifle in the vicinity opened up at him, with an enthusiasm that can be judged by next day's amendment: ‘The order to paste hell out of the bastards must not be interpreted as justifying uncontrolled fire. Platoon commanders held responsible for wasted ammunition.’ The battalion had not yet had many chances to fire at a real live enemy, and it was apt to overdo things a little.

Unfortunately, the results were not too good. The Italian got away, leaving another cargo of his lethal Thermos flasks scattered round. The problem now was, how to get rid of them?

Eighteenth Battalion's ingenuity found a way—carrier crews exploding the bombs with rifle fire from the shelter of the carrier. This was much more to be recommended than the method of a local Arab, who came along tenderly bearing a bomb in his hands, and wondering why all the people he met had such urgent business elsewhere. For three days this shooting went on. Then there were no more bombs left to dispose of, and the marksmen reluctantly went back to their digging.

Considering the boredom and frustration of those weeks in the Baggush Box, 18 Battalion did its work well. The defensive system to be prepared was a complicated one, with dugouts and underground fortifications capable of holding a whole battalion. The rock resisted stoutly, and much of it had to be blasted. This caused an unfortunate accident in the closing stages of the job, when an officer and a private were badly burned by a charge of blasting powder which somehow ignited.

Health was surprisingly good during this period in the Baggush Box; there were no more bad epidemics like the summer ones. But the dull routine of digging didn't suit 18 Battalion, particularly after the Italians began their push from the frontier in mid-September. The men were listless, fed up with what they considered this futile digging so far from the scene of action. ‘Almost invariably,’ said one, ‘I reckon tomorrow as being so many days to mail day or pay day, the only two days of any real importance in our present existence.’ A spark of excitement was kindled in them whenever squadrons of British bombers flew overhead on their way to Libya, but that was about all that could rouse any enthusiasm.

From 23 September a handful of men went off each week to Palestine or Sidi Bishr on leave, but it was the end of the year before everybody in the battalion had had a week off. Palestine and Alexandria were welcome rests from the Baggush dust, but no leave is ever long enough, and when the men got back it was only an hour or two before they were as dirty and gritty as ever.

Until early October the same old daily routine went on. It was a thirsty time, with water scarce and strictly rationed. The food wasn't bad, but lacked greens and potatoes. The beer supply, though fairly regular, was never enough to satisfy seven hundred robust thirsts.

From 7 October digging stopped for a few days while 18 Battalion moved camp inland to be nearer its work, but this was a busman's holiday. The new camp had to be organised and dug in, and then back went the battalion to its defences again. It couldn't go swimming now, but that didn't matter so much, as the weather was cooling off. B Company alone stayed in the old camp for beach defence, going to the digging site by truck every morning and back in the afternoon.

Things have to be pretty grim before a unit welcomes a return to training, but it was quite a relief for 18 Battalion to have a little of this in late October.

First there was a two days' manoeuvre out in the desert, with tanks attached for the first time. Real textbook work, this—the tanks moving majestically into the attack, followed by carriers, with the infantry in trucks coming up 200 yards behind, then debussing and rushing forward when the tanks joined action—very nice, so long as there is no real enemy there to mess things up.

Then, on 28 October, to everyone's pleasure, digging was suspended, and a full fortnight of training began. For a week the companies trained independently, then the whole battalion (except for beach and anti-aircraft guards) spent several days travelling about over the desert on battalion and brigade manoeuvres. If there was any man in the unit who hadn't realised what foot-slogging meant, he now knew. One morning the battalion tramped 14½ miles, which is more than enough over rough, stony desert. Some of the moves were made in trucks, but bouncing round in the back of a truck among the dust stirred up by dozens of other trucks is not much more fun than walking. Nights were cold now, too, and sandstorms much more frequent.

On 28 October the battalion exchanged its summer clothes for winter ones, and was quite glad to do so. A week or two later the despised topees were exchanged for a new type of cap, a funny little fore-and-after, peculiarly uncomfortable, known officially as the ‘cap F.S.’, but unofficially by a less respectable title. These caps were tolerated, but there were still sighs of regret for the old New Zealand felt hats.

The manoeuvres ended, and for the next fortnight work on the Baggush Box alternated with exercises and bivouacs out in the desert. These exercises, though they were pretty strenuous and kept everybody busy, were much more to the men's taste than the dreary daily round at Baggush, particularly if they involved field firing or live anti-aircraft shoots. Food arrangements were free and easy. Everybody took his own rations (supplemented in many cases with tinned food from the canteen), and as a rule the sections got together to do their cooking. Most of them had by this time pooled their funds and bought primus stoves; those who had not had the foresight to do this now regretted it, and took the first opportunity to remedy the deficiency. Through the campaigning ahead primuses were to prove indispensable items of every section's equipment, as indispensable as the Bren gun. Their official fuel was kerosene, but they seemed to go just as well on petrol, which was much easier to get.

Each of these exercises saw the teamwork a little better, the whole unit functioning a little smoother, the men a little more self-reliant and capable of taking active campaigning in their stride. ‘Battle procedure’ is the official name for all this. It is the ‘know-how’ of soldiering, the culminating point of training, the putting into practice of the knowledge laboriously built up over months of hard work.

For the exercises the battalion had to do without D Company and the carriers, which had gone back to Fuka on beach patrol. The 18th at last had its full complement of ten carriers and the platoon could now function completely. The carriers were not in the same street as tanks, but they were fast and well armed and the crews well trained. They made up quite an effective little striking force within the battalion.

On 18 November Mussolini's airmen scored their second success against the battalion, but only accidentally, many miles from home, at Siwa Oasis, deep in the desert to the south. Here one of the battalion's anti-aircraft trucks, complete with gun and crew, had gone as escort to a stores convoy, but hardly had it arrived when it got a pasting from Italian bombers, which missed the trucks but wounded Corporal Norm Forrest-Brown

L-Sgt N. L. Forrest-Brown; Auckland; born Auckland, 6 May 1918; clerk; wounded 18 Nov 1940.

and Private Frank Nathan.

Lt F. A. Nathan; Auckland; born Auckland, 3 Aug 1918; storeman; twice wounded.

CSM Fred Bowes, the commander of the detachment, also collected a few scratches, but not enough to put him out of action—he got the other two to safety away from the scene, an exploit which later helped to earn him the BEM.

On the night of 26 November the heavens above Baggush opened. This was the first real rain 18 Battalion had seen for months, and it poured down in torrents. Daylight revealed desolation in camp, tents flooded out, gear soaked and covered with mud, trucks half drowned in their protective trenches. The RQMS's and armourer's marquees suffered particularly heavily—they had been pitched, somewhat incautiously, at the bottom of a wadi, which was transformed in a few hours into a rushing river five feet deep. It took two days of solid work to fix the damage and get everything cleaned up, and two more to repair the defensive positions, most of which were half silted up.

However, Egypt doesn't know the meaning of moderation. If it isn't flood it is dust. Following the downpour there were weeks of intermittent sandstorms, vicious and penetrating. Tempers, already frayed, were blown to tatters by the dust-laden wind. The will to work diminished. Even the arrival of a big draft of reinforcements, over ninety of them, didn't stir 18 Battalion to any heights of enthusiasm. The drivers got a mild pleasure out of the new Ford trucks they received on 1 December, but even these soon became just part of the furniture, representing more work for their owners—until 9 December, when the news of General Wavell's westward push brought fresh anticipation. Surely the Kiwis couldn't be left out this time.

Then, as day followed day with no sign of a change in the usual routine, disillusionment crept in once again and grew and grew till the men were, to quote one of them, ‘hopping mad at not being in’. All they could do was raise a passing interest in the RAF bombers going overhead at all hours of the day and night, but that was due to envy rather than anything else, and soon palled. There were no more Italian airmen, even during the full moon period in the middle of the month. The Baggush Box, despite the resentment glowing beneath the surface, was very placid externally.

The men couldn't even work off their anger on the unresponsive desert now. The digging was finished, the positions wired, and from 12 December the 18th went back to company training, which meant a struggle by the officers to keep their men from boredom. The beach patrols were finished, too. Early in the month A and C Companies had taken over the patrol jobs from B at Baggush and D at Fuka, but three days later the whole crowd was back in camp, and 19 Battalion took its place on the beaches.

A few men, mostly transport drivers, managed to see a little of the fun, though from a safe distance. Twenty of the battalion's trucks, loaded with supplies, left Baggush for Sidi Barrani, just short of the frontier, and came back a week later with truckloads of Italian prisoners. Lieutenant Green

Maj H. M. Green, m.i.d.; born England, 3 Sep 1905; sales manager; died of wounds 3 Dec 1943.

took a small party of twenty-five men up to the frontier to drive captured trucks back. A few more drivers went off to tow heavy anti-aircraft guns up to Sidi Barrani, and a week before Christmas all men who could drive diesel trucks (plus a few who said they could) were let loose on a park of captured Italian diesels at Garawla, and got enough of them going to take another load of supplies to the frontier. These men were the lucky ones, envied by all the rest. True, they didn't get near the fighting, but they saw where it had been, and went to places such as Sollum, Capuzzo and Halfaya (Hellfire) Pass, whose names shed a sort of temporary romance over that unromantic frontier. And they gathered up a certain amount of loot. Not the best of the loot, which had already had the eyes picked out of it, but plenty of Italian clothing, tinned food, and the neat, light little triangular groundsheets which were so much handier than the cumbersome British ones for making up a bedroll. In 1940, as always, the word ‘loot’ had a special magic for all New Zealanders; and this haul, being the first that had fallen into 18 Battalion's lap, was particularly valued.

Worthy of special mention is the master-stroke brought off by Private Colin Urry,

Pte C. T. Urry; Auckland; born NZ 24 Jan 1918; labourer; wounded 20 Apr 1941.

who came back from one of these expeditions driving a huge Italian 10-ton lorry containing signals equipment, destined for a salvage dump at Mersa Matruh. By some strange accident he missed the dump and ended up in 18 Battalion's lines, truck and all. This ended the battalion's chronic shortage of signal cable, and provided enough telephones for nearly every platoon to have one.

Then came the first overseas Christmas, and things brightened up temporarily, under the influence of a huge parcel mail from home, a fine Christmas dinner, and enough alcohol to put everybody in a pleasant frame of mind. New Year was fittingly celebrated, too; at midnight on 31 December 1940 Baggush was lit up by a pyrotechnic display of flares and tracer bullets with a discordant accompaniment of rifle fire and Italian hand grenades. There were no casualties, but for a little while the air was full of flying metal.

These two celebrations brought only temporary relief to the general discontent. Just before the New Year the Kiwis had another smack in the eye—19 Australian Brigade, a much more recent arrival in the Middle East, was ordered off up to the front, and, to add insult to injury, it was 4 Brigade that had to provide transport for it. Not only 18 Battalion, but all the New Zealanders, shook with fury at this. What were these Aussies doing getting in on the fighting, while they themselves sat on their behinds hundreds of miles away? Public opinion blamed the Second Echelon, still half the world away in England, which was quite unjustifiably despised by the old lags of the First Echelon. ‘If those … were here,’ was the growl, ‘we'd be in all right.’

The 18th was a little mollified by Lieutenant-Colonel Gray, who came back from a visit to the Libyan front and told the battalion all about it. The theme of his closing remarks was, ‘Don't be disappointed at not having been in the fun. Enjoy yourselves while you can. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow—well, tomorrow won't be long now.’ The men were a little sceptical, and understandably so; they had heard it all before. But not as sceptical as sometimes, for now there were, at last, signs pointing to something more active. The battalion was under a warning order to move back from the desert to Helwan, where, according to the CO, it would train for a month or so, including a trip to the Suez Canal for bridge-building with the engineers.

This sort of thing was good for a crop of rumours any day. Abyssinia and the Sudan were tentatively mentioned, but the most persistent was Europe. Life began to hold some interest and anticipation again. There might yet be some action shortly. And whatever happened, thank God, they would be getting away from that wretched Baggush Box, with its flying sand and rationed water. They wouldn't have to bear the stigma ‘lines of communication troops’ for very much longer.

The battalion's departure from Baggush was, for some reason, delayed until the end of the second week in January, and the companies filled in the time with more day-to-day training, including a little live shooting on the beach. On 10 January they struck tents, packed their heavy gear, and sent it off to Sidi Haneish to be loaded on the railway. On the 11th the transport set out for Helwan. After breakfast on the 12th the men shouldered their heavy packs, tramped the short distance to the railway line, and climbed on to the train. It was no more luxurious than the usual Egyptian train, with square wheels and slat seats, but to 18 Battalion it was the loveliest train in the world, as it bumped them across the desert, back towards civilisation, away from the Baggush Box.

GREECE Coloured map of Greece

CHAPTER 6 Over the Water

Helwan Camp didn't look very civilised when the battalion arrived; but all were glad to get there, especially the transport, which had driven part of the way through a stinging dust-storm which scoured paint off the vehicles and made driving a torture. The camp was on comparatively level ground, and was not such a far-flung, sprawling affair as Maadi—it had good bitumen roads, and its canteen huts and so on didn't look too bad. There was the luxury of daily hot showers, too.

The battalion turned to on arrival, put up its tents and dug itself in, but this sort of thing was just a chore by now, all in the day's work. The prospect of leave to Cairo once again was pleasant. Leave began almost at once, every evening if you could stand the strain, and weekend leave for a few. Those who could afford it went from the camp to Helwan by taxi; those who couldn't took the bus. Diesel trains ran from Helwan to Cairo. It was a five-mile run into Helwan, past a big prison camp containing what looked like Mussolini's entire army.

The highlight of the first week in Helwan was the issue of a brand-new type of uniform, the famous battle dress. Before the unit left Baggush this had been promised, but the men were a bit wary of army promises, and preferred to wait and see rather than get too enthusiastic in advance. However, this promise was fulfilled only a week after the move to Helwan. Everybody liked the battle dress at once. The loose-fitting jacket, warm and comfortable, with its snug waist belt, inside which two bottles could be safely hidden; the capacious pockets; the trousers, high at the back to keep your kidneys warm, and wide enough in the leg to put on without taking your boots off; above all, the absence of brass buttons and fittings to shine; all these brought the battle dress into immediate favour, which it never lost.

Once more the battalion pitched headlong into training. The men didn't mind. After months of free-and-easy rules of dress, they muttered a little when they had to doll up for a battalion or church parade. But the training they entered into with plenty of spirit. They were pretty well trained by now, and very fit; this was the final polish, so to speak. There was action ahead, nobody doubted that. So there was a zest in their approach to the work.

The first week everybody had a couple of days on the Maadi firing range. Enough new Bren guns were issued to bring the unit, for the first time, up to strength. Every rifle and machine gun was tested and zeroed. After that a lot of their time was spent out in the desert, on route marches and manoeuvres, in full battle order—rifle, ammunition, respirator and tin hat, rations and water, and only the lightest possible load of personal gear. The emphasis in these manoeuvres was now on the specialists rather than on the ordinary infantrymen. The main points stressed were liaison, communication and coordination, the way to run a battle without getting everything tangled up.

Late in January the battalion practised an advance for the first time under live shell, mortar and Vickers gun fire, carefully regulated to give an ample safety margin. This was a full-dress show, as much like a real battle as it could be with no actual enemy there. The pioneers erected a regimental aid post and headquarters, carriers brought ammunition up and moved the mortars from place to place, provosts directed traffic, snipers sniped, signallers laid telephone lines out to the companies, the anti-aircraft men set up their guns round Battalion Headquarters and the transport.

More manoeuvres in February stressed other technical points of the management of a battle. How to move in the desert, the trucks in a big square covering miles of country, with front, rear and flanks protected by carriers and anti-tank guns; how to dispose the battalion on the battlefield, whether walking, sitting still or riding in trucks; how to set up a position with anti-tank and Vickers guns in support; how to cross a river.

This last was the most interesting of all, something out of the ordinary—though, as things turned out, it was the only one 18 Battalion never had a chance to put into practice in action. The unit didn't go to the Suez Canal after all, but only to the Nile five or six miles away from camp, where it used kapok bridging and folding assault boats to cross a small canal and then the river itself. Even the carriers and some more of the vehicles were taken across on wooden rafts, each supported by two assault boats. The crossing took most of the day, as each assault boat could carry only five men at once besides its crew, but they got there in the end. Then a week later they came back and repeated the exercise at night; this time there was some unrehearsed fun caused by boats sticking on sandbanks in mid-stream.

This was the first ditch 18 Battalion had crossed; the time was fast approaching when they were to cross one much bigger.Towards the end of February it became obvious that things were moving. Excitement and its attendant Rumour once more began to flourish. Departure now could only be for a battlefront. This was confirmed by the arrival of the advance party of the Second Echelon from England. Sixty men from 21 Battalion arrived in mid-February and were billeted in 18 Battalion's lines—the old envy of the Second Echelon hadn't quite disappeared, but it died fast when the 21 Battalion men came in, and men of 18 Battalion recognised old friends or made new ones.

Yes, it could only be for a battlefront. The whole division was coming together at last, and hadn't Major - General Freyberg promised that when that happened they would be in, boots and all? They were trained up to fighting pitch. Their numbers were filled up, too—seven new officers joined the battalion at Helwan, including the first ‘originals’ to get their commissions in the Middle East, and right at the last minute, as gear was being packed to leave Helwan, 200 of the newly-arrived 4th Reinforcements came in to replace the men who had dropped out through sickness or transfers.

The big question was, which battlefront? Europe (probably Greece) was the favourite bet all through, especially when balaclavas were issued to everybody. But this belief faltered a day or two later when the battle dress was handed in and tropical gear issued—topees, mosquito nets and repellent ointment, and shorts which could be let down below your knees for protection against mosquitoes. The men seeing these voluminous shorts for the first time goggled in amazement. These were the famous ‘Bombay bloomers’, whose reputation for inelegance was never to die in the NZEF. Anyhow, the net result was that when 18 Battalion finally left Helwan it didn't know where it was going, but could only guess.

The move out, as usual, came rather suddenly. Just after breakfast on 27 February a warning order arrived, and within half an hour the battalion was on the job packing up kitbags and striking camp. That night it slept under the stars. Early on the 28th the transport headed away north out of camp, and two hours later the rest of the battalion piled into trucks and went to the railway siding near the Italian prison camp, where a train with its palatial third-class carriages was waiting. Away it went, through Cairo and north across the Delta country. North, and still north. The Abyssinia and East Africa rumours died a natural death as the train got nearer to Alexandria, and once more the words ‘Europe’ and ‘Greece’ were on all lips. The battalion's spirits were higher than they had ever been. They were leaving behind the increasing spring heat and the rapidly multiplying flies of Egypt, and were going where at last they could ‘get stuck into’ the enemy. It had been a long and trying wait, but it was coming to an end now.

But there was another horror to overcome first, and that was Amiriya transit camp.

Amiriya is a spot which all Kiwis remember with loathing, and none more so than those who went to Greece in 1941. It is a desolate place on the south shore of Lake Maryut; its only virtue is that, being close to the main road, it is a convenient place for troops to camp and wait their turn to embark at Alexandria, 15 miles away. In the palm trees by the railway siding there is a Egyptian village peopled by expert thieves. Outside the palms there is only hard, baked desert stretching out to infinity, with (in those days) a British transit camp planted grimly in the middle.

The transport reached this health resort on the afternoon of 28 February in torrential rain, which was still falling when the rest of the unit came in early in the evening. The camp was a shambles. Whoever had used the tents last had left them dirty (not unusual in transit camps), the dust had been churned into soupy mud, and some of the tents had rivers flowing through them. The luckiest men were the carrier drivers, who didn't get off the train but went straight on to Alexandria with their carriers to be loaded on a cargo ship. The rest packed as best they could into the Amiriya tents, which wouldn't have been enough to go round comfortably even under good conditions. As it was, the men were jammed in like sardines. The camp was chock-a-block with British, Indian, Australian and New Zealand soldiers.

For three days it rained, while 18 Battalion sat in its tents and cursed. The men couldn't do much, and couldn't go anywhere, because their orders were to be ready to move out at short notice. They got a fresh issue of battle dress, which was very welcome, as the weather was cool and all their other clothes wet. Their main occupation for the three days was to sit and watch the never-ending streams of British and New Zealand trucks filing past along the main road to Alexandria. Their own transport left on 4 March. Its instructions were to keep petrol for only 30 miles after reaching the docks, so hundreds of gallons were run out on to the sand, which everyone considered a sinful waste.

On 4 March the weather cleared and the ground began to dry out, which relieved the general gloom a little. But everyone was sick of hanging round such a dismal hole with nothing to do.

The only bright spot in the week 18 Battalion spent at Amiriya was the affair of the picture theatre. The ubiquitous Mr Shafto had built one there, a flimsy structure put together largely of old kerosene tins and sacking. It was easy enough to tear holes in the walls, and consequently most of the New Zealanders in camp got in free for several nights. Eventually the management, waking up to what was going on, decided to close for repairs; but the loss of their entertainment (which wasn't much good, but the only one available) so displeased the soldiers that they burnt the theatre down.

Two days later, on 6 March, 18 Battalion received its sailing orders for next day.

The 7th March began early for C and D Companies, who were dragged out of bed at 4.45 a.m., and at six o'clock left for Amiriya siding, two miles along the road, weighed down under their gear. The train trip to Alexandria was quite short; C and D Companies arrived there before the rest of the battalion left Amiriya at 9 a.m. By midday the whole unit had embarked, C and D Companies on HMS Orion and the rest on HMS Ajax. Just after twelve o'clock the ships moved away from the wharf, past lines of French warships at anchor in the harbour; these were the ships that had got away from Toulon under the noses of the Germans, and as such aroused intense interest. The men lined the cruisers' rails as they passed, and the ships exchanged salutes.

Relations between the Kiwis and the sailors were excellent from the first minute. The Orion and Ajax were so crowded that it was hard to find a vacant spot on deck to sit down, but the Navy made its guests welcome, fed them well, and went out of its way to do them favours when the occasion offered. A trip aboard a cruiser was a novelty to all in 18 Battalion, and everyone enjoyed it. It was a very different convoy from the battalion's previous one—instead of big liners moving majestically along in rows, there were only three low, grey, businesslike cruisers forging ahead, with spray flung high back from their bows. North-west they headed, at high speed, carrying the New Zealanders towards Greece and their baptism of fire.

Daybreak on 8 March found the convoy running up the Aegean Sea, studded with dozens of little rocky islands. At midday, just twenty-four hours after leaving Alexandria, the cruisers entered Piraeus harbour, and after lunch the Kiwis took leave of their friends the sailors and filed down the gangway.

So the rumours were set at rest, and 18 Battalion was in Greece. But why was it there?

It had for some time been obvious that the German drive down through the Balkans would inevitably hit Greece before long. The Greeks, even without their war against the Italians in Albania, would have no chance of successfully resisting the mighty German war machine, so Britain had offered them aid, promising to send a force as soon as the Germans entered Bulgaria. This happened on 1 March. The New Zealand Division was at once sent over as the forerunner of an Imperial force; 18 Battalion, the Division's own advanced guard, was among the first British units to reach the country.

And what a welcome it got! As it left Piraeus and drove through Athens in borrowed trucks, it was greeted with an enthusiasm rivalling that of Auckland fifteen months before. All Athens was on the streets waving, cheering and throwing flowers. That is, all the women, children and old men; for this country was at war, and scarcely an able-bodied man was to be seen. The battalion passed right through the city and out some five miles towards the foothills in the other direction, where a pleasant surprise awaited it—there, in a lovely little wooded valley, among pine trees, was a camp, not quite completed, but habitable, with most of the tents already up.

This miracle had been wrought by Cypriot pioneers, assisted by the men of the transport platoon, who had arrived the day before. Their trip over had not been as free from incident as the main body's; it had lasted three days, and included a bombing raid by Italian planes. Their trucks were not yet unloaded—they arrived in small groups spread over the next three days—but there the drivers were, welcoming the battalion to its temporary home.

Hymettus camp was a lovely spot. After the barren wastes of Egypt, the men revelled in the sight and smell of trees and grass. The Greeks, who came in swarms to visit the camp, were friendly, hospitable folk, the greatest possible contrast to the grimy, cadging, thieving mobs of Cairo. In the neighbouring village and in Athens many things were free to the Kiwis, who for the first time found some difficulty in spending their money (500 drachmae, equal to just under a pound, was the weekly pay). Everybody had two or three opportunities of going to Athens. They tried out the wine; they gaped at the ancient monuments, and marvelled at the view from the Acropolis; they really gave Athens a good look over. They knew they wouldn't be staying in these delightful surroundings for more than a few days before moving on to a sterner spot where, at last, they could expect to come face to face with the enemy; but despite that, or more likely because of that, spirits were high. Eighteenth Battalion had waited impatiently to come to grips with the enemy, and now the time was very close.

Theoretically, the presence of New Zealand troops in Greece was most strictly secret. No badges, no New Zealand emblems, were worn; even mail was stopped. But all these precautions didn't do an atom of good. How could they? All the world can recognise a New Zealander, and here in Athens—comic opera situation—the German Embassy was still in business, its staff mingling with the Kiwis in the crowded streets, sitting at the next tables in the restaurants, noting every detail. They had even been on the Piræus wharf with their little notebooks. So it is no wonder that 18 Battalion looked on the security restrictions with an eye of scorn.

From 11 March 18 Battalion was on six hours' notice to pack up and leave, and everyone knew it wouldn't be long, because the transport loaded up that evening, and left Hymettus at 5.30 next morning. The rest of the battalion had their last look at Athens on the 12th, then, early on the morning of the 13th, they packed up and left by truck in small groups for the Rouf railway station in Athens. At 1 p.m. the train pulled out, followed by cheers and waves from the crowd gathered to watch the departure. The battalion's destination was Katerini, 170 miles north as the crow flies, but twice that by road or rail through the rugged Greek mountains.

The road trip was full of interest, though it was tough driving. From Athens the road wound upwards through a land of craggy mountains, gorges and fertile valleys, over zigzag passes and down again on to narrow plains that ended in more mountains. Many rivers crossed or paralleled the road, a few wide and easy-flowing, but most of them rushing, steep torrents with narrow stone bridges over them. In places the roadway was too narrow for comfort, and the rough surface caused a lot of punctures and blowouts—and this was a main road. The drivers were yet in happy ignorance of what the Greek secondary roads were like.

Every now and again the convoy passed bands of women at work repairing the roads. This was something the New Zealanders were to see many times in this war-harassed country—women and old men forced to do heavy work because they were the only ones left at home to do it. They worked slowly and laboriously, but, no matter how tired they were, there was always a wave and a smile for the Kiwis. It made the men feel almost ashamed to be driving past in the luxury of lorries.

The night of 12 March found the convoy on the wide Larisa plain. It bivouacked in the town of Larisa, and moved on next morning, up into the mountains again, over the dizzy winding heights of Mount Olympus, and steeply down to Katerini, arriving at 3 p.m.

The main body of the battalion, though it missed much of the magnificent scenery by travelling all night, had plenty of fun—while daylight lasted the men could look at the rugged beauty of Greece with more appreciative eyes through not having to keep them glued to the road, and at the frequent halts they fraternised with the villagers, and could buy extras like eggs and fresh brown bread to vary their rations of bully and biscuits. Their night was a miserable one—everyone nearly froze, especially the guards on the carriers, which were on open trucks. At daybreak snow was falling gently round them, something quite new to most. From the train they could see a group of massive snowy peaks, which (although they didn't know it) was Mount Olympus. Then down through a gorge to the coast, north along cliff tops overlooking the Aegean, and on to Katerini just before midday.

Katerini is a town of some 10,000 people, but, like so many other Southern European towns, it seems to be built huddled and piled up on top of itself, and occupies so small an area that it is hard to see how so many people could fit in. Its narrow streets are a traffic hazard that 18 Battalion was to find repeated in innumerable other towns and villages in Greece, Crete, and later in Italy. It is only about five miles from the coast, in country that, though steeply undulating, is flat compared to most of Greece. South of it rise the foothills of Olympus, and to the north a lower spur of the same mountain chain, separating the town from the mouth of the Aliakmon River 18 miles away. The land round the town, thought 18 Battalion, was mostly poor—bare ridges, clumps of firs and evergreens in the gullies, occasional grey stone outcrops; a few groves of twisted olive trees, which somehow always seem to give their surroundings an even more barren look.

But this unprepossessing countryside was more than offset by the people the battalion found there. It was about a mile from the train to the unit's billets, and as the men marched through the streets with full packs up they got a great reception. They were among the first British troops to come as far north as this, and to the Greeks they were the deliverers who were going to preserve their homes from the enemy hordes. They were also a curiosity. During their short stay in Katerini they were followed everywhere by crowds of people so frankly inquisitive as to be embarrassing. But this was matched by a hospitality and friendliness just as great as that of Athens, though slightly less demonstrative.

Battalion Headquarters was set up in the town's municipal building, and the companies were billeted in empty houses and barns, in the local school, or with Greek families. The carrier crews alone were left out in the cold, under canvas in a park. It was cold, too, and no mistake—an icy wind from Olympus penetrated to the marrow, especially now that a year in Egypt had thinned the blood.

Despite the cold and the looming threat of invasion, there was a happy atmosphere in Katerini, and relations between the Kiwis and the Greeks were very cordial. The language difficulty was great, it is true, but not insurmountable—you can put a lot across in a few ungrammatical phrases, helped along by the international language of the hands. When off duty the men mingled freely with the civilians, sampled mavrodaphne, retsina and krassi in their wineshops, visited their homes and were royally entertained.

However, the stay in Katerini wasn't just a holiday. Some of the truck drivers spent their working hours carting shingle for the engineers for road repair. The rest of the battalion had a few short, vigorous route marches, and spent one day on the beach five miles away, where they did some shooting with rifles and anti-tank rifles, and all the Bren guns were given a final range test. An attempt was also made during these few days to instil into everyone's mind the idea of taking cover from hostile planes by using trees, buildings, or whatever natural cover might be available. This had been impossible in Africa, of course, but was quite feasible here, and very practical, with the Germans likely to bring to the attack the weight of an overwhelmingly superior air force. The time was not far away, indeed, when the safety of every man in the battalion was to depend on concealment from the air.

Another noteworthy event in Katerini was a church parade on Sunday, 16 March, in the town's Congregational church. The battalion filled the ground floor, but the gallery was crowded with civilians, attracted more by curiosity than piety, who joined heartily in the hymns in their own tongue, and listened with grave attention to the service, of which they couldn't understand a word. Soldiers, even regular churchgoers, can see nothing good in compulsory church parades as a rule, but this one was something out of the ordinary. It seemed to epitomise the bond of sympathy that had sprung up spontaneously between Kiwi and Greek, a bond that was not to be repeated anywhere else.

From the time 18 Battalion reached Katerini it was common knowledge that its stay there would be short, and that it was going up into the low hills north of the town to dig positions and man a line which was to stop the Germans cold when they arrived. The men knew no more details than that, and they didn't know the other side of the picture. They didn't know that the forces the British had been able to spare from Africa were quite insufficient to stand up against a powerful German assault. They didn't know the terrible difficulties faced by the Allied command in Greece, the grave doubts about the Greek Army's fighting capacity, the problems involved in siting a line to cover all possible approaches from the north, the danger that a line based on Katerini and the Aliakmon River might be outflanked from the west and cut off. They were full of confidence in themselves, in their training, their weapons, and their ability to see the Jerries off. ‘Let ‘em all come’ was 18 Battalion's attitude at this time.

Lieutenant-Colonel Gray and his company commanders left Katerini on 15 March and spent three days having a good look over the defensive sector allotted to the battalion, and deciding the details of its occupation. On the morning of the 18th the men reluctantly said goodbye to their good friends in Katerini. They would be back, they promised. But army promises are iffy things, and nearly all the men who saw Katerini again did so under vastly different conditions, as unwilling guests of the German government. Of this, however, there was no premonition that morning, as they shouldered their packs and set out light-heartedly into the hills.

CHAPTER 7 The First Encounter

The British and Greek governments had decided in February that a combined Anglo-Greek force would occupy the Aliakmon River line. This line was not fortified, but followed a series of river and mountain obstacles from the mouth of the Aliakmon west and north-west to the Yugoslav border.

Greece's northern frontier adjoins, from west to east, Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. An enemy thrust through Albania, or through Yugoslavia to Monastir (a frontier township in a natural valley approach), would come in behind the Aliakmon line, but it was hoped that Albania could be taken care of by the Greek armies then holding the Italians there, and that an entry through Yugoslavia would be successfully opposed by the Yugoslavs themselves.

The sector into which the New Zealanders were ordered wasn't too good. It was steep, and mostly covered with small oak saplings. Roads didn't exist, only cart tracks, muddy and slippery after the winter. There were no prepared defences there at all. The Division's front of ten miles was uncomfortably long. Taken all round, the outlook wasn't very encouraging.

But, as mentioned, the men of 18 Battalion (the first New Zealand battalion to arrive in the Aliakmon line) knew nothing of these misgivings. They didn't even mind digging, now that (as they thought) the positions were going to be put to a worthwhile purpose. So when the unit left Katerini it was in first-rate spirits and eager to get going.

For a few days the battalion was split up. Headquarters, B and D Companies and Battalion Headquarters headed north on foot towards their battle sector. A and C Companies rode in more comfort back along the main road to the Olympus Pass to begin work on a position there, covering a demolition which the engineers were preparing on the road in the pass.

The road from Katerini enters the pass through a narrow defile guarded by two abrupt crags. To the higher of these, Point 917, a conical hill west of the road, went A Company. C Company took the other, on the opposite side of the road, a rocky outcrop christened ‘Gibraltar’ by the Kiwis. On these steep slopes the companies set to work to carve out the best positions they could. They wasted no time. They had to get back to the battalion as soon as possible, and holes couldn't be hewn in that rock in an hour or two. Besides, it was cold up there, with the snowline not far above. There was no opportunity the first night to make a proper bivouac, and the next morning everyone woke up lightly coated with snow and aching with cold. This snow wasn't so good at close quarters, the men decided. Later in the day the sun thawed most of it, or reduced it to wet slush which was even worse.

All 19 and 20 March the companies worked. On the 20th the pass road was swarming with activity, and the men looked down on to truck after truck moving north—the rest of 4 Brigade on its way to join 18 Battalion in the line. After their baptism of snow, A and C Companies felt like seasoned winter campaigners, much superior to these newcomers; but it was very nice to see them, just the same.

On the morning of 21 March A Company left Olympus and bounced its way back through Katerini to rejoin the battalion up in the hills. C Company worked on Gibraltar for another day, and on the 22nd handed over to a company of 19 Battalion and moved north in its turn, bringing all of 18 Battalion together again.

The main body of the battalion, when it left Katerini on the 18th, headed north by one of the muddy tracks that criss-crossed the countryside, and after eight miles of ridges and gullies arrived at Palionellini, a huddled-up village built across a saddle, with spectacularly cobbled streets which, 18 Battalion was sure, had never before felt the weight of trucks. Certainly they weren't built for motor traffic. The battalion's arrival caused a local sensation; all Palionellini turned out to gaze as the men came in. There was a small party of New Zealand engineers there already, but the sudden advent of some 300 more strange soldiers was truly an event.There the companies stayed, except for B Company, which went straight through the village and on another four miles by an even worse track to the hamlet of Mikri Milia, perched on a long east-west ridge. Along this ridge, at Mikri Milia and its companion hamlet of Paliostani, was to be 18 Battalion's battle position.

The job at Palionellini was to help the engineers widen and straighten the alleged road that ran up through the village. A miserable track this was, but it would have to be a main access to 4 Brigade's battle position, and before it could function as such it needed a good face-lift. So for three days the men toiled with pick and shovel—they were pretty good at that by now—and, despite light snowfalls, succeeded in reducing the mud to something like a passable road. Then they packed up and marched away north, company by company, to join B Company. By 22 March the whole battalion (A and C Companies too) was together again, and at last the digging of its first real battle position could begin in earnest.

The Mikri Milia–Paliostani ridge dropped away abruptly on the north to the Toponitsa River. From it there was a wide view over the lower hills falling away to the Aliakmon plain, and beyond that the peaks of Eastern Macedonia, with Salonika gleaming across the gulf on a clear day. The ridge was a hotchpotch of small ploughed fields, patches of young green wheat, and oak thickets, from which rose the thin smoke of charcoal-burners' fires. It was undoubtedly poor, and so were the two villages crowning it, but they gave the battalion a friendly welcome.

The programme up on the ridge was more digging. The ideal of connected and mutually supporting positions was out of the question here, as there were not enough battalions to go round, and so each one had an uncomfortably wide front to look after. Also, the ridge was too sharp and narrow to be manned in any depth. The only feasible way of meeting these difficulties was to hold the top with a series of ‘company localities’—strong, dug-in positions in the most commanding spots, each holding a company, and placed so as to defend themselves from any direction, against possible paratroops or Fifth Columnists from the rear as well as against the expected attack from the north. This 18 Battalion proceeded to do: one company round Paliostani; one along the ridge a mile east of it; one at Mikri Milia and on the ridge near by; the fourth in reserve just behind Mikri Milia. Headquarters Company and Battalion Headquarters were at Mikri Milia too.

For the first few inches of top soil the digging was easy, but then came tough clay that really tested the muscles. The holes had to be deep—weapon pits five feet, and roofed dugouts for living quarters deeper still. The men didn't live in the dugouts, but occupied more comfortable quarters in the villages and farms (except for C Company, which spent a week after its arrival in an oak plantation). Mikri Milia and Paliostani were small, and 18 Battalion taxed their accommodation fully and would have overtaxed it but for the monastery. This fine building, in a lovely green valley half a mile north of Mikri Milia, had plenty of room for a company—two of them for a few days. Every rifle company except D had a turn living there. The Greek Orthodox monks evidently housed themselves pretty well. They purveyed excellent wine, and kept their guests supplied with fresh vegetables, which was very good, as since leaving Hymettus the battalion had subsisted mainly on bully and biscuits, and not always much of those.

Up here on the ridge the food situation improved, as the local people nearly always had a few eggs or a loaf of fresh brown bread to exchange for a tin of bully or a few empty petrol tins, which for some reason were much sought after. It was even possible sometimes to buy a chicken or a lamb. For a little more variety many of the men visited Kolindros, a good-sized town on the next ridge north, where there were shops and cafæs, and they could get something to eat and some wine with it. So the short rations didn't worry them too much. Far worse was a tobacco shortage, which caused real hardship to some.

The weather favoured the work. In the first few days there were some light skiffs of snow, but spring seemed to be well on the way, and most days were bright and sunny. The nights were freezing—it must be confessed that 18 Battalion was caught on the hop by the bitter mountain frosts, and many men spent sleepless nights, numb with cold, before extra clothes and blankets were organised. But the battalion was in excellent fettle, and wasn't going to let a little bit of cold deter it. So the work went on, while over the heads of the unheeding Kiwis far-reaching decisions affecting their future were made.

The original idea had been for the Division's ten-mile front to be held by 4 Brigade on the right and 6 Brigade on the left. This would have strained its resources, but the line could have been made reasonably strong. But now came a bombshell. Nineteenth Greek Division (on the coast) was to move forward to operate north of the Aliakmon. And the only troops readily available to take its place in the line were 6 Brigade.

This was a blow for General Freyberg—at a stroke his sector almost doubled. While before this the Division might have had a chance of holding its line, it would be impossible now. The line would be so thin, with such wide gaps, that the Germans would be able to get through it almost anywhere they chose. So Freyberg thought, and so he told General Wilson, commander of the British forces. The best solution, he suggested, would be to abandon the Aliakmon line and pull back to the higher, steeper country of the Olympus Pass.

General Wilson, unhappily, couldn't agree, as he was working hard for Yugoslav co-operation against the Germans, and so it was still essential to hold a line to the Yugoslav border. Priority could be given, he said, to work on the Olympus Pass line, but the New Zealand Division must stay in the Aliakmon line. So the preparations on the Mikri Milia ridge went on. Eighteenth Battalion, in happy ignorance that its work would probably be useless, toiled on, the companies outdoing each other to perfect their positions. Every few days the companies changed places, to get to know the topography of the whole ridge.

It was here that the battalion got its first issue of a new weapon, the Thompson sub-machine gun, already famous in underworld legends from America, given now to the New Zealanders at the rate of one to every rifle section. Its reception was a bit mixed at first, the ‘old school’ regarding it with suspicion, the less responsible as something to skylark with. It was in Crete, two months later, that the battalion learnt the value of the ‘Tommy gun’ as a close-range weapon; from then on its popularity never waned, and the man was lucky who could acquire one. The Bren and Tommy guns together made up the chief fire power of a section, and a good heavy fire power it was.

Since 21 March 20 Battalion had been up on 18 Battalion's left, the two units separated by an unmanned gap of two miles. It was no better on the other side—after the change in plans 25 Battalion of 6 Brigade came up on 18 Battalion's right, but its nearest troops were over a mile along the ridge from the battalion's flank. The gap on the left was 20 Battalion's responsibility. That on the right was 18 Battalion's, so from 30 March the carrier platoon sent out daily patrols along the track to 25 Battalion, and from 1 April the right-hand company sent a permanent standing patrol of a platoon out along the ridge to narrow the gap. Of these two the carrier patrol had much the better time. Its official beat was only as far as 25 Battalion, but actually the carriers roamed much farther afield and explored nooks and corners of the countryside unknown to the ordinary infantryman.

While all this was going on up front, the transport was busy carting gravel for various roading jobs all over the place. When off duty it was parked in a very nice spot near Katerini, with a stream running through the area, and plenty of trees. Its trucks were causing some headaches—the bad Greek roads, acting on a congenital weakness in the steering box, were making them crack up, and already several had had their steering replaced. This particular model hadn't really been a happy choice for tough work.

By 6 April 18 Battalion had its positions wired, had cleared fields of fire through the scrub, and was as ready as it could ever have been under the unfavourable conditions. It hadn't been easy. All the wire and sandbags, food, ammunition and other necessaries had been manhandled up. The battalion would have been in a bad position if it had been attacked during that fortnight, especially as until early April it was away up there on its own. Not till 3 April did it get any supporting artillery; then a New Zealand battery came along and dug in a mile and a half to the rear. About the same time two two-pounder anti-tank guns came up and were put in position covering the approaches to Mikri Milia.

Then, on 6 April 1941, Germany declared war on Greece and Yugoslavia, and her troops gatecrashed the Bulgarian frontier and moved swiftly and irresistibly on to Salonika. On 8 April 18 Battalion, from its grandstand seat, could hear demolitions and see fires in the city. From Salonika the Germans headed round the coast and down, straight at the New Zealanders, while another column moved down the Monastir Gap on to the Aliakmon line's flank. Within two days it became obvious to General Wilson that his Yugoslav gamble had failed—its resistance was weak and quickly collapsed. So on 8 April he abandoned the now useless Aliakmon line and ordered his forces back to the line of the mountain passes behind.

Even at this eleventh hour this move saved the New Zealand Division—as General Freyberg said, if it had been forced to fight on the Aliakmon line it would have been rounded up with all its equipment, and the history it was to make over the next four years wouldn't have been made. But to the men in the rifle companies, who didn't realise what danger was being averted, the withdrawal was a smack in the eye. Prudence, and the need to yield before overwhelming force, seemed to them like cowardice, so eager were they to try their strength against these invincible Germans.

The withdrawal order was only just in time, and the move back became a scramble. The toil of the last fortnight went for nothing; the units couldn't even stop now to recover the wire and sandbags they had so laboriously built into the Aliakmon positions. Brigadier Puttick

Lt-Gen Sir Edward Puttick, KCB, DSO and bar, m.i.d., MC (Gk), Legion of Merit (US); Wellington; born Timaru, 26 Jun 1890; Regular soldier; NZ Rifle Bde 1914-19 (CO 3 Bn); comd 4 Bde Jan 1940-Aug 1941; 2 NZ Div (Crete) 29 Apr-27 May 1941; CGS and GOC NZ Military Forces, Aug 1941-Dec 1945.

gave his orders verbally late on the afternoon of 8 April, while the men were still putting the final polish on the ridge defences—18 Battalion was to get out before daylight next morning, join the rest of 4 Brigade at an assembly area north of Katerini, and move back through the Olympus Pass (now manned by 5 Brigade). Before daylight next morning! That was short notice indeed.

The battalion sprang into action. The trucks were ordered up to Mikri Milia, and spent the evening loading up all the gear they could as it was brought in from the outlying positions. There wasn't room for all of it—some ammunition and some of the less essential gear had to be left behind, most of it destroyed on orders from Lieutenant-Colonel Gray. As much petrol as possible was crammed on the trucks. The RQMS, for the first time in history, opened up his ration store to all comers; food was packed into any spare corners of the trucks, and the men took as much as they could, along with their own equipment, rifles and tools, and one Bren gun to each platoon in case German planes came round. Everybody was loaded to capacity.

By midnight the battalion was ready to go. A few hours' sleep, and then it was 3 a.m., time to be up and going.The companies assembled just outside Mikri Milia, where the monastery track turned off, and at four o'clock set out back through Palionellini and down the track towards Katerini. In a glum silence the men sloshed through the mud, the same mud that they had traversed with such confidence a fortnight before. The withdrawal was a bitter dose to swallow. The only comfort was that at that hour of night their friends the Greeks weren't around to see them go.

The transport didn't leave Mikri Milia until 7 a.m., as driving over those tracks in the dark was almost impossible. It rejoined the companies at the assembly area; the whole battalion dispersed, with 19 and 20 Battalions, and settled down to wait for the ASC trucks which were to take it whereever it was going. The men hadn't the faintest notion where that was to be, and for the time being they didn't much care.

After a long morning's wait the ASC arrived and the long brigade convoy moved off. Nature was obviously in sympathy with the general mood. It was dull and lowering as the convoy swung out to bypass Katerini, and the same all the way to the Olympus Pass, through 5 Brigade and the artillery positions; and later it began to rain, lashing, soaking rain that froze you through and through. For the drivers, peering through their misted-up windscreens, trying to keep an eye on the chap ahead and at the same time keep from sliding off the road, it was no worse than for the infantrymen, sitting squashed up in the back, getting colder and colder. Those unlucky enough to be in open trucks were soaked to the skin before very long.

Their destination was the tiny village of Lava, from which they were to move forward to a position at Servia and the Portas (Servia) Pass, blocking the road by which the Germans were approaching from the Monastir Gap. From Katerini to Servia is only 30 miles in a straight line; but the road, away down south-west over Olympus and then north again at an acute angle, is three times as long, so it was an all-day trip for 18 Battalion, especially as most of the New Zealand Division seemed to be on the move at the same time. The drivers had had a taste of it before, but for most of the passengers it was the first long trip over the celebrated Greek roads, through the gorges, round the precipices, zig-zagging up and down dizzy slopes, with barely room for two lanes of traffic, through mud and potholes, in the rain. Before long everyone was praying for journey's end.

But when journey's end arrived, it wasn't any better than the trip. Late that afternoon a drenched battalion was decanted from the trucks on to the roadside miles from anywhere, and told to make the best of a patch of mud which was its bivouac area for the night.

The men were still debussing when three big bombers, roaring at low level up the road, turned every heart upside down and caused a spontaneous scatter to what cover the roadside afforded. They were British planes, as it turned out. But a senior officer remarked that the lesson of cover from the air had obviously been well learnt—the men vanished in the flash of an eye, like rabbits down a burrow.

Never in 18 Battalion's history, before or afterwards, was there such a night as that. A night of cold driving rain and sleet, with no tents, and no cover except that offered by the odd tree trunk or fold in the ground. Most men could only spread groundsheets on the mud, lie there in their blankets and take it. The only lucky ones were the drivers, who had the cabs of their trucks to sleep in, and the carrier crews, who rigged up their canvas covers and kept fairly dry. The cooks, all honour to them, fought to get their burners going, and managed late in the evening to turn on tea and stew—the first hot food for twenty-four hours. But it was a wretched, sleepless night, and everyone was fed up next morning, and ready to express free opinions of the Army and life in general.

Early on 10 April the battalion got further orders—go forward over the hills and take up a position overlooking Servia and the road from the north. It would be 4 Brigade's right-hand unit, with 19 Battalion on its left, and on its right the high, almost trackless Pierian Mountains, with no friendly troops nearer than the Olympus Pass.

Within an hour of getting the orders the troops were on the move, with their soaked gear on their backs, trudging in single file up a bridle track away from the road. The country was rugged, rocky and treeless, a dismal contrast to the cultivation farther east. At the village of Lava, a mile and a half off the road, they dropped Rear Battalion Headquarters, the cooks and other odds and ends; then the companies split up, B and C following one steep, slippery track, while A, D and Battalion Headquarters took another one farther to the right, over the shoulder of a hill and down the far side to the village of Kastania.

From Lava to the forward line was only a mile and a half, but the scramble over the tracks, up wild ravines and across slopes of loose shingle, took a good two hours. The men were tired and wet to begin with, and when they reached their positions, weighed down under weapons, equipment and personal gear, they were reeling with fatigue.

If the view from Mikri Milia had been splendid, that from the Servia position was breathtaking, if 18 Battalion had had any breath left to take. Kastania crowned a precipitous hillside dropping 1500 feet to Servia and the Aliakmon valley. The sun breaking through the rain clouds showed the Aliakmon winding eastwards three miles off, and beyond it knobbly hills, with the road twisting away north among them. Somewhere along that road the Germans were coming, with only a weak detachment of Aussies and New Zealanders ahead to hold them up. This detachment, 18 Battalion was told, would withdraw through the Servia positions, and then it would be their turn.

Servia was a wonderful defensive position. The only road from northern Greece crossed the Aliakmon there; for six miles east and west of the town the southern wall of the Aliakmon valley rose almost vertically, cut only by the pass west of Servia, where the road wound up the hill. From the top the road carried on for five miles through an open valley (this was where 18 Battalion had spent the night), closed at the south end by two steep peaks. Fourth Brigade, holding the cliff top, would be well placed to see off any attack.

Lieutenant-Colonel Gray set up his headquarters at Kastania. B and C Companies went a mile or so ahead of Kastania, down the forward slope—C Company, perched on the cliff immediately overlooking Servia, had the left flank, and also pride of place nearest the enemy. Both companies had wide fronts, and their platoons were sited on the spurs, some of them separated by deep clefts. C Company's left platoon (14 Platoon, under Lieutenant Pyatt

Maj W. A. Pyatt; Wellington; born Gisborne, 4 Nov 1916; theological student; 18 Bn 1939-41; 18 Armd Regt 1944; 2 i/c 20 Regt Mar-May 1945; wounded 18 Apr 1941.

) shared a prominent height with 19 Battalion's right-hand platoon, but was cut off from the rest of 18 Battalion by a deep ragged gash in the hill, and could be reached only after a 45-minute scramble from Company Headquarters.

Farther east were A Company (on B Company's right rear just north of Kastania) and D on the right flank, a little farther back still, high up a bald mountainside, with some of its posts above the snowline. The snow was dry and powdery, and not unpleasant, but what the men found very awkward was that fresh snow fell nearly every night, blotting out the tracks by which supplies were carried up after dark.

Weary as the men were when they reached their positions, they had no rest that day. They dumped their loads, then immediately turned round and crawled back to Lava again for a hot meal and another load of gear. The second trip forward was a killer. Only those who actually trod the Lava-Kastania tracks will ever fully realise their endlessness, the aching lungs and leaden feet, the mighty relief when you reached the position and threw your load down before collapsing on top of it. The loth April was only the beginning of the ordeal.

After unloading, most of the transport went back from Lava to a brigade park some miles back. Cookshops and a few other essential vehicles stayed at Lava, dispersed in the shelter of stone huts and walls. The carriers went down into the Aliakmon valley and camped on the outskirts of Servia to act as outposts and keep an eye out for paratroops. The signallers ran out telephone cable from Battalion Headquarters to the companies, but not to the platoons, which had to rely on runners for their communications. The isolated 14 Platoon had a signal lamp to pass messages to C Company headquarters—the number of times this method was used throughout the whole war must have been few.

Once more 18 Battalion settled down to make its position as strong as possible in the time available. The companies dug themselves into the rocky slopes, and camouflaged the posts as well as they could with stones and scrub. Camouflage, both from the ground and air, was a most particular item of their orders. No more indiscriminate firing at planes—the men were to lie still, very still indeed, unless the planes had obviously seen them. They didn't like this restriction, but before long they were to discover its good sense.

18 Bn at Servia Pass Black and white map of army position

For the same reason unnecessary movement in daylight was forbidden. After 10 April all supplies—food, ammunition, wire, sandbags—were hauled up to the forward positions at night by carrying parties from Lava, helped by a few conscripted local donkeys. Breakfast and dinner became nocturnal meals, eaten in haste with your loins girded. For lunch you took away some bully and biscuits to eat at leisure in your barn or dugout.

The unit would have been hard put to it to keep the supplies up had it not been for the ‘donks’. Acquired first on 10 April to carry gear up the steep slopes from Servia to the forward positions, they were later organised into trains which operated forward from Lava, and literally took a great weight off the shoulders of the nightly carrying parties. Some of them had owner-drivers who entered 18 Battalion's employ for a wage of bully and biscuits; the ownership of others was shrouded in mystery, and best not inquired into. For a week they served the 18th well, and when the battalion left Servia their final duty was to bring out some of the heavier gear, which otherwise would have been left behind.

There was one battery of New Zealand guns supporting the battalion—29 Battery of 6 Field Regiment, the same one that had been behind the 18th at Mikri Milia. It had pulled out from there the evening before the infantry, came straight to Lava, and laboriously hauled its guns into position behind the town on that fearfully wet evening of 9 April. The battalion's own mortars were placed behind the crest of the hill, just above Lava. The anti-aircraft Brens were dug in round Lava to give what protection they could to Rear HQ and the artillery. The 18th had no anti-tank guns this time, as there was no chance of tanks getting up that precipice.

Things soon began to liven up. The scratch force ahead of 4 Brigade took a terrific hammering from the Germans, and from 11 April Aussies and Greeks began arriving back at Servia in disorder, some without arms, units mixed up and tangled with swarms of civilian refugees. For 4 Brigade this was a disheartening sight, for who was left now to stop the German Juggernaut? Just as disheartening was the mournful stream of refugees from Servia and farther north, women and children mostly, carrying on their backs as much of their possessions as they could. Some climbed the hill in 18 Battalion's area and sought shelter in caves; others plodded on back through the lines and were lost to sight. The Kiwis, while desperately sorry for these people, at the same time eyed them askance, for what would be easier than for a few Fifth Columnists to slip through with them? There were already strong rumours that the countryside was full of spies.

The refugees also brought back news of the German advance, the first news that the men in the companies had—the Germans were 20 miles away—ten miles—they were close behind. The battalion speeded up its digging, and metaphorically spat on its hands and tensed itself for the onslaught. The carriers were recalled from Servia to Lava after a couple of days; the valley was so swarming with people that they couldn't have done much against paratroops. They came back in a snowstorm that blinded everyone that evening and left a coating of white on the ground next day.

This snow, and the rain before it, following so closely on the long dry period in Egypt, had one unfortunate effect—a lot of boots disintegrated. The Q staff, luckily, had built up a reserve of several sacks of boots, not only enough to see 18 Battalion through the emergency, but also to give some help to 20 Battalion, which was not so fortunately placed.

On 11 and 12 April, while the fugitive stream was at its height, 18 Battalion could see and hear bombing away to the north, and gradually getting nearer. The 13th (Easter Day) brought the war at last, quite suddenly, right to the battalion's doorstep.

Appointments in 18 Bn on 13 April:

CO: Lt-Col J. R. Gray 9 PI: Lt R. G. Parkinson 2 i/c: Maj M. de R. Petrie OC B Coy: Maj W. H. Evans Adjt: Capt N. B. Smith 2 i/c B Coy: vacant QM: Lt S. N. S. Crump 10 PI: 2 Lt C. M. Coote MO: Capt J. Dempsey 11 PI: Lt K. L. Brown Padre: Rev. F. O. Dawson 12 PI: 2 Lt W. H. Ryan IO: 2 Lt C. G. Gentil OC C Coy: Maj R. J. Lynch OC HQ Coy: Capt A. S. Playle 2 i/c C Coy: Lt H. M. Green Signals: Lt D. H. St. C. Macdonald 13 PI: Sgt E. G. Shucksmith (acting) AA: Lt J. R. McGruther 14 PI: Lt W. A. Pyatt Mortars: 2 Lt E. F. Kent 15 PI: Lt J. E. Batty Carriers: Lt J. K. Herdman OC D Coy: Capt R. S. Sinclair Pioneers: 2 Lt R. F. Lambie 2 i/c D Coy: 2 Lt D. L. Robinson TO: 2 Lt O. B. Copeland 16 PI: Sgt C. O. McGruther (acting) OC A Coy: Capt C. T. Kelleway 17 PI: 2 Lt J. C. Cullwick 2 i/c A Coy: Capt W. J. Lyon 18 PI: 2 Lt J. L. Harrison 7 PI: Lt R. McK. Evans RSM: WO I G. R. Andrews 8 PI: Lt P. R. Pike

It happened early in the afternoon. A little earlier a couple of enemy reconnaissance planes had flown overhead without attracting more than brief attention. Now, suddenly, the sky directly above the battalion was split by a mighty roar, and down swooped a long file of planes.

This was the men's first personal acquaintance with the Luftwaffe, and it was anything but admiration at first sight. Low over B and C Companies they swooped, with a snarl that turned every heart upside down—‘We were sure they had us’, commented one man. But they didn't go for 18 Battalion. They dived over the brow of the hill one after the other, vertically downward it seemed, and sent their bombs crashing into Servia, which disappeared in smoke and dust. The battalion's forward companies couldn't have had a better view. They were not yet hardened to death and destruction; Servia's agony horrified but fascinated them. It was over in a minute or two. The planes made off, and the smoke cleared over Servia, revealing jagged ruins where the bombs had hit, and here and there fires burning.

Events moved fast for the rest of the afternoon. Barely an hour after the raid the Aliakmon bridge beyond Servia went up with a roar, the first indication 18 Battalion's forward troops had that they were now in the front line, with no protection between them and the enemy. A little later word was passed down that digging in daylight was to stop, as the Germans were expected very soon and the positions would be in full view. Late in the afternoon the first shells of the Servia battle whistled overhead as the artillery began to register targets beyond the river.

About teatime the planes arrived again, as suddenly as before, and gave Servia another pasting. This time, to 18 Battalion's surprise, they were greeted by anti-aircraft fire from the rear, an unheard-of thing. This heart-warming support continued next day (14 April), but then fell silent, to everyone's disgust. Later the men heard through the grapevine of a Yugoslav anti-aircraft troop which had come in among the New Zealand field guns near Lava, but after only a day's firing had run out of ammunition. It would have relieved a sore need later on.

From daylight on 14 April every eye was strained northwards, towards the road that twisted away among the hills. There wasn't long to wait. Quite early in the day, away in the distance beyond the river, appeared a line of dots, which as they advanced took the unmistakable shape of troop-carrying trucks, with tanks following. Behind the leaders came more and more. This was no mere patrol or advance guard—this, as an 18 Battalion man said, looked like the whole bloody German army arriving at once, arriving in a confident, unhurried way, almost as if they were on a picnic. About 10 a.m. a car came down the road towards the river; it stopped, and the occupants got out, but a salvo of New Zealand shells made them hop back in and drive away smartly. The battle was on.

For the rest of the day the forward troops had nothing to do but sit and watch, though the Germans were still so far away that few details could be picked up. About 2 p.m. a column of trucks came forward nearly to the river, where men debussed from them and began to move forward to the river bank. Despite the New Zealand artillery, which sent shell after shell in among them, the Germans reached the river and set about erecting a pontoon bridge. They certainly were no cowards. All afternoon, under shellfire, they battled to get their bridge across the river; but by nightfall they hadn't managed it. Everyone knew, however, that in the darkness they would cross. The night was a restless, alert one, with everybody on the jump.

The weight of the German air raids on 14 April was directed at the artillery. For the time being the Germans weren't interested in the New Zealand infantry, or perhaps hadn't discovered exactly where their positions were; but they did their best to prevent that annoying shellfire from interfering with their bridging. During the day there were several bombing and strafing raids on the guns. Eighteenth Battalion, obedient to orders, lay doggo and refrained from firing at the planes, except for the ‘ack-ack’ platoon and the carriers, which were uncomfortably close to the guns. They opened up with their Brens and gave the raiders as hot a time as they could. It took all the guts you had to stick to your gun and keep on firing when a dirty big black plane was diving right at you, with its guns belting away. That evening, too, the German artillery opened up for the first time, also firing at the guns, and the battalion was under its first artillery duel. Some stray shells fell in C Company's neighbourhood, cutting the company's telephone line.

These raids on 14 April, 18 Battalion thought, were bad enough. But from a very early hour next day it became obvious that they ‘hadn't seen nothing yet’. As soon as it grew light the German planes were over in swarms—‘the sky seemed full of them’, said one man. They bombed, they strafed; sometimes they dived vertically with an unnerving scream, which added to the horror and the strain on the nerves until the men realised that it was only noise, and didn't make the planes any more lethal. They were lethal enough anyhow. Now that the Yugoslav ack-ack guns had folded up they grew more daring and came down low, unhindered except by Bren fire. Lava, the artillery and the main road all caught it. Not a single British plane put in an appearance, which was bewildering and depressing.

The shelling persisted on 15 April. The New Zealand artillery was under constant fire, which meant that the Bren carriers got their share. During the day the first shells fell on Lava, and 18 Battalion lost its first man killed in action, Private Claude Finch

Pte A. C. Finch; born Tuakau, 16 Jun 1916; dairy assistant; killed in action 15 Apr 1941.

of the transport platoon. Of the forward troops, only 14 Platoon on the extreme left had any shelling.

During the night of 14–15 April a strong German force crossed the Aliakmon and moved up towards the New Zealand positions. The first attack, unexpectedly, fell on 19 Battalion, which trapped two companies of German infantry and captured them complete. Eighteenth Battalion, sitting on its ridge top, heard the firing over to its left, but didn't know till later what had happened, although C Company's forward posts got in a few cracks at odd parties of Jerries moving round on their front. There was nothing more to be seen straight down below, though all eyes were glued to the valley floor for signs of the enemy.

Late in the morning he reappeared. There was a lot of movement at the Aliakmon crossing, too far off for 18 Battalion's weapons, and in a little while groups of infantry came in sight, advancing among the trees, heading for Servia. As they came within range the battalion's mortars opened fire, and a little later, as the enemy approached Servia, B and C Companies went into action. It was ideal shooting, and quite a number of Germans dropped, but they kept on steadily, taking full advantage of the cover in the valley. About midday the first of them entered Servia itself. Early in the afternoon they got machine guns into position in Servia, and some of B Company's posts came under fire.

The rest of the day was quite lively, both sides keeping up a steady fire with machine guns and rifles. Throughout the war there were to be few occasions when the battalion had such perfect conditions for sniping. For the moment it had every advantage of ground and cover, and it used them to the full. The Germans pouring across the valley towards Servia were harassed all the way with bullets and mortar bombs; the mortars in particular did good work, engaged the Jerries in Servia and kept their fire down. At nightfall, when activity slackened off, the honours were definitely with 18 Battalion, which had done considerable damage to the enemy with only one casualty of its own.

This man, Private Rex Slade,

Cpl R. C. Slade; Palmerston North; born Featherston, 7 Sep 1914; labourer; wounded and p.w. Apr 1941.

was wounded on patrol down in the valley that afternoon. As the Germans approached Servia, CSM McCormack

WO II E. J. McCormack; born NZ 24 Jun 1918; miner; killed in action 25 May 1941.

of B Company got together a scratch patrol of half a dozen men, scrambled down the hill and went as far as the outskirts of Servia, where they shot up the Germans at close range. Such a foray could depend only on surprise, and couldn't last long. The patrol didn't wait to be overwhelmed by numbers, but hit as hard as it could and then withdrew uphill followed by German machine-gun fire.

At nightfall, then, activity on the front died down. But not altogether. Both sides were jumpy and apt to put up flares and open fire at the least noise. A few more bold spirits from the battalion went snooping about the valley floor; Lieutenant Pyatt went as far forward as the river, but saw nothing except some guns going into position. The artillery duel, though it slackened off, didn't die out entirely—from time to time a few harassing shells went over in both directions. The tension in the forward posts was increased by rumours that Jerry patrols had climbed the cliff and were in the area. The rumours were groundless, but their effect was that carrying parties, or other groups of men moving about 18 Battalion's lines, had to make themselves known very clearly and promptly when approaching a position. Everyone was glad to see daylight again.

The 18th had some cause for pleasure, too, as 16 April was a day of heavy fog and drizzle. A strange thing to rejoice at, perhaps, especially as the tracks in the area were pools of deep mud in places, but it gave the men a day's blessed freedom from air attack. It was a quiet day except for spasms of shellfire on Lava, the guns and C Company.

But again events were moving on a high level, and the battalion's stand at Servia was to be cut short. The Germans didn't look like making any headway there—4 Brigade was full of confidence that it could hold off the whole Jerry army if need be—but elsewhere it was different. The line of the mountain passes was to be abandoned, and the whole Allied force pulled back.

CHAPTER 8 Withdrawal from Servia

The idea of withdrawing from the Olympus and Servia positions wasn't a sudden or panicky move. It was another of those decisions made reluctantly by the leaders of the British forces in Greece simply because the enemy was too strong for them. As the German advance developed it soon became obvious that no line across northern Greece would be tenable for long, as there were not enough troops to hold it; and by 13 April, before the Germans even appeared on 18 Battalion's front, a withdrawal had definitely been decided on. The next line to be held was at Thermopylae, 90 miles south, where Greece narrows to an isthmus.

Fourth Brigade's part in the general plan for Anzac Corps' withdrawal was to stay in place until the Aussies were out, then to disengage and go back through a rearguard consisting of Divisional Cavalry at Elevtherokhorion (where the roads from Servia and Olympus converge) and 6 Brigade at Elasson, a little farther south. After that the brigade would go right back to the Thermopylae position, leaving the main road at Larisa for a secondary road round the east coast through Volos.

Within 4 Brigade, 18 and 19 Battalions were to pull out under cover of darkness and walk back through the valley south of the Servia Pass. The southern end of the valley would be held by 20 Battalion as a rearguard, and a little beyond that trucks would be waiting to pick the men up. The night of the withdrawal was originally to be 18-19 April. On the 16th it was put forward to the night of 17-18 April.

Time was running short before the changed orders penetrated down to 18 Battalion. They were passed on verbally by Brigadier Puttick at 4 Brigade Headquarters late on the afternoon of the 16th, and by the time Lieutenant-Colonel Gray had gone back to the battalion and got word to the companies it was too late to make any preliminary moves that night. The prospect of getting the whole battalion, plus equipment, back over the mountain goat-tracks and out of the valley in nine short hours of darkness was rather appalling, but nothing could be carried back in daylight, as the Germans, whatever happened, must not be given the least inkling of what was up. There was only one thing to be done. Colonel Gray reluctantly gave orders that nothing was to be brought out except weapons, ammunition and essential gear. Everything else, including food, blankets, and the nice new two-man bivouac tents only received within the last couple of days, was to be left behind, and if possible destroyed.

The men's feelings on hearing the orders can be imagined. They were aghast. Here they were, prepared to hold firm for ever, and now they had to up sticks and get out, leaving a lot of their possessions for Jerry. Not only that, but they would have to get back over those breakneck tracks at a fast pace in the dark. No wonder that 17 April wasn't a happy day for 18 Battalion. The luckiest men were some in the foremost posts who didn't get word of the move until quite late in the afternoon, so didn't have so many hours to think about it.

The battalion's drivers were busy men that day. The ration dump from which they drew supplies had been abandoned the previous night, so the drivers spent the morning there, piling as much as they could on the trucks, destroying as much of the rest as possible. This seemed a sin, but, as one of them said, everything spoiled was a little less for Jerry. Trucks from other units were also there helping themselves, and also Greeks from the nearby villages, marvelling at this unheard-of windfall. Then after lunch 18 Battalion's transport was summoned up to Lava to load what gear was available, with orders to wait there until the companies came back after dark.

Up in the front line the morning was very quiet, with the mist still thick over everything. It would have been well for 18 Battalion if it had stayed that way. But soon after midday it cleared, and the German artillery and planes began again.

The shelling had hardly begun when C Company suffered a grievous blow. Some incautious movement as the mist cleared must have been picked up by a sharp-eyed observer opposite; the Germans got right on to one of 15 Platoon's section posts, and landed a salvo of mortar bombs in the trench. The section was almost wiped out—four killed and two wounded. Stretcher bearers were on the job promptly, but took most of the afternoon to carry one man back along that fearful track to Battalion Headquarters, and were completely done at the end.

The front line, despite this calamity, didn't get very much shelling that afternoon, but Lava ‘copped a packet’. As the mist cleared two ‘recce’ planes came snooping overhead, and soon afterwards shells again began to fall on Lava, followed by a bombing and strafing raid. The 18 Battalion ack-ack men stuck to their guns and gave the planes what they could, but with no success. For the rest of the afternoon the shelling was continual, and several men were wounded in Lava. The transport was sent away in a hurry without waiting for the companies, and ran the gauntlet of mud and shells all the way down to the main road.

Eighteenth Battalion's general orders were to withdraw on foot to the main road behind Lava, and back through the valley to a spot just beyond its southern end, where ASC trucks would pick it up and head south for the village of Molos, behind the Thermopylae line. The trucks were to leave one by one as they were filled. Twentieth Battalion would provide a company as rearguard, and the last people to leave the valley would be a party of engineers, who would blow a series of demolitions all along the road as they withdrew. They were to be clear of the valley by 3 a.m.

During the day the supporting artillery pulled out, and the infantry was once more on its own. By great ill-luck, the last of the guns were just moving out when the mist cleared, which undoubtedly helped to give the enemy the impression that something was afoot. Eighteenth Battalion's rifle companies, too, had to send carrying parties back in daylight from the forward positions with such things as mortars and spare ammunition. This was contrary to the original plan, but was the only possible way of saving this gear—the risk of being spotted by Jerry, observers had to be taken. It was doubly unfortunate because in the end most of the heavy gear was left behind anyway.

From the forward positions there were two possible ways back, one across the forward slope of the hill and through C Company's area on the left flank, and the other (the ‘back track’), rougher, longer and rockier, steeply uphill from Kastania through D Company and round the reverse slope. Lieutenant-Colonel Gray's original plan was to send everyone except D Company out by the forward track, but late on the 17th he changed the orders. C Company was now to make its own way to Lava by the shorter track, while the other companies all moved out over the back track—B Company to pull out first and go back through A and D, then A to follow on, and D to come last as rearguard. Men of the Intelligence Section would guide the column on this track.

The forward areas buzzed with activity in the few hours before starting time. Company rendezvous and timings were arranged; runners took the orders round to platoons and sections. The men made ready, packed their most valued and important possessions, and burnt the rest, or buried them, or savagely slashed them with knives and bayonets. Blankets were torn to ribbons. The positions were a chaos of ruined gear when the men left. Everyone, of course, carried out his rifle, Bren or Tommy gun—orders for this were strict and stern. Besides their packs, the men carried picks and shovels, and sandbags containing what felt like tons of spare ammunition.

Back in the battalion's rear areas things were getting organised as well as possible, which wasn't very well. The trucks were hurriedly summoned back to Lava as night began to fall, but didn't get more than halfway, as the road was so deep in mud that they couldn't force their way through. Some of them stuck fast, and the carriers patrolled up and down the road to pull out any that got into difficulties. For half the night the carriers worked hard under shellfire; two of them shed tracks hauling one truck out of a morass, and had to be left behind. The rest were ordered shortly before midnight to leave for the south.

Most of the men from Rear Battalion Headquarters at Lava were sent away at 7 p.m., thankful to leave a village which in the course of the afternoon had been shelled almost to rags. Major Petrie with a handful of men stayed in Lava to help check the companies through. Another check post on

18 Battalion marches into PapakuraBlack and white photograph of troops

Filling palliasses, PapakuraBlack and white photograph of troops

Troopship amusements—BoxingBlack and white photograph of troops

Troopship amusements—Race DayBlack and white photograph of troops

The battalion goes ashore at TewfikBlack and white photograph of ships

A Company signal office, Maadi, 1940Black and white photograph of a tent

‘Down the slope like a lot of sheep’—18 Battalion in the desert behind Maadi CampBlack and white photograph of soldiers on a landform

Battalion transport at Kasr-el-Nil BarracksBlack and white photograph of trucks the road was set up by Lieutenant-Colonel Kippenberger

Maj-Gen Sir Howard Kippenberger, KBE, CB, DSO and bar, ED, m.i.d., Legion of Merit (US); born Ladbrooks, 28 Jan 1897; barrister and solicitor; I NZEF 1916–17; CO 20 Bn Sep 1939-Apr 1941, Jun-Dec 1941; comd 10 Bde, Crete, May 1941; 5 Bde Jan 1942-Jun 1943, Nov 1943-Feb 1944; GOC 2 NZ Div, 30 Apr-14 May 1943, 9 Feb-2 Mar 1944; comd 2 NZEF Prisoner-of-War Reception Group (UK) Oct 1944-Sep 1945; twice wounded; Editor-in-Chief, NZ War Histories, 1946-57; died Wellington, 5 May 1957.

of 20 Battalion, who, as commander of the rear party, was to ensure that 18 Battalion was all gone before blowing the demolitions.

It was midnight before the first company appeared. This was C Company, which staggered into Lava, a laden, gasping mob too weary even to curse.

The company had been delayed for an hour at its rendezvous by 14 Platoon, which for safety's sake had taken a rough, roundabout way back from its isolated hill, and had only been kept together by the efforts of Lieutenant Pyatt, who had stopped frequently to count heads and had then gone back to round up any stragglers. Not long after the platoons left their forward positions shells began to fall on the track, which was under steady fire by the time the company was together and ready to leave. This was a tragedy—the walk back, everyone knew, was going to be as much as they could bear anyway, loaded beyond normal capacity and moving fast over those rocks and slopes. But there was no choice. The men set out in single file, stooping under their loads, grunting their way up the hill, diving to earth whenever a shell screamed close. They were downhearted, cold, wet and anxious—anxious because flares were being fired away down below in the valley, and the rumour spread that Jerry was following up hard on their heels. They reached Lava dog-tired, mud-caked, and so shaken by the shelling that Major Lynch's

Lt-Col R. J. Lynch, MC; born Waihi, 24 Oct 1909; sales manager; CO 18 Bn 29 Jun-15 Jul 1942; wounded and p.w. 15 Jul 1942; died of wounds while p.w. 26 Sep 1942.

first words to Major Petrie were, ‘For God's sake don't let us be shelled any more.’

Such a request wasn't easily granted. The German gunners, now free from all molestation by the New Zealand artillery, continued to plaster Lava, the road, and the whole area impartially. C Company, after a short rest, shouldered their burdens and carried on, not down the track, but up a gully and across country in a vain attempt to dodge the shelling. To reach the road they had to cross a stream bed and crawl up an almost vertical 50-foot bank, quite a feat at any time, but a tremendous effort for tired, overloaded men. They hauled one another up the bank, and found themselves on the road by 20 Battalion's check post, with a worried Colonel Kippenberger asking anxiously about the other companies. Of course, nobody knew where they were, except that they were taking the back track and might by now be anywhere on God's earth. C Company pushed on down the road, breathing easier now despite the shelling.

Hard on its heels, and in much the same condition, came a party of fifteen from Battalion Headquarters under Captain Smith,

Maj N. B. Smith, ED; Auckland; born Onehunga, 6 Nov 1909; clerk; wounded 16 Dec 1942.

and then the mortar platoon and Second-Lieutenant Ryan's

Maj W. H. Ryan, OBE, m.i.d., Order of King George I and Silver Cross (Gk); Mangaia, Cook Is; born Auckland, I Jun 1911; civil engineer; 18 Bn and Armd Regt; CO 20 Armd Regt Oct-Dec 1945.

12 Platoon of B Company, all of which had taken C Company's route out. No. 12 Platoon had had a man killed by the shelling, and five others had fallen behind (they were picked up by the Germans next day).

Not far down the road the waiting battalion trucks relieved the men of their gear, took it on another three miles to the ASC trucks, then came back to wait for the next load. The men walked the three miles, crawled into the ASC trucks, and most of them were asleep almost before the trucks moved off.

There was still no sign of the rest of 18 Battalion, and at I a.m. Major Petrie and the rest of Rear HQ pulled out from Lava, assuming that the companies were somewhere up the hills on the back track and would probably miss Lava. The rearguard company of 20 Battalion also pulled out, leaving Colonel Kippenberger and his small engineer party as 18 Battalion's sole covering force. Before the night was out 18 Battalion was to have cause for eternal gratitude to them.

C Company's withdrawal, as has been seen, was a tough ordeal. But for the other companies on the back track it was only just short of impossible. Only the thought of Jerry behind kept many of the men from lying down halfway and giving up the struggle.

B Company was nearly three hours late coming back through Kastania—being so closely under the enemy's eye it hadn't been able to get its heavy gear back any earlier. By the time the company reached Kastania the men were already staggering. On they went, panting up the slope with their loads, with A and D following on behind. Luckily, the shelling that was plaguing C Company hadn't yet got over as far as the back track, except for a few odd ones now and again. Just as the last half of D Company was hauling itself over the top of the ridge a sudden fierce barrage fell on Kastania and the hillside they were leaving—only a few minutes too late to do any real damage.

Over the ridge the track led down through a sort of basin where the column was comparatively safe from shelling. But its troubles were only beginning. It was pitch black by now, drizzly and cold, and you could hardly see a yard ahead. As the battalion stumbled down the hill the night's culminating series of heartbreaks began.

The track, which wasn't much of a track to begin with, soon petered out among broken, rocky spurs and gullies. The guides lost their way, and small blame to them—as one said, ‘It was a matter of sheer luck to find one's way in the dark without a track, up hills and down and round other hills etc.’ There were delays as the guides sought desperately for the right way; there were false starts that took the column by roundabout ways over frighteningly steep country. Men tripped and fell over stones, staggered to their feet and reeled on, still dragging their sandbags of ammunition. Other men sat down to rest while the line went on past them, and the companies began to get mixed up. At the frequent halts some would nod off to sleep, holding up those behind them and breaking the column—as it got near where Lava ought to be, the officers several times had to halt the line, go back to round up the strays, and push them forward to catch up. This took a lot of time. It was getting late, and though the officers fumed at the delays, swore, cajoled and bullied, they couldn't get the pace any faster. A few men sat or lay down and refused to go any farther.

Finally (it was after 1.30 a.m. by now, high time the whole battalion was out), Colonel Gray, who was in the lead with B Company, struck the mud track from Lava to the main road. This was largely due to one man, Corporal Fred Redfern,

L-Sgt F. G. Redfern, m.i.d.; born NZ 30 Nov 1914; farmer; killed in action 25 May 1941.

who had taken over the guiding halfway and led the column confidently in the right direction. The leaders drew breaths of relief—and then it was found that only about a dozen of B Company were there. Somewhere back in the darkness the file had broken again, and only the head of B Company had kept up.

There was no point in going back or waiting. Down through the slush of the track the little party waded, and at the junction with the road found Colonel Kippenberger. Gray told his sad story—two and a half companies were still somewhere up there, wandering in the dark, and he was afraid they would have to be abandoned. Kippenberger sent the group off down the road, arranged for the battalion trucks to ferry them down to the ASC park and come back for another load, then settled down again to wait, heedless of the impatience of the engineers, who were anxious to blow the demolitions and be gone.

The rest of the column waited about half an hour after losing the leaders, not suspecting that it was anything but another of those halts while the guides cast round for clues. Then, quoting Captain Kelleway:

A call came down the column for me…. To my consternation, I found on arrival that this was the situation—the twelfth or thirteenth man from the head of B Coy had gone to sleep, and the C.O. with Bill Evans and the guide had disappeared…. As the senior officer remaining, I had to make a quick decision—I knew the Pass was to be blown, I hadn't the faintest idea where we were, but had to do something, and Kelleway:

An impromptu conference of the nearest officers—Captain Kelleway, Lieutenants Pike

Lt-Col P. R. Pike, MC; Auckland; born Auckland, I Oct 1913; clerk; CO 24 Bn Apr-Jun 1944; twice wounded.

and Evans

Capt R. McK. Evans; born Scotland, 27 Nov 1912; car salesman; p.w. 15 Jul 1942.

of A Company, Captain Sinclair

Capt R. S. Sinclair; Te Awamutu; born Scotland, 22 Apr 1911; accountant; wounded 25 May 1941; p.w. I Jun 1941.

of D, Lieutenant Brown

Maj K. L. Brown, DSO, m.i.d., MC (Gk); Auckland; born Auckland, 22 Nov 1915; salesman.

Second-Lieutenant Coote

Capt C. M. Coote; Whangarei; born Te Aroha, 27 Oct 1916; clerk; wounded 16 Apr 1941; p.w. 27 Apr 1941.

of B—met to consider the situation. As they talked, occasional shellbursts silhouetted the hills across the valley to the right, and Brown recognised landmarks that, he said, should lie in the right direction. It was decided to change course and head straight across country in the direction of these landmarks, stopping for nothing. Kelleway gave the order to dump surplus gear—‘It was not until this stage,’ he says, ‘that the 3” mortars of B Company went, plus the useless 2” mortars the rest of us had.’ Then the column headed off as fast as their aching legs could carry them. Evans took the only compass to keep direction.

This part of the trip was the worst nightmare of all. The men had no idea what was going on, only rumours flying up and down the column that Jerry was chasing them. They were not only lost, but frightened. Some of them threw away everything. Quoting one of them, ‘The tension increased in bounds in an atmosphere of doubt and bewilderment. We pushed on leaving a sea of gear littered around.’ They slithered down hillsides, crawled on hands and knees up the other side. They were drenched with sweat, muddy, bruised, shaking with fatigue.

But they were going the right way. After about half an hour the leaders saw the dim outline of the road ahead, across a gully and up a steep bank, the same bank that had nearly finished C Company. On the road were lights, and men moving up and down, and a little farther on was the sound of truck engines, the friendliest sound the men had ever heard. The climb up to the road was almost more than they could manage, and some who had carried gear and rifles all night threw them away on this last little bit; but up they scrambled, clawing frantically at the earth. At the top helping hands lifted them to their feet. They were bundled into the trucks, where they collapsed in heaps. The time was 4 a.m., and the first signs of dawn were showing. When all were on their way Kippenberger ordered the engineers to blow the first demolition.

The explosion brought despairing cries from stragglers in the gully and back up on the hillside. There were a lot of them— nearly half of D Company, which had lost the column some time before, and odds and ends from the other companies who had been picked up en route. They arrived in little exhausted groups and stumbled off down the road. Even after the second demolition had gone up more men came in, the last few alone and almost out on their feet. It was 5 a.m. before all were clear. Then, at long last, the rest of the demolitions were blown, and the rear party withdrew.

This was an epic night in 18 Battalion's history, a night demanding hardihood and endurance from all. Those who failed were few. The courage of the forward troops, some of them out on the hillsides for nine hours, was matched by the courage of the truck drivers, who stuck to their job all night through continual shellfire, and didn't leave until the whole battalion was safe. And the battalion could thank Lieutenant-Colonel Kippenberger and the engineers, who would not abandon even the last few stragglers, but ensured the unit's safety at the cost of their own. They were cut off by German tanks as they withdrew, and had a perilous, hectic trip across country, suffering heavy casualties before they got clear.

Eighteenth Battalion's journey south was plain sailing at first, with a fairly fast pace. The road wasn't bad. It left the bare mountains for fertile valley lands, and south of Elasson passed through miles of vines and wheatfields bright with red poppies, a pleasant contrast to the rocks and snow of the Servia heights. Then down on to the Thessalian plain and through Larisa, scarred by a recent earthquake and soon to be devastated entirely by the Luftwaffe.

It was still dark when the first trucks carrying 18 Battalion reached Larisa. All sorts of units and vehicles were pouring south, most of them converging on the main road at Larisa, and it was clear that there was going to be a pretty tight jam on that road later. The road through Volos had turned out to be unfit for heavy trucks, and the entire traffic of the Australian and New Zealand divisions was compelled to use the one narrow main road.

Just after dawn a flight of marauding Jerry planes came over, very low, bombing and machine-gunning up and down the road. A few trucks were hit; men scattered to the fields. When the planes had gone 18 Battalion (such of it as was present) started up and got going again, but found itself in the middle of a jam of traffic that got worse every minute. There was New Zealand, British and Australian traffic all mixed up. Everyone knew that the Jerry planes would be back, and signs of panic were beginning to show here and there.

There was peace for an hour or two, however, while the traffic moved on very slowly. As far ahead as you could see there was still the same solid line of trucks, sometimes two or three abreast. The delays seemed endless, and everyone's nerves were on the jump.

About 10 a.m. Lieutenant-Colonel Gray, intending to bring his battalion together again, pulled off the road, and as each 18 Battalion truck hove in sight it was called in and dispersed in a field. The men were only too pleased to have a wash and a bite of bully beef, then most of them stretched out and dozed, feeling superior to all the unfortunates still crawling along the hot road. Suddenly the planes reappeared. There was another scatter, men ran vaguely here and there—and down came a plane, just above ground level, straight at them. There was no time to dodge. Some dived under the trucks, others didn't even jump out. A stick of bombs crashed along the field. One truck was hit direct, the bomb killing three men and wounding half a dozen more. Up and down the road swept the planes, bombing and strafing mercilessly. Their roar was appalling— they were so low that some of the bombs didn't even have time to straighten out, but slid along the ground on their sides without exploding.

Panic spread through the mass of traffic. Drivers speeded up and tried to jostle their way through the jam, heedless of all else. Some trucks ran off the road and capsized; some stalled and were ruthlessly shoved off the road. And still the planes strafed up and down at will. Men deserted their trucks and ran for the open country, others huddled in the ditches.

Compared to the rest, the Kiwis had little to be ashamed of. Most of them stuck to their trucks. Some grabbed their rifles and fired at the planes swooping overhead; it didn't seem to do them much harm, but it was a gesture of defiance and a relief to the feelings.

When the raid eased off and the traffic began to move the 18 Battalion trucks were out on the road again, in the crush, crawling painfully south through the chaos of trucks and gear that lined the route. There wasn't a hope of any fast progress. The whole road was one huge jam, accentuated by bomb craters, broken bridges, and the abandoned trucks that narrowed down the free road surface.

The raids kept on, too. After the pass south of Larisa there wasn't much bombing, but for the rest of the day, with scarcely a break, the accursed planes were overhead, savagely strafing the column. A truck containing half of 18 Battalion's precious signal gear was hit and set on fire. Every truck had a spotter on the back, whose job was to hammer a warning on the roof of the cab whenever the planes reappeared. At first the trucks all stopped whenever this happened, and everyone tumbled out and took to the ditch. But it was clear that the convoys would never get anywhere that way. Colonel Gray drove along the road, ordering all 18 Battalion trucks to keep going, raids or no raids, and just to drive round halted vehicles. This was better; the pace got a little faster, though it was still not much more than a fast walk.

It was nearly sunset before the raids stopped. The final one came when the battalion's trucks were in the last mountain pass before Lamia, a fair-sized town just north of the Thermopylae line. It was so savage that the traffic had to stop until it slackened off. Then merciful darkness fell, and the battered convoys could go on in peace.

The battalion carried on through Lamia, turned off the main road to the left, along the coast through Molos, and about 11 p.m. reached its destination, which in daylight turned out to be a pleasant tree-shaded area by a stream. But when the men arrived that night they didn't give two hoots for the shade or the stream. They fell out of the trucks, flopped down on the ground, and slept like the dead. Most of the ASC trucks carrying the last of the battalion came in during the night and early morning, and also four of the carriers, which had very sensibly left the road during the raids and gone across country.

Next morning 18 Battalion set to work to lick its wounds. It had had three killed and twenty wounded on the trip, the highest casualties of any New Zealand unit. It had lost only four trucks, which was a wonder. Far more serious was the loss of six carriers, one bombed and the rest broken down or bogged.

For the next few days the battalion rested in this nice quiet spot, while once more the war rolled southwards towards it.

CHAPTER 9 Out of Greece

The battalion had a couple of free, comfortable days at Molos, undisturbed by the German planes that came buzzing round at intervals. It took the opportunity to tidy up a bit; the men lay under the trees and washed off their grime in the stream; they explored the nearby villages, and bought (or scrounged) food to supplement their rations, which were beginning to run short. Those who had strayed during the withdrawal went back to their own companies, and the names of those missing were sorted out.

And yet the short break wasn't really much of a holiday. The atmosphere was still jumpy and full of rumours. Jerry was hard on the heels of the retreating forces, and there was quite a likelihood that he might try to short-circuit the Thermopylae line by coming across the narrow Aegean inlet by which 18 Battalion was parked. In that case, the battalion would have been right in the way. So on the evening of 20 April A and D Companies went down to a nearby bay to patrol and give warning if Jerry approached. Next day C Company took over the job, and on the 22nd the carriers joined the party. Nothing happened to disturb the peaceful course of these patrols.

On 21 April A, B and D Companies went much farther afield, out to the forefront of the Thermopylae line, to help the battalions of 5 Brigade in their wiring operations. This was a lively enough job for those actually engaged in digging and wiring, but deadly dull for others who had to man standing patrols away out forward of the line covering the working parties. Next morning the companies pulled out again and went back to their quiet retreat at Molos.

These few days had a wonderful effect on the battalion's morale, despite the shortage of food. Most cheering of all was an official story that from now on there would be more air support, backed up by the appearance soon afterwards of a handful of Hurricanes overhead. The report later turned out to be anything but justified; but at the time it gave everyone's spirits a badly-needed lift.

The 22nd April was a bitter day for the New Zealanders in Greece, for in the morning the expected and yet incredible news came through—Greece was to be evacuated, the whole force was to pull back to various embarkation ports, everything except weapons and ammunition was to be destroyed.

The Division was to withdraw through Athens and out to a number of small ports and beaches east of the city, where cruisers and destroyers would pick the men up. It was to go straight back from the Thermopylae line; 4 Brigade was to leave first and take up a rearguard position south of Thebes, some 60 miles back in a straight line, where the rest of the Division would pass through it.

As usual, 18 Battalion got short notice. Just before lunchtime on 22 April word came down to move that night, which meant fairly rapid preparation during the afternoon. C Company and the carriers were recalled from the beach, and the order went out to destroy everything except what was absolutely essential, and to keep only one blanket each. Everyone felt that this was a bit too sweeping, and events a few days later were to prove this true; but the gear had to be dumped, there was no arguing with the orders.

That evening the battalion set out on its travels again, moving in convoy eastwards round the coast. This time there was not the glut of traffic that there had been on the Larisa road, but for drivers and passengers alike it was a gruelling trip, without lights, over narrow roads that wound in and out, and later (when they left the coast and struck south) up and down. The pace was dead slow all night. Nobody knew where the battalion was going—the only destination given to it had been a map reference, and the CO and company commanders had gone ahead of the main convoy to look the place over. After a roundabout trip of 100 miles, during which the battalion passed through the ancient city of Thebes without caring a damn about it, the convoy met the advance party again in the village of Kriekouki (or Erithrai), nestling at the foot of a long steep hill over which the main road wound through a high pass between bare peaks.

Dawn was just breaking when the unit reached Kriekouki. The trucks dispersed in and round the village, in gardens, under trees, beside houses and stone walls, and everyone settled down for the day, praying that the Luftwaffe wouldn't spot them. While daylight lasted there was no movement at all. It wasn't a comfortable day, as every now and then great swarms of German bombers roared over in the direction of Athens, but none attacked Kriekouki. The men idled the day away, lay in the shade, or bargained with the villagers for eggs to add to their little store of food. Kriekouki was a pleasant, friendly little town, not yet touched by the war, and the battalion sighed with relief when dusk fell and the danger from the air passed.

It was on the heights above Kriekouki to the south, astride the main road, that 4 Brigade was to take up its rearguard

4 brigade rearguard in the kriekouki pass, 26 april 1941Black and white map of army position position. Eighteenth Battalion got its orders during the afternoon—move up the road that evening (strictly no movement except reconnaissance before dark), and take up a position on the mountain top overlooking Thebes and the approaches from the north. The battalion would be east of the road, with 20 Battalion to the west, an Aussie field regiment in support, Aussie anti-tank guns covering the entrance to the pass, and a platoon of Aussie Vickers gunners in the area. Support on this scale seemed princely.

As night fell the deserted road suddenly sprang into life. Every cranny seemed to disgorge trucks, which streamed off southwards in long convoys. At 9 p.m. 18 Battalion, complete with weapons and what small amount of gear it still possessed, joined the throng and moved off up the winding hill. The transport went right over the pass and hid in wooded gullies six miles south. The rifle companies, after a hard climb up from the road, reached their position up in the clouds and did their best to settle down before daylight. They didn't altogether succeed—some groups got lost in the dark, and daybreak found A Company still out of position. There was a good deal of moving and scrambling round after dawn until the companies sorted themselves out. Luckily the Luftwaffe wasn't on the job very early.

The position, once they got it straight, was a first-class one. The road twisted its way up a gorge, and after passing through the position lost itself in hills and hummocks to the south. The battalion had a wonderful view down the gorge towards Kriekouki, over the plain to the north, and along the road by which Jerry could be expected to arrive. D Company, on the left, could look across the gorge to the road cut into the other side. Next to it was A Company, with C Company away out on the right, perched on a knoll, separated from A by a steep ravine. The companies were linked to Battalion Headquarters by telephone, laid hastily by signal parties early in the morning.

The lower slopes of the mountain were covered with a stunted scrub rather like broom; farther up was bare rock. Neither gave any cover to speak of. The battalion had to take hasty makeshift measures to hide before the Luftwaffe came snooping round. Men pulled off branches to cover themselves, and those high up above the scrub line tucked themselves in beside rocks, lay still, and tried to look as much as possible like bits of the landscape. By good fortune the camouflage succeeded. For much of the day little ‘recce’ planes were putt-putting low overhead, while every now and again a stray bomber would roar up and down the road, as one man put it, ‘looking for something to play with’. But not once was 18 Battalion attacked—a tribute to its steadiness and lack of panic. One man losing his head could have brought merry hell down on the whole unit. But nothing of the sort happened. The men lay stock still, hating the Luftwaffe.

Fourth Brigade's orders had been to hold this position for twenty-four hours, but the unit wasn't to get away so easily. On the afternoon of 24 April came word to stay for another twenty-four hours, to give other formations more time to get away. So 18 Battalion hung on, though short of food and water, and chilled to the bone at night without enough blankets to go round. Luckily, it didn't rain. The days were anxious ones, everybody lying doggo for fear of those pitiless planes; the nights were alert, reconnaissance and standing patrols out farther down the hill, ears pricked for any suspicious sound from the north. The road, deserted by day, filled with traffic at night, as New Zealand convoys moved hastily over the pass to get as far south as possible before dawn drove them into hiding, and gangs of Aussie pioneers came out from nowhere to work on demolitions in the road just below the battalion.

Anzac Day passed in much the same way as the 24th—and again that afternoon the battalion's hopes of getting away that night were dashed when orders came to cling on for yet another twenty-four hours. This order, though it sounded like another good old army muck-up, had reason behind it. The original plan to embark the Kiwis from east of Athens had been changed, and the Division was now to go west instead, cross the Corinth Canal, and embark from handier ports in the Peloponnese. The extra day's stand at Kriekouki by 4 Brigade would let 6 Brigade (the last formation to pull out from Thermopylae) get right through and over the canal, with every chance of being unmolested.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. A German paratroop landing at Corinth early on 26 April put it right out of the question for 4 Brigade to get through to the Peloponnese. During the day the 4 Brigade battalions got hasty orders to pull out that night, and to make as quickly as possible for Porto Rafti, east of Athens.

Before these orders came through, 18 Battalion had been enjoying its only bit of excitement since coming to ‘Twenty-four-hour Hill’. Late on the morning of 26 April the German spearhead (motor-bikes and tanks followed by troop-carrying trucks) could be seen in the distance, moving through Thebes and well down the road towards Kriekouki. They were too far away for 18 Battalion, but the unit had a fine view of the havoc wrought among the force when it came within range of the supporting Aussie guns. These fired fast and accurately, and the Jerries retired hurriedly through Thebes, leaving knocked-out trucks sitting there at all angles. Shells followed them all the way, and they seemed to have no wish to come back for more.

A few hours of quiet, and then the battalion saw a much more disturbing sight—long German columns turning east off the main road at Thebes on to another road leading well away from Kriekouki. This was more than ominous, it was the end, for this second road led round the eastern flank to Athens, outflanking 4 Brigade altogether. There was nothing the battalion could do about it, only pray that it would be ordered back before its retreat was cut off. This order, as has been said, came through during the afternoon, and it was hailed in 18 Battalion with sighs of mighty relief.

This withdrawal did not compare with the Servia nightmare, but for tired, hungry men it was bad enough—a scramble of anything up to an hour through rocks and scrub to the road, then a six-mile march down to the transport. The Aussie guns were still firing flat out as the battalion left. The future was a bit worrying. Nobody knew how far Jerry had gone on his flanking move towards Athens, or whether the paratroops from Corinth had come up to cut off the withdrawal. You could only get going as fast as possible, and hope that you didn't run into trouble. The trucks had already taken down all their canopies, to give the passengers clear fields of fire in case of a scrap.

By 11.15 p.m. the battalion was on its way. Over the first few miles of curly roads and ragged hills the pace was deadly slow, so, abandoning all idea of caution, Lieutenant-Colonel Gray gave the order to put on headlights, and away went the convoy, full speed for Athens, 30 miles away. One truck whose lights fused was wrecked and pushed off the road with no ceremony. Only one more range of hills, thank Heaven, and then the road flattened out and became comparatively straight. At 2 a.m. the convoy reached Athens, and sped on through the deserted city, without stopping, shattering every speed limit ever imposed. About 15 miles past the city the trucks stopped and dispersed in an orchard, and the men thankfully crawled out and went to bed. The first signs of dawn were just glimmering in the sky.

For a few hours all was peace. The cooks scratched up some breakfast, and everyone relaxed—until 9 a.m. when, without warning, along came news that rudely woke the battalion. German tanks were already in Athens. The battalion was to turn to at once, destroy its transport and everything not portable, and get away on foot as soon as possible to Porto Rafti, six miles east. There it was to join 19 and 20 Battalions in a defensive position to hold Jerry at bay for the day, and the Navy would probably pick everybody up that night.

There wasn't much time to reflect on this news. The destruction of the trucks was a matter of minutes—all spare parts had already been smashed at Kriekouki, and now the drivers proceeded to break windscreens and headlights with spanners and lumps of wood, to rip tyres, to drain the sumps and run the engines till they seized. From this slaughter one truck for each company was spared, and on these was thrown the little essential gear that remained. The signallers still had some precious telephones and cable, but apart from that there wasn't much left now except weapons and ammunition. The men had very little to carry, only their rifles, what few personal possessions hadn't been dumped, and as much food as they could get hold of. Most of them still had their gas masks.

As soon as the destruction was complete 18 Battalion moved off. The companies soon shook out into open formation, the men going along lanes and through the vines and olive groves, using all the cover they could find, while the remaining trucks used the road, along with the Aussie field guns which had done so nobly at Kriekouki.

It wasn't much over a mile to Markopoulon, the last town of any size that the battalion was to pass through in Greece. Here took place one of the most touching scenes the men ever saw. All Markopoulon was out in the main street to see the battalion pass; the people wept, called down blessings on the soldiers' heads, pressed on them gifts of flowers, water and wine. This display made the men feel as if they were running away, deserting these kindly people, leaving them to the mercy of the Germans. So there wasn't a man in the battalion who didn't feel depressed and sad, and all the less able to bear what came next.

What came next was the Luftwaffe. The battalion was just leaving Markopoulon, with a swarm of children still running alongside, when four Messerschmitts suddenly swooped out of the blue and dived on the road. The men ran desperately for open country, but the trucks and guns couldn't do that. They were caught with no cover handy, and didn't have a chance. The planes (now joined by about fifteen more) strafed along the road, concentrating on each vehicle in turn till it went up in flames. Then they machine-gunned at random over the surrounding country, where the men were lying huddled in furrows or under trees as inconspicuously as possible. Some men stood their ground and fired back, but without success. Incendiary bullets set alight a dry field of grain in which Headquarters Company had taken refuge, and the men had to move out in a hurry.

It seemed hours that the planes were overhead, but actually it was only ten minutes. They left a shambles behind them, burning trucks all along the road, an ammunition truck going up in countless small explosions. In 18 Battalion six men had been killed and twelve wounded. The battalion was so scattered that it took some time to reassemble; then it moved on again, across a flat tree-studded plain that ended four miles ahead in low hills hiding the Promised Land of Porto Rafti. Abandoned weapons and gear littered the countryside, and at one spot the men saw dozens of trucks sitting smashed and desolate among the trees, just like the ones they themselves had left.

The defensive position the battalion took up consisted of a dispersed line of men lying quietly among the olive trees north of the road, covering nearly two miles of front; a thin

Cooking in the field. Note the drip-burner stoves—see p. 36Black and white photograph of soldiers in a field

Wadi Naghamish. 18 Battalion at workBlack and white photograph of soldiers in a field

Dinner time, BaggushBlack and white photograph of soldiers having a meal

Dinner time, Mikri Milia, GreeceBlack and white photograph of soldiers cooking

Pause on roadside, Greece—Lt-Col Gray on the leftBlack and white photograph of soldiers with a vehicle

Looking down on ServiaBlack and white photograph of landforms

Crete—7 General Hospital after a bombing raidBlack and white photograph of smoke in a field

German troops on the march towards SfakiaBlack and white photograph of a road

CRETEColoured map of Crete line indeed, only one man to every twelve yards in the forward companies. For the rest of the day they lay there, though at first the men were savage at the delay, as they didn't know the reason for it. Longing eyes were turned seawards, and as the day wore on hearts sank lower and lower.

18 Bn Porto Rafti Black and white map of army position

In the afternoon the action flared up again. First of all the field guns opened up, and men looked at each other and wondered, ‘What's this?’ Then from somewhere in the distance the mortars joined in. And then, soon afterwards, the rumour went round that Jerry was in Markopoulon, a big force of tanks and infantry. It looked as if they might be caught right at the finishing post, because, despite plenty of will to fight, they had nothing much now with which to stop Jerry tanks.

But the miracle happened—the enemy didn't stir past Markopoulon, and 4 Brigade finished the day undisturbed, which was more than it had hoped for. All that happened was that some more planes came over about 5 p.m., and roamed round uselessly strafing empty boats off the coast.

We know now that the German force was a small, lightly equipped flying column of one motor-cycle battalion with no tanks and no means of launching a really heavy attack, and that it wasn't really directed on Porto Rafti at all, but on Lavrion, a larger port some miles south. But even at that, 4 Brigade owed its escape to Jerry's providential lack of radio communication. Let the German report speak for itself:

The battalion left (Athens) for Lavrion at 1400 hours. The advance company had no contact with the enemy, and advanced through Markopoulon towards Lavrion, but while the battalion commander was at Markopoulon the report came in that between Markopoulon and Porto Rafti there were English troops who were abandoning their vehicles and fleeing towards the coast.

3 Coy was instructed to pursue them. Just east of Markopoulon the company came under accurate fire…. A fighting patrol immediately went out, and reported that the heights between Markopoulon and Porto Rafti were strongly held, and that the enemy line curved right to Porto Rafti bay.

As our heavy weapons and artillery were not up with us, the battalion adjutant was sent to contact the Corps Chief of Staff to ask for Stukas. The companies were ordered not to go further forward than Markopoulon so that the Stuka attack could take place. The adjutant did not arrive at Corps HQ, till 1730 hours, and therefore Stukas could not then be made available for the same day. By the time the adjutant got back it was dark, and therefore impossible for the battalion to mount an attack.

At daybreak a fighting patrol was sent out and reported that the enemy had disappeared….

And now, after this brief peep over the fence, let us return to 18 Battalion, sitting among the trees outside Porto Rafti Late in the afternoon the order that the unit was praying for arrived. It was to be the first of the battalions to withdraw, moving after dark to Porto Rafti, where the Navy would take over and do the rest. The word went swiftly round. When darkness fell the companies assembled and moved off, each one separately, on the last four miles of their trek through Greece. The Aussie guns were still firing, but nothing came back in return.

There wasn't much to Porto Rafti—a cove with a jetty, two or three buildings, a few fishing boats drawn up on the beach, and that was about all. But waiting for 18 Battalion was a team of efficient naval officers and New Zealanders, who now stepped in and took command.

Their first order was a familiar one—all surplus gear to be thrown away. The ships were going to be jammed tight with men, as tight as they could be, and there wasn't room for gear, beyond rifles, small haversacks and greatcoats. Everything else had to go. By now the men had little that could be called surplus, but there was a mess and a scramble in the dark as they shoved the most indispensable items into their small packs. Then big packs, gas masks, a few odd blankets that had escaped the previous purges, all were tossed aside. Colonel Gray commented later that this was ‘criminal and scandalous’— but the beach staff had its orders, men before equipment, so the equipment had to go. A few men kept their Brens, and the signallers somehow managed to sneak on board a few telephones, an exchange and some coils of cable. Very little of the New Zealand Division's signal gear was rescued from Greece, and it was quite a notable feat for the 18 Battalion ‘sigs’ to talk their way on to the ship with this.

There were still two hours to wait before anything was due to happen, and a long two hours they were, with the thought still in all minds that a sudden onslaught by Jerry, or failure by the ships to keep their appointment, might yet cook the whole thing and put them all ‘in the bag’. The men sat, stood, or strolled aimlessly round, silent and on edge.

They needn't have worried. Punctually at 11 p.m. small boats appeared out of the dark, and things began to move. Some of the men were taken off by a big barge, no wet feet, no discomfort. Others had to wade out to small boats, some of them into two feet of water, and one party, after embarking, had to get out again and push their boat off the bottom. As each boat was filled it moved quietly out to the ships lying offshore, and the men hauled themselves clumsily up landing nets to the decks, helped by sailors whose kindness was tinged with good-humoured, tolerant contempt for these landlubbers. The men peeled off their wet clothes, appeased their raging hunger with biscuits and treacle and cocoa, then settled down to sleep wherever they could find a spot. When the ships got under way most of 18 Battalion was ‘out cold’.

The battalion's old friend HMS Ajax took off most of the men; others were on the destroyers Kimberley and Kingston. The convoy headed south-east at full speed, and at 10 a.m. next day reached Crete and anchored in Suda Bay.

That was how the main body of 18 Battalion left Greece. But there were other small parties as well, who got separated from the unit somehow or other and had a variety of adventures before getting away.

There were, first, the four remaining carriers. On the evening of 26 April, when the Kriekouki position was abandoned, they were ordered to the Corinth Canal to rescue a party of Kiwis stranded there (or, for all anyone knew, captured by the German paratroops). Corporal Owsley,

Sgt I. E. Owsley; Hamilton; born Auckland, 5 Sep 1910; salesman.

who was with this party, reports: ‘After travelling a few miles we came to a small village …, and from an old house … a “welcome” of rifle & machine gun fire was very heavily turned on us. Lucky for us it was dark or the result would have been finish for all of us, but we got through.’ The carriers filled themselves up with the New Zealand party plus an odd assortment of Aussie and Cypriot stragglers (all starving), then ran for it, the crews holding their breath as they passed the danger point. Luck was with them. They caught the tail of 4 Brigade's column before it reached Porto Rafti; there the carriers were destroyed, and the bereaved crews embarked on HMS Kimberley in the evening.

Next there was an advanced group of eight under Major Petrie, which had left Kriekouki for the Peloponnese on 25 April, before the Corinth landing put the lid on 4 Brigade's embarkation plan. This little party got as far as Corinth by the morning of the 26th, and had a grandstand view of the paratroop drop. They were chased by Jerry planes all the way south to Monemvasia, at the south-east corner of the peninsula, and were evacuated from there along with a hotchpotch of New Zealand engineers and stragglers from all sorts of units.

There were others, too, who lost the battalion somehow or other in the withdrawal and made their way south, mostly small groups mixed up with men from other units. Some joined an organised stragglers' company, which got as far as Kalamata, away down on the south coast of the Peloponnese; but here they were trapped, and most of them were captured by a German column before the Navy could take them off. Among them was Bill Flint,

Pte W. Flint; Invercargill; born Invercargill, 27 Jan 1919; civil servant; wounded 28 Apr 1941; p.w. 29 Apr 1941; escaped Jun 1941; lived 1½ years in Greece before being recaptured; made several escapes in Germany, but was recaptured.

of the ‘I’ section, who later became a persistent escaper from German prison camps. Another of the party, of whom 18 Battalion is not proud, became one of the very few New Zealand prisoners to collaborate with the Germans.

Some 18 Battalion men were included in a group of several hundred who, when the Germans broke through, were in hospital at Athens or convalescing at the New Zealand base camp. They were sent off by train or truck to Megara, just east of the Corinth Canal, where they spent three uncomfortable, hungry days in hiding while waiting to be evacuated. About half the party was taken off by ship on the night of 25 April. The rest were out of luck; they were picked up by the German paratroops at Corinth next morning. Two 18 Battalion officers, Lieutenants Matheson

Capt I. McD. Matheson, ED; Whangarei; born NZ 1 Jan 1906; stock agent; p.w. 26 Apr 1941; Maj, Nth Auck Regt, Terr Force.

and Foot,

Lt S. E. Foot, m.i.d.; born Auckland, 31 Aug 1915; bank clerk; killed in action 25 May 1941.

were among the unlucky ones, and also Private Jack Hooper,

Pte J. D. Hooper; Kaitaia; born NZ 31 Aug 1917; farmer; wounded 16 Apr 1941; served with ELAS guerrillas; p.w.; escaped to Egypt via Turkey, Mar 1944.

who escaped to the hills and spent the remaining war years with the Greeks.

A few others also succeeded in escaping from German hands and rejoined the battalion after varying adventures. There was, for instance, Lieutenant H. B. J. Sutton, who was in hospital in Athens when the Germans arrived. He later crawled under the wire of the Athens convalescent camp, and, along with eighteen others, was evacuated to Egypt in a fishing smack with the help of the Greek ‘underground’. Bill Pritt,

Cpl W. J. Pritt, Silver Medal (Gk); born England, 19 Sep 1914; farm labourer; p.w. 15 Jul 1942.

of 12 Platoon, had an even shorter captivity—he escaped after only two days, accompanied the German army south dressed in Greek uniform, and was back with 18 Battalion inside two months. Lieutenant Foot made a break from Corinth, sailed a small boat to Pirfæus, and rejoined the battalion at Porto Rafti.

Eighteenth Battalion had a reinforcement company in Greece, mainly 4th Reinforcements drafted to the Division just before it left Egypt. This company was camped near Athens with the other New Zealand reinforcements, and spent its time guarding dumps and installations of various kinds in Athens and Pirfæus—a dull job, brightened up occasionally by air raids on Pirfæus harbour.

On 25 April all the New Zealand reinforcements were ordered to Navplion, in the Peloponnese, for evacuation. Shipping losses made this impossible, so the group was sent farther south to Kalamata, where most of it was captured. Some sixty of the battalion's reinforcements suffered this fate, but the rest, under Second-Lieutenant Nelson,

Maj G. B. Nelson, DSO; Auckland; born Ngaruawahia, 13 Aug 1917; clerk.

commandeered a fishing boat and escaped to Crete after a five-day trip. They were received with open arms by 18 Battalion, which was crying out for reinforcements to fill some of the gaps left by the Greek campaign.

For 18 Battalion, as for the rest of the Division, the Greek campaign was the most disappointing they were ever to experience. The men had started out full of confidence and high hopes; they finished up disillusioned and depressed, feeling that they had been pushed round to no good purpose and hadn't even got a good crack at Jerry. Their main impression of the campaign was one of backbreaking loads and perpetual weariness, of hostile planes snarling overhead, and (in the later stages) of nagging hunger. The battalion had lost 23 dead, 42 wounded, 117 captured. Every company had its losses, and they were all the heavier because they seemed to have been in vain.

But the men had also learnt an invaluable lesson. They were blooded now. They had seen the artillery in action and admired the way the gunners stuck to their posts under direct air attack; they had blessed the friendly ASC drivers, who were so generous with the spare rations they always seemed to have on their trucks; they even had words of praise for the provosts who braved the bombs to keep the traffic moving. The battalion was to approach its future actions in a different frame of mind, not so cocky, better aware of its role as one piece of the intricate formation that was the New Zealand Division.

CHAPTER 10 Airborne Invasion

Crete, at first sight, was very like southern Greece, only drier. Square white houses, rolling hills covered with olive trees and vines. The bleary-eyed ragamuffins who crowded off the warships into tiny steamers and barges in Suda Bay weren't in the mood just then to appreciate anything much, so the beauty of the island held no charms for them. All they wanted was food, a clean up, and sleep. The short march from Suda, which normally they would have thought nothing of, was a weary drag that day, the feet leaden, the road dusty and rough. They viewed Crete, the Army and the world with disfavour.

Their way led from the wharf to a transit camp, if a piece of ground studded with olive trees can be so named. It was really a temporary clearing depot, where units arriving all mixed up were sorted out, fed, and sent on their way to their own camps. The meal provided was only bread and cheese, oranges and stewed tea, but it raised the spirits wonderfully. Later, in 18 Battalion's own camp, the cooks triumphed over their lack of gear and produced a hot meal, which the men wouldn't have swapped for an eight-course banquet at the Ritz.

The battalion area, five miles west of Suda and only two miles from Canea, was a good spot, under shady trees, beside a sparkling stream in which you could wash off your grime and cool your feet. By evening the men were feeling fit to face the world again. A night's sleep helped, too—they lay on the bare earth, mostly with no covering, but everyone slept soundly despite the chill of the night. The few blankets and greatcoats that had survived the embarkation were shared round as widely as possible, usually three men to a blanket or two to a greatcoat.

The battalion was allowed only one blissful lazy day here, and early on 30 April it was on its travels again. There was work to be done, a line to be manned, positions to be prepared in expectation of an airborne attack which, the ‘high-ups’ said, was bound to come within a few days, The battalion was fairly well armed, and with a few days' respite would be on top of its form again, and ready to give Jerry a hostile reception.

‘Fairly well armed’ means that everybody had a weapon of some sort. It had been a point of honour with most to keep their rifles, no matter what else went. According to a census taken a few days later, the battalion had 547 rifles, 36 pistols, 37 Bren guns, 27 Tommy guns, one 3-inch and one 2-inch mortar, nine anti-tank rifles and two flare pistols. For all these there was a fair amount of ammunition. But apart from that the battalion was destitute—no transport, no tools, no cooking gear, very little personal equipment or clothing. There was the precious signals gear that had found its way on to the ships, but that was soon lost; Divisional Headquarters, which was desperate for signals gear, took over everything except one phone which was to link 18 Battalion with 4 Brigade Headquarters.

By 30 April the disposition of the forces on Crete had been roughly decided. The Aussies departed for points east. To the Kiwis fell the sector west of Canea along the north coast, the part nearest Greece, an undulating, thickly cultivated stretch of country.

From Suda Bay and Canea a fairly good road followed the north coast westward through Maleme airfield, and just west of Canea another one, known as the Valley road, ran south-west through a low-lying stretch to the inland village of Alikianou. Two and a half miles west of Canea, and a mile from the coast, rose a cluster of bumpy hills crowned by the villages of Galatas and Karatsos. Near the Valley road, a mile south of Galatas, was a group of solid white prison buildings, and farther south this road passed Lake Aghya, which supplied much of Crete's electric power. These were the salient features of a landscape which otherwise was a mass of olive groves and vineyards, with high snowy mountains rising to the south. It was a pleasant, picturesque district, and it was to be the scene of one of the New Zealand Division's grimmest battles.

The first dispositions were 5 Brigade at Maleme, 4 Brigade round Galatas. (Sixth Brigade had gone straight back to Egypt.) So on 30 April 18 Battalion marched five hot, dusty miles to its battle position on the ridges just west and north of Galatas, its right flank on the coast, its left overlooking ‘Prison valley’, 19 Battalion to the east. Here it was to deal with either an airborne or a seaborne attack. This sounds ambitious, but the immediate work involved was negligible, as with no tools but bayonets the battalion couldn't do much to improve the position. There were defences of a sort there already, but nobody thought much of them—they consisted of unconnected single pits, or of section trenches six feet wide, which the company commanders encouragingly labelled ‘death traps’. Some were inexpertly sited and poorly concealed. A little wire had been strung in front of them, but it was most inadequate.

Two mornings later 4 Brigadier handed over to the ad hoc ‘Oakes Force’ (several hundred artillerymen and ASC drivers acting as infantry), and moved a little farther east, in reserve, with a counter-attack role either towards Maleme or up Prison valley. The word ‘reserve’ probably wouldn't mean much, since if Jerry attacked from the air everybody would be front-line troops anyway. But it was thought better to give 4 Brigade (the trained infantry formation) the role that might require more complicated manoeuvring. Brigadier Inglis,

Maj-Gen L. M. Inglis, CB, CBE, DSO and bar, MC, VD, ED, m.i.d., MC (Gk); Hamilton; born Mosgiel, 16 May 1894; barrister and solicitor; NZ Rifle Bde and MG Bn, 1915–19; CO 27 (MG) Bn, Dec 1939-Aug 1940; comd 4 Inf Bde, 1941–42; Armd Bde, 1942–44; GOC 2 NZ Div, 27 Jun-16 Aug 1942, 6 Jun-31 Jul 1943; Chief Judge of the Control Commission Supreme Court in British Zone of Occupation, Germany, 1947–50; Stipendiary Magistrate.

as yet in Egypt, was sent for to command 4 Brigade; Brigadier Puttick was in temporary command of the New Zealand Division, Major-General Freyberg having taken over all the forces on Crete.

Eighteenth Battalion's reserve position was among olives and cacti not far from the tents of 7 British General Hospital and 6 Field Ambulance, just east of the junction where the road to Galatas left the coast road. It was within easy reach of the sea, and, though the Mediterranean was still a bit cold for comfortable bathing, the sand was lovely and warm to lie on.

For the first few days there wasn't much to do except pickets and beach patrols, but from 6 May a strict routine was decreed by Lieutenant-Colonel Gray, with two hours of work a day, mostly ‘spit and polish’ parades, weapon training and inspections; also daily stand-to periods morning and evening, and an NCOs' school. All this called forth some muttering from the ranks, but it had the effect intended, which was to shock the battalion out of its post-Greece lassitude. Mere lying round, thought Gray, would be the worst thing possible in the circumstances.

The unit was as yet hardly ready to meet an invasion, but it was as ready as it could have been with so little equipment. More came in about the middle of the month, but not much. Enough blankets to give everybody one each, a little more clothing, ammunition, a few picks and shovels; two Bren carriers and three 15-cwt. trucks (more transport was promised, but never arrived). But the supplies that could be brought in by the available ships and unloaded at Suda in the face of daily air raids were a drop in the bucket compared with the shortages. So 18 Battalion, in common with every other New Zealand unit on Crete, was woefully under-equipped, with no means of moving except on foot, and relying almost completely on the individual soldier with his rifle or Bren.

The shipping difficulties also meant that food was short— for most of the time units were on half rations, which, said an 18 Battalion man, seemed like quarter rations. Luckily it was a good time of year for living off the country. Eggs and oranges were abundant, and potatoes, beans and tomatoes grew in small patches among the vines. All fairly cheap, in fact sometimes free, if the rightful owner was absent. So nobody starved. Most of the cooking was done in the platoons, and the men ate and drank out of whatever they could scratch up, largely bully beef tins.

Hungry men perked up amazingly on 10 May, when a big letter and parcel mail (the first for months) arrived from New Zealand. Never did food parcels arrive at a better moment. They replenished the tobacco stock, which was right down to zero. The YMCA ran a canteen in Canea for cigarettes and other goods, but the supply could never keep pace with the demand. For some days before the parcels arrived men were smoking tea leaves wrapped in airmail paper.

Luckily, the weather was mostly fine and mild, so the lack of shelter and blankets wasn't the hardship it might have been. There were occasional light showers, but 18 Battalion never got really wet as it had in Greece. Health was good, apart from a mild outbreak of diarrhoea, caused perhaps by eating too many oranges. Returning fitness, swimming, and leave to Canea revived the spirits very effectively; by mid-May nobody would have recognised the mob of tramps who had crawled ashore three weeks before. They weren't keen on the idea of facing an airborne invasion, which was something quite new and therefore vaguely worrying, but they felt that Jerry would get a terrible shock when he came.

From the beginning of May the prospect of invasion was Rumour No. 1. Various dates were confidently given as The Day, though nobody could say where the information came from. Then there was the other school, the wishful thinkers, who had heard from a reliable source that the Kiwis would all be going back to Egypt, or that the Germans had given up the idea of invading Crete. This last yarn gained ground in the battalion when the training began. That, said the experts, proved that there wasn't going to be an invasion—how could there be, with the cream of the New Zealand Division doing one-stop-two all over the place?

But Jerry's interest in Crete was clearly more than academic. He was not the one to waste bombs, and he was certainly dropping a lot of them on Crete. The battalion didn't come in for any personal attention, and wasn't greatly disturbed by the raids, which for the first half of May fell almost entirely on Suda Bay. When the battalion first landed it had seen evidence of these raids, bomb damage in Suda, the dismal sight of the cruiser York aground and heeled over in shallow water. Never a day passed without its raid. The ack-ack batteries were very active, shot down a number of planes and kept the rest high, so the damage was not as great as it might have been; but Suda Bay was a most unhealthy place, and the raids were all too successful in cutting down the flow of supplies to Crete.

From 13 May the raids were stepped up, and Maleme airfield and Canea began to get more. This was the ‘softening up’, the classical prelude to attack. A few days of it silenced the most optimistic anti-invasion prophet; everyone was convinced now that Jerry was coming all right, and pretty soon.

The 18th and 19th May were fierce days. The planes were over in swarms from early morning to late evening, paying their loathsome attention to Maleme, Canea and Suda. The Junkers 88s (‘the clumsy bull-nosed bastards’) that had at first monopolised the skies were now joined by ugly gull-winged Stukas and vicious little Messerschmitt fighters, which roved the sky spraying the whole place with machine-gun fire. The ack-ack guns were firing flat out for most of those two days, and the air was full of smoke and shellbursts. There was no opposition from British planes—previously there had been a few, but they were all out of action by 19 May, after an heroic fight against impossible odds. The Kiwis fumed and chafed at having to sit down under all this, and their mutterings broke out into loud but vain execration on the 18th, when a plane bombed 7 General Hospital, killing and wounding some of the staff and patients. But for the present there was nothing useful anybody could do about it.

B Company had a sudden call away from 18 Battalion on the 18th, to guard no less a person than the King of Greece, who had escaped from the mainland and was now living near the transit camp south of Canea. His Majesty's safety was a matter of political importance—when the invasion came on 20 May he had to leave in a hurry (along with his Prime Minister and a party of eleven others) and tramp over the mountains to the south coast. The escort on this arduous trip was Second-Lieutenant Ryan's 12 Platoon. Some of the platoon were sent back from the top of the mountains and rejoined the battalion later, but the rest carried on to the south coast with the royal party, and were evacuated from there to Egypt. A composite platoon of unemployed from the carrier and pioneer platoons under Second-Lieutenant Ray Lambie

Capt R. F. Lambie; Palmerston North; born Ashburton, 4 Feb 1911; salesman and storeman.

(known as 5 Platoon) replaced Ryan's platoon in B Company.

* * * * *

Nobody who was on Crete will ever forget the morning of 20 May. It was a privilege to have been there, though that didn't occur to anyone at the time. In fact, if you had put the idea forward you would justifiably have been thought crazy. The defenders of Crete were far indeed from thinking themselves privileged. But they witnessed something unprecedented that day.

It began just like any other day, German fighters overhead strafing from the crack of dawn. There seemed more of them than usual, but not so many as to make any special impression. The men of 18 Battalion got their breakfast, spooned it down, and were dispersing again when they realised, quite suddenly, that the ‘feel’ of the air attack had changed. The noise had risen to nightmare volume, and the planes, almost shaving the trees as they passed over, seemed to be trying to attract all possible attention, like boys showing off. They bombed and strafed, apparently at random. Then in the midst of this uproar appeared gliders, slow, majestic and ominous. Silently they passed eastwards towards Suda Bay. Hot on their tails lumbered a group of about twelve big Junkers transports, and from their bellies plunged little white and coloured dots, which opened out into parachutes, each bearing a man or a container of equipment.

Eighteenth Battalion knew in an instant what it was—had known for days what to expect—but that didn't prevent it from being momentarily stunned, gazing up in disbelief, thinking that surely it would wake up shortly. This dazed indecision lasted only a few seconds. Then everyone hopped out of the slit trenches, seized rifle or Bren gun, and began with one accord to blaze away feverishly at the dangling figures now approaching earth. It was like shooting sitting ducks.

The battalion's position ran along a low north-south ridge, covering a front of three-quarters of a mile, with the coast road cutting right through the middle. The forward companies (facing west) were A Company on the coast, with 4 Brigade Headquarters just in front of it; then D, with Battalion Headquarters on its left; then C on the left flank. Headquarters Company (its men acting as temporary riflemen) was in reserve at the coast end behind A Company. All the companies were well concealed in the olive trees, but there were big gaps between them, and it wasn't easy to see or find out what was happening in other areas. This mattered little as long as the paratroops were in the air and everyone could see them, but once they landed 18 Battalion was fighting more or less blind, and found it impossible to act with any cohesion.

Dispositions in Galatas Area 20 May 1941 Black and white map of army positions

Under the circumstances it was just as well that only a small force—three plane-loads, totalling about forty men—came down near the battalion. They dropped right on the western edge of the unit's area; many of them didn't reach the ground alive, but those who did fell among tussocks, vines and olive trees on the next ridge forward of Battalion Headquarters and D Company.

Lieutenant-Colonel Gray didn't hesitate. Gathering up about twenty of the nearest signallers and Battalion Headquarters men, he ran forward to meet the Germans, and a tense little sniping battle took place among the olives. The paratroops were caught at their worst moment, just after landing, before they could link up. The 18 Battalion men hunted them from tree to tree, and several who had survived the descent were shot within the next few minutes. The fight wasn't all one-sided, though. Four of 18 Battalion were wounded, including the RSM, WO 1 George Andrews, who went back for medical treatment, but came forward again the same evening and stayed to do a first-class job over the next five days.

Men from C and D Companies, complete with 2-inch mortar, came forward to help in the hunt, but after the first success the position became a sort of stalemate. A few Jerries, apparently out of touch with their main body, established themselves in cover about 300 yards ahead of the battalion, put out snipers, and refused to be dislodged, though for the time being they couldn't do much harm. For the rest of the day both sides were cautious and watchful, the silence broken only by the occasional rifle shot as someone saw (or thought he saw) a fleeting target. Men from D Company and Battalion Headquarters went carefully out and collected what food and gear they could find from the dead paratroopers—in quite a small area they counted seventeen bodies.

These paratroopers were part of 10 Company of III Battalion, 3 Parachute Regiment, whose orders had been to capture what the Germans referred to as the ‘tented camp’ (7 General Hospital). In the German plan the whole battalion was to have dropped near the Galatas road turnoff, in which case 18 Battalion would have found itself mixed up in a much fiercer battle than it did. But, as it happened, only 10 Company dropped in the right place. The rest fell south of Galatas, got tangled up in fighting there, and didn't come near the hospital, which fell to the survivors of 10 Company, those who had dropped out of range of the battalion.

The planes screening the attack didn't spare the hospital, which was bombed and machine-gunned for an hour and a half, losing some more of its staff and patients and quite a number of its tents. Then the paratroopers arrived and captured the whole place without opposition. The hospital was marked with large red crosses, and it seemed inexcusable for any pilot to ignore them. This operation appeared, to all who saw it, to show Jerry up as a dirty fighter.

But it is hardly credible, looking back, that Jerry, in a campaign where he as a rule respected the Red Cross, should wantonly make an exception here. It now seems probable, in fact, that he had not previously recognised the hospital—such of his orders as have survived all call it a ‘tented camp’. And the dust and smoke of the air raids on 20 May could well have blotted out the red crosses by the time the planes turned their attention to the hospital. So the charge of ‘German frightfulness’ is by no means proved.

However this may be, the paratroopers who captured the hospital behaved not too well. Some of the patients and orderlies were left where they were, but most of them were herded over the road to 6 Field Ambulance, not far from where the odds and ends of 10 Parachute Company were playing cat and mouse with 18 Battalion Headquarters and D Company. Soon after midday the Germans, realising that they were out on a limb with little chance of help, began to move up the road towards Galatas, taking their ‘prisoners’ with them. D Company sped them on their way with Bren fire at long range, and soon they disappeared out of 18 Battalion's life, leaving D Company seething with rage at what it took to be a deliberate attempt to use the hospital patients as a screen. It certainly looked like that. But we will never know for sure whether the Jerries had any such idea in mind. They very likely thought they were moving away from trouble, not into it. Had they known what lay ahead of them they would have been wiser to abandon their prisoners and get away across country as inconspicuously as possible.

The further history of the party is brief and bloody. Near the outskirts of Galatas it walked into 19 Battalion, and after a short fight the Germans were almost wiped out, and the surviving patients and hospital staff rescued.

To return now to 18 Battalion. Although 7 General Hospital was only a few hundred yards ahead of the battalion, intervening ridges hid it from view, so nobody knew of its capture until Captain Kelleway went forward to 4 Brigade Headquarters to find out what was going on. He was ordered to take A Company forward and retake the hospital. Then, Kelleway reports:

I returned to the Coy. and we advanced as follows—7 and 8 Pls forward in open formation … and 9 pl. following in the rear, to take up a position covering us from a rise when we hit the flat hospital area.

We had not gone far, when my runner was killed beside me— some of the opposition were in trees…. We killed the few tree dwellers, and went down and through the hospital to find the place empty….

After proceeding about 800 yards past the hospital, and seeing no further opponents, we returned, and occupied the low ridge commanding the hospital, from the road, right down to the sea.

While A Company was moving forward Colonel Gray arrived back at Battalion Headquarters from his hunting expedition, and hearing from a Brigade Headquarters runner what had happened he at once ordered Headquarters Company and the two carriers forward in support. Headquarters Company moved up to A Company's old area. The carriers nosed forward quite close to the mingled crowd of patients and paratroopers at 6 Field Ambulance, but decided that everybody was so mixed up that they couldn't do anything helpful.

A Company's new line covering the hospital was about 600 yards ahead of the old one. Late in the afternoon the rest of the battalion moved up level with A Company, and at the same time extended its line half a mile south to cover a vacant gap between it and 19 Battalion. Headquarters Company came in beside A Company, just south of the Galatas road junction. Next was D Company, and C was on the left, its front reaching as far as the Valley road.

This road, and the heights between it and Galatas, had been the scene of confused fighting that day. Paratroopers had landed all along the valley, captured the prison and the Aghya reservoir, and established themselves in a strong organised body (most of 3 Parachute Regiment) holding a big stretch of the valley floor. Very serious from the New Zealand point of view was the loss of four British howitzers—half the artillery in the Galatas area—which were sited beside the road near the northern entrance to the valley, and had been put out of action that morning by paratroopers who landed right on top of them. The fighting here was very obscure, and nobody knew where anyone was, either friend or foe. It was about 4 p.m. before the loss of the howitzers became known, and Brigadier Inglis at once ordered 18 Battalion to send a company up to retake them.

C Company was chosen for the job. With both the battalion's carriers and its one and only 3-inch mortar in attendance the company left its position and began to advance south-west along the Valley road, which here runs along a hillside sloping down from Karatsos, with a riverbed running parallel on the left. One carrier, commanded by Second-Lieutenant Herdman,

Lt J. K. Herdman; born Scotland, 18 May 1905; car salesman; killed in action 20 May 1941

led the advance; then the company, with 14 Platoon in the lead; the mortar brought up the rear. It wasn't any Charge of the Light Brigade—the company moved forward slowly and carefully, very much on the alert, not knowing when Jerry might pop up in its path. It was barely a mile from the starting point to the objective, but the country was pretty broken, with lots of cover.

The company was about halfway when Jerry machine guns and mortars opened up from in front. Herdman's carrier snooped up the road, but injudiciously put its nose out from behind a building and stopped a burst of fire which knocked the carrier out, wounded the driver and killed Herdman—the first 18 Battalion officer to die in action. Most of 14 Platoon took to the ditches beside the road, and the whole company was held up by the fire. Jerry had a good position in thick trees, almost impossible to get at by a frontal attack. The best C Company could do was to sit down where it was, exchange fire with the invisible enemy, and send out a scouting party into the stream bed to try to find a way round the flank. This party (two sections of 13 Platoon led by Corporal Ron Ferguson

Maj R. H. Ferguson; Whangarei; born Whangarei, 15 Jun 1915; clerk; wounded 2 Dec 1943; company commander 27 Bn (Japan); CO Northland Regt (Lt-Col) 1948–52.

) got up close to the Germans and had a little fight on its own account, but the enemy was too strong, and eventually the patrol had to pull out with one man killed, rejoining the company as it was beginning to withdraw. By then it was getting dark.

In the meantime the main body of C Company had kept up a sniping match with the Jerries, both sides wary of showing themselves. The company lost a few wounded, and the enemy undoubtedly did too, though C Company couldn't see just how much damage it did. There seemed to be little point in staying there, however, and no chance of getting forward to the objective; so as dusk fell Major Lynch sent a runner to recall Ferguson's party, and then pulled the company back, complete with two prisoners picked up quite early in the scrap.

The battalion's front was quite peaceful that night. It was well away from the main scene of action on the hills south and west of Galatas. That area was the key to Canea and Suda Bay, and if Jerry were allowed to get a firm grip on it the outlook would indeed be dangerous. Tenth Brigade and 19 Battalion held the front there, while the Germans strove to consolidate in the prison valley below.

Tenth Brigade, a scratch formation under Colonel Kippenberger, consisted of ‘Oakes Force’ (now renamed the Composite Battalion), Divisional Cavalry and some hundreds of assorted Greeks semi-organised into two regiments. For a fortnight before the invasion six men from 18 Battalion and two from 20 Battalion had been attached as instructors to 8 Greek Regiment near Lake Aghya—this area got the full benefit of 3 Parachute Regiment's parachute drop, and the New Zealanders found themselves isolated, with Germans all round them. Four of the 18 Battalion men were trapped, and spent a miserable night and day inside a hilltop pumping station, waist-deep in water, before being captured. The other two, Lieutenant K. L. Brown and Sergeant L. V. Smith,

WO II L. V. Smith, Gold Medal (Gk); Raglan; born Otorohanga, 6 Sep 1913; carpenter; wounded Nov 1941.

took to the hills—Smith later joined up with Second-Lieutenant Ryan's royal escort, and Brown was captured on 21 May, made his escape the same day, and spent nearly a week in the hills, rejoining 18 Battalion on its withdrawal from Suda Bay.

Surprisingly, 21 May was fairly quiet for 18 Battalion, which woke up expecting fireworks but didn't get them. There was a little bombing and strafing (not as much as expected), and no fresh paratroopers dropped near, though from their positions on the ridges the men could see little clouds of white dots drifting down like snowflakes to the west, and could hear a continuous reverberating roar as the Luftwaffe hammered 5 Brigade at Maleme. Apart from a little mopping up of isolated snipers, the battalion's day was just a matter of patrolling and keeping eyes open all round. At nightfall B Company came back from the transit camp and took over HQ Company's old area east of 7 General Hospital.

Until B Company's return 18 Battalion had had no news of its doings. On 20 May the company had had a little fun of its own. It took a severe strafing from about 8 a.m., and half an hour later a planeload of paratroops dropped right in its territory, in and round the grounds of the house where the Greek king had been. Patrols went out immediately to hunt the invaders, killed some and captured all the rest, who were taken to the house under guard. Later in the day 10 and 11 Platoons both sent patrols out eastwards to where some paratroops were worrying a company of British troops, and had little skirmishes in the trees with machine guns and 2-inch mortar bombs. The engagements were not heavy and cost B Company no casualties, but several more paratroops were killed and wounded, and the rest retired. At dusk B Company pulled back into the house grounds, protected by the walls, where it stayed until ordered back to the battalion next afternoon.

The night of 21–22 May is notable in 18 Battalion's history as being the only time the unit ever had a grandstand view of a full-dress naval action. From about 11 p.m. to nearly dawn the northern horizon was dancing with gun flashes, and the sound of firing came dully across the water to liven up the job of the beach and coast-road patrols. The battalion was alerted to deal with any landing, and Rumour had a night out, especially when four ships obviously on fire were seen away out to sea. By morning the excitement had ceased and there was nothing in sight, but the story was soon circulating—the Navy had been on the job again (good old Navy!) and had ‘fixed’ Jerry's invasion convoy. There would be no sea landing to repel in the meantime.

The whole Galatas front had been pretty quiet on 21 May. The 3rd Parachute Regiment had clung grimly to its perimeter, expecting a counter-attack from hour to hour, while the Kiwis sat tight, not daring to turn on a counter-attack which, if it failed, would leave them more vulnerable than before. As we know now, a bold counter-stroke would probably have cleaned out 3 Parachute Regiment, and might have changed the whole course of the campaign, but battlefield tactics can't be judged in the light of what we learn later. As it was, the risk was thought too great, so there was no counter-attack that day.

And by next day the situation was worse. Jerry had had a wonderful respite, and had consolidated his position so well that when 19 Battalion attacked southwards on the afternoon of 22 May it was knocked back. Eighteenth Battalion supported this attack by sending two platoons of B Company up the Valley road and into the hamlet of Galaria on the slopes east of it, to clear away any enemy that might threaten 19 Battalion's flank. No. 10 Platoon captured three snipers hidden in vineyards overlooking the Valley road, so well hidden that the men almost trod on them before seeing them. No. 5 Platoon had no trouble at Galaria—it occupied the village for two hours, then came back without having seen a single German.

This excursion, thought B Company, had been a ‘fizzer’. So it wasn't too pleased when the order came through, just about dusk, to go forward along the Valley road again and mop up some Jerries who were established in a group of houses and were cramping 19 Battalion's style. Once more the platoons (10 and 11 this time) had a long walk for nothing. Near their objective they met some hilarious bandits who turned out to be Greek soldiers and civilians, very pleased with themselves because they had beaten the Kiwis to it and cleaned out the Germans. The platoons stayed for a while in case they were needed, but were ordered home at 11 p.m., having had nothing to do but feel superfluous. Meanwhile the Greeks and some of the Composite Battalion had beaten back a German attack on Galatas.

No other companies moved on 22 May, but they had a disturbed day. For one thing, the Luftwaffe was overhead all day, looking for targets to strafe, so that anyone moving round in the open did so at his peril. There were still a few lone snipers in the area, too—sometimes there would be an hour or so of peace, and then firing would break out again as someone located a sniper and exchanged compliments with him. This was a wearing kind of warfare, harder on the nerves than anyone had imagined, for you never knew when or from where some accursed sniper might have you in his sights. A few of them had occupied two houses forward of C Company, and though they caused no casualties they were a nuisance until cleaned out by a C Company patrol on 23 May.

Hunger depressed the spirits even more. Since the invasion there had been no hot meals, not even a cup of tea, because the German planes made it impossible to light fires. The men had subsisted on cold rations, plus whatever German supplies they had, or the little they could scrounge off the country. On 20 May food, weapons and ammunition, medical supplies, all had been dropped with the paratroops, and a number of containers had found their way into 18 Battalion's welcoming hands. But this source of supply had now dried up, and with the battalion's own supply system disrupted by snipers and odd groups of paratroops in the rear, the outlook was bleak.

Bleak, indeed, and not only for supplies. Bigger things were being decided on 22 May. The whole fate of Crete, which had hung in the air for two days, now began to move to the German side. Jerry, getting his second wind, promptly grasped the initiative. From Maleme came the main body of 5 Mountain Division, circling round south of the New Zealand positions and then striking east to cut off 5 Brigade. And up from the prison valley, through a gap in the hostile ring, came a small but determined detachment from 3 Parachute Regiment, skirting the Galatas hills to the west, pushing north to cut the coast road between 5 Brigade's rear and the Composite Battalion. If these two groups met, it would be the end of 5 Brigade, and the Germans would be able to build up overwhelming strength against Galatas, Canea and Suda Bay.

There was little the New Zealand Division could do about it now. If 5 Brigade stayed out at Maleme it would beyond a doubt be cut off, all of it, by 5 Mountain Division's detour through the foothills. Fourth and 10th Brigades were too heavily engaged at Galatas to help. The Division had thrown all the troops it could into a counter-attack at Maleme that morning; it failed, and after that there was nothing left but to withdraw 5 Brigade, fatal though this course was bound to be in the end. So dawn on 23 May found 5 Brigade back east of the Platanias River (halfway between Maleme and Galatas), packed into a thin strip of ground along the coast, in contact to the east with the Composite Battalion. The danger of Jerry getting in behind 5 Brigade was averted, but on the other hand Maleme airfield was now abandoned, and Jerry could build up there unmolested for a heavy attack eastwards.

Meanwhile, the defenders of Galatas were doing what they could against the threat from 3 Parachute Regiment. By the morning of 23 May the paratroop detachment had penetrated a long way up towards the coast road and seemed likely to cut it. The Composite Battalion was ordered to push its front out westwards to meet this move, and B Company was detached from the comparatively fresh 18 Battalion and sent over in a hurry to help clear out the northernmost pockets of enemy, establish a line on the ridges west of the Composite Battalion, and keep Jerry off the coast road to protect 5 Brigade's withdrawal. The battalion's lone 3-inch mortar went with the company.

B Company didn't know when it set out exactly what it was going to find, except that it would probably be trouble. It moved due west, parallel to the coast, well dispersed under cover of the trees, right through the Composite Battalion's forward positions, then along a cart track towards the village of Stalos, perched on a narrow ridge. Down in the gully below Stalos was a Composite Battalion patrol, briskly engaged with the enemy on the ridge. Its commander took Major Evans forward and pointed out the state of affairs to him—the Germans were in strength in and round Stalos, and the patrol had already held them for an hour or more and had knocked out two machine guns.

Major Evans decided to go for Stalos. The mortar dropped a few rounds into the village, 10 Platoon gave covering fire, and 11 Platoon set out straight up the hill. Jerry was for once caught unawares, not expecting such a spirited foray. The men of 11 Platoon closed in, cleaned out two machine-gun posts after hand-grenade battles, and pushed on through the village to the last house, where they found another machine gun opposing them. But just as they were preparing to tackle it, word came up from Major Evans to pull out of Stalos and come back to the company.

This was galling for 11 Platoon, who had cause to pat themselves on the back for having chased away several times their number of Germans for the loss of one killed and one or two wounded. Corporal Alf Voss,

Maj A. J. Voss, MBE, MC, DCM; Auckland; born England, 3 Oct 1918; farmer; wounded 3 Jun 1944; OC Regular Force Depot, Army Schools, 1959-.

a member of the platoon, comments:

This was one of the strangest orders I can recall ever being given; Maj Evans even chastized 11 Pl on their return for not being able to capture Stalos. Knowing Maj Evans' dynamic offensive spirit it was apparent he had not been given correct information as to what had happened.

So back came the platoon with no very good grace. B Company now took up a line on the next ridge north of Stalos, and spent the rest of the day exchanging fire with Jerry across the gully and watching for any advance north towards the coast.

But the Germans kept pretty quiet, and didn't venture out from Stalos till dusk, when they made a small, unsuccessful foray towards a monastery on B Company's right flank, possibly looking for food or loot. Evidently they weren't in sufficient numbers to try strength with B Company.

The rest of 18 Battalion had relative peace on 23 May, broken only by the odd brush with a sniper, mainly in the gap between 18 and 19 Battalions. Even the Luftwaffe was quieter, except for a force of Stukas which came over suddenly about midday and hit the Galatas area with great ferocity. So concentrated was this bombing that everyone felt sure it was the preliminary to an attack. A Company, which was right in the way of the bombs, lost Captain Kelleway and three others wounded. Captain Lyon took over the company.

It has already been seen how the general position was deteriorating. As 23 May wore on, Jerry's outflanking move from Maleme became more and more dangerous, and it seemed that this thrust might yet link up with the 3 Parachute Regiment party at Stalos and make 5 Brigade's new position untenable. So during the afternoon Divisional Headquarters issued new orders—5 Brigade to withdraw again through the Composite Battalion into reserve east of Galatas, 4 Brigade to take over from 10 Brigade. There would then be nothing to prevent the two German forces from linking up, but they would no longer be able to split the Division in two.

The Composite Battalion's line ran from the coast to a prominent height (named Ruin Hill by the Kiwis) some 1000 yards west of Galatas, and to another round-topped hill (Wheat Hill) a little farther east. It was almost the same line as 18 Battalion had taken over at the end of April, and now the battalion, the only reasonably fresh New Zealand unit left, was to take it over again.

Everyone knew that the Composite Battalion had had a bad time there. When 18 Battalion's company commanders went forward to reconnoitre that afternoon they found out why. Jerry was quite close up to the forward line at the south end, his snipers and mortars were uncomfortably active, and his planes seemed to be paying personal attention to everything that moved round this particular area. The Composite Battalion had had little opportunity to improve the defences— the wiring across the front was still scanty, the wide, badly sited trenches still in use. In front of the position the broken, wooded country offered splendid cover right up to the foremost posts.

So there was cause for pessimism, particularly as the unit's front was to be 2400 yards—far too long for an infantry battalion down in numbers and short of equipment—and Jerry was apparently squaring up for an attack there to complete the linking of his two groups. The only thing to do was to site the companies to cover the front as best they could, but there would be inevitable gaps, wide ones, between companies and platoons. So thin would the line be that Lieutenant-Colonel Gray decided he would have to leave Ruin Hill unmanned. This was unfortunate, expecially as he apparently did not report it. Ruin Hill was a commanding point in that gently rolling countryside, overlooking the ridge to the north (Red Hill) and Wheat Hill to the east, where the forward companies were to go.

Nothing could be done before dark. At 9 p.m. the companies began to move up as silently as possible. At the Galatas turnoff they had to pass a house brightly in flames from a bomb hit, and the light falling on the road made everyone feel horribly exposed, but nothing happened. By the early hours of 24 May 18 Battalion had taken over the sector, with D Company holding a 500-yard front inland from the coast, then C on Red Hill, and A on Wheat Hill. B Company came back from Stalos and took up a reserve position in the centre. Headquarters Company was on the next ridge behind D, with the ‘ack-ack’ platoon a little way ahead giving D Company direct support. The Luftwaffe had disappeared with the daylight, but Jerry's mortar crews, evidently in no need of sleep themselves, were out to ensure that nobody else got any. The position gave every promise of being a tough spot, and the men were very soon to realise that, for all the sniping in their old area, they ‘hadn't seen nothing yet’.

CHAPTER 11 The Crete Debacle

Daylight on 24 May showed 18 Battalion just how grim its situation was. The men had toiled through a sleepless night to improve their positions, but couldn't do much in a few hours with hardly any tools (tin hats and bayonets were the chief implements, with the few picks and shovels shared round as fairly as possible). Now that it was light, they found themselves facing an invisible enemy tucked away on the wooded slopes opposite and still throwing mortar bombs round lavishly. This was the battalion's first real taste of mortar fire, and most unpleasant it was. You couldn't hear the bombs coming until they burst with a ‘stinking double crack’ as one man put it, scattering jagged hunks of metal all over the place.

The Germans (100 Mountain Regiment from Maleme) had also got machine guns up on to Ruin Hill during the night, and from there were spraying the forward companies with fire. Lieutenant-Colonel Gray must have bitterly rued his failure to occupy Ruin Hill. It put C and D Companies in a particularly bad spot, under machine-gun fire from both front and flank besides the mortaring. Nobody could do much about it, for the battalion's own supply of mortar bombs was almost down to zero, and Jerry's mortaring prevented the machine-gunners from fighting back as much as they would have liked. Before long the battalion was having casualties, not a great number, but a persistent flow of ones and twos all along the line.

To add a little more unpleasantness, the planes began to appear again quite early in the day, and right through till dark there was at least one on the prowl nearly all the time. Fighters were operating from Maleme now, only a few miles away, so it was easy for Jerry to keep up a constant patrol over the New Zealand lines. The battalion's orders were to stay hidden and not to shoot at the planes—an order that nobody felt like contravening.

The atmosphere throughout 4 Brigade that day was tense, but nowhere more so than in 18 Battalion, which expected to be attacked at any moment. Small bodies of men were continually moving up along the coast road and disappearing into the thick country forward of the battalion, an unmistakable sign of impending attack. So the companies, though largely confined to their pits, kept very alert, not only on their own fronts but to the flanks as well. They had no telephones, and no means of passing on news except by runner, a risky method in such a situation. The battalion's only telephone was connected with 4 Brigade Headquarters, but it didn't help much, as the line was cut several times by mortaring. Anyway, Battalion Headquarters couldn't guarantee up-to-date news from the front line.

Never had the battalion felt so much out on its own. It had very little artillery support. Though there were six Vickers guns on the front (two with A Company, two with C and two behind D), their fire could not be controlled or co-ordinated— they just had to shoot at what appeared on their own fronts, and some of them had no tripods. Nevertheless they were to prove the greatest comfort to 18 Battalion in the action that followed.

The first test came early in the afternoon. An enemy party tried to push its way into A Company's position, and the battalion had to expend some of its priceless mortar bombs to get rid of them. Two hours later they tried again at Red Hill, a more determined effort this time—artillery, mortars and the machine guns on Ruin Hill all pounded the ridge, and things got so bad that some of the C Company men left their pits and went back over the brow of the hill. Runners went racing back to Battalion Headquarters for help. Colonel Gray came forward and set about organising a counter-attack, but soon discovered that there was no need for it. The Vickers and Brens had made the pace so hot that Jerry couldn't take advantage of his success, and had been forced to retire from Red Hill again.

C Company had won the first round, but the second wasn't long in beginning. As dusk was falling a crescendo of fire again blinded the company, and before they realised it the enemy had closed in and was right through behind the forward posts on Red Hill. The platoons, under fire from all directions, were forced back off the hill; the Germans followed, but were halted on the crest by determined fire from the next ridge (Murray Hill), where the whole company was now clustered round Company Headquarters. The company wasn't getting off lightly this time—the fire was still heavy, and men were being hit.

Help was on the way, however. The transport platoon of HQ Company, under Second-Lieutenant Copeland,

Capt O. B. Copeland; Kaipara Line; born NZ 26 Dec 1912; farmer; wounded and p.w. 1 Jun 1941.

came up to C Company, climbed Red Hill, and chased the enemy off the crest after a brisk little fight. Here, again, was Colonel Gray in the forward line, directing and encouraging. Red Hill was in our hands again, and the line was safe for a little longer.

But Red Hill was a most unhealthy spot, swept by fire from front and flank, and it was plain that there wouldn't be much of the transport platoon left if it had to stay there long. So Gray decided to abandon the hill. This was a hard decision, as it would leave D Company's left flank open—Gray had proposed to withdraw D Company too, but had been met with a blunt refusal from Brigadier Inglis. All he could do now was to put as many men as possible on Murray Hill, and make Red Hill so red-hot that Jerry couldn't have it either. C Company was ordered to stay in its compact position on Murray Hill, and B Company (now under Captain N. B. Smith) was summoned forward to help. C Company was also to patrol Red Hill and keep it clear of the enemy. There was a danger spot on D Company's left flank, where a jumble of spurs and gullies offered a way in for Jerry, so Gray posted one extra Bren gun (all he could spare) to overlook this part.

B Company had been having a bad time in reserve. The fire on it had been nearly as solid as on the front line, and the company had had a bitter blow earlier in the evening when Major Evans was killed by a mortar bomb. In his twenty months as B Company's commander Bill Evans had won very high regard—a friendly, humane man, and as a company commander aggressive, reliable and imperturbable. There were few jokes or cheerful remarks as B Company went forward. The men were silent and savage, itching to ‘get stuck into the bastards’, a desire that was not to be satisfactorily fulfilled. As the company moved up it was mortared, and 5 Platoon lost one killed and two wounded.

B Company had to be split up in the front line—never an ideal arrangement, but better than shifting C Company now that it was more or less settled again. There were gaps to be filled on both sides. No. 10 Platoon went south of C Company, and the other two platoons north of it; 5 Platoon, on the right flank, was to patrol out to the right to contact D Company. The line was still thin, but the whole front had some sort of coverage. The move up took nearly all night; after the platoons were in position they could do no more than scratch themselves shallow holes before daylight.

In the very early hours of the morning a welcome reinforcement arrived in answer to an appeal by Gray for more troops. The 100 men who came up (two platoons of artillerymen under Captain Bliss

Maj H. C. Bliss, m.i.d.; Christchurch; born Christchurch, 22 Sep 1914; dairy farmer; p.w. 22 Jul 1942.

and one of Divisional Supply drivers under Lieutenant Rawle

Maj R. E. Rawle, MC; Wellington; born Wellington, 2 Aug 1911; civil servant; OC Div Supply Coy Apr-Nov 1944; wounded 25 May 1941.

) had already had several days of fighting with the Composite Battalion, but they were in good heart, and 18 Battalion was delighted to see them. One of the artillery platoons went to Murray Hill on B Company's right, the other stayed back in reserve, and the ASC men joined C Company and 11 Platoon. Captain Bliss became for the time second-in-command of B Company. These newcomers, like B Company, had very little time to make any sort of positions for themselves. The whole force on Murray Hill, in fact, was very ill protected, and daybreak on 25 May caught them in a bad situation, many of them still above ground with no decent holes to get into.

C and B Companies had had a fairly full night; but they found time for a little fighting as well. In the small hours of the morning three patrols (two from C Company and one from B) went out to Red Hill to make sure that Jerry didn't establish himself on the crest. The patrols ran into machine guns, lots of them, and put several out of action, at least one with hand grenades. B Company's party ran into a real hornet's nest of machine guns, and all its four men were wounded. One of C Company's got back undamaged, but the other was badly shot up by the company's own forward sections as it returned, looming up unrecognisable in the dark.

It need hardly be said that nobody in 18 Battalion got any sleep that night, with all these comings and goings, with Jerry's machine guns pouring tracer into the defences, with mortar bombs and explosive bullets ceaselessly cracking in the trees. Back at Battalion Headquarters, too, everyone was alert for any sudden calls from the front. During the early part of the night the RAP had been working at top speed dealing with C Company's casualties. Later on this eased up. A truckload of wounded went back from the battalion to a dressing station near Suda Bay, and the truck came back loaded up with rations and a little ammunition, including the last twenty-five mortar bombs that could be scrounged.

Then to these harried, sleepless men dawned 25 May, the blackest day of the whole war for 18 Battalion.

18 Bn 25 May 1941 Black and white map of army positions

There was no doubt that a full-scale attack was due that day. Jerry had brought artillery up during the night, and as soon as it grew light away went everything, small arms, mortars, guns and planes, in a hail of fire on 18 Battalion, increasing in violence as the hours wore on. All morning the men grimly faced this fire, from minute to minute expecting the attack. The Vickers and Bren guns kept up a return fire, especially on Red Hill and along the coast road, where D Company had lots of targets too good to let slip. The forward companies would have swapped all they owned for more 3-inch mortars and bombs.

Very soon wounded men began to come back, first a trickle, then a continuous stream, too many for the ‘Doc’ and his staff to cope with. Even with the RAP divided, one section at Battalion Headquarters and one near HQ Company, the position quickly became chaotic. As a desperate gamble two trucks full of wounded were sent back to the dressing station, and by some miracle the trucks returned unscathed, having run the gauntlet of the Luftwaffe both ways.

The hardest hit was D Company, to whom Jerry seemed to have taken a particular dislike; during the morning it had nineteen casualties, more than a quarter of its whole strength. The Germans opposing it were remnants of the Assault Regiment, the cream of the airborne troops, violent and aggressive fighters.

Shortly after 1 p.m. the mortaring rose to a savage climax, and at the same time German infantry made their first appearance, not in great numbers, but stabbing at the line here and there, testing for weak spots. By two o'clock they were coming forward in strength all along the front. The dangerous thrust seemed to be against A Company on Wheat Hill, where both the Vickers guns had been knocked out, but the company clung on and fought the enemy off, and a handful of ASC men, all there were to spare, was sent off to Wheat Hill in a hurry.

Things were shaky on the right flank too. D Company was now so low in numbers that its hold on the ridge was extremely precarious. Its CSM, Leo Bulford,

WO II L. V. Bulford; born NZ 21 Oct 1908; dairy-factory hand; killed in action 25 May 1941.

was dead. So was Lieutenant Foot, who had been at Company Headquarters with the 3-inch mortar. The mortar itself was damaged and useless. The company was being machine-gunned from front and flank. The reserve platoon of ‘infantillery’ was ordered up to D Company, but couldn't get through the mortar barrage, and finished up holding a vacant stretch of ground on D Company's left rear.

In the centre the position seemed a fraction easier. The Vickers guns here were still in the fight, and B and C Companies' Brens were doing well, sweeping the crest of Red Hill and keeping Jerry at bay for the time being. One party of Germans got in close to C Company, but was fought off by 15 Platoon. A few men from Battalion Headquarters and HQ Company came up to thicken the line.

By 3 p.m. the whole line was patched up in the meantime, and no more could be done until the next assault came in. When that happened it could only be a question of digging your toes in, as there were no more reserves except the ‘ack-ack’ platoon of HQ Company, which was fully occupied backing up D Company. There wasn't long to wait.

The knockout punch fell just where it could least be withstood, on D Company, pitifully weak in numbers and lacking cohesion and directions. A paratroop party, moving up one of the gullies on the company's left, got in between the platoons and Company Headquarters, and almost simultaneously there was a heavy frontal attack. The story of how the company went down has been told by Corporal Ernie Howard,

Cpl E. A. Howard, MM; born Scotland, 28 Dec 1906; petroleum technologist; p.w. 25 May 1941; escaped 19 Aug 1941; killed in action 21 Jul 1942.

a Bren-gunner in 16 Platoon:

Fire from the enemy had become more intense and the ground shook to the blasts of mortar bombs and shells. I saw some enemy activity behind a knoll, they were not quite hidden. I opened fire but could observe no results. Suddenly one of the NCOs yelled out to cease fire as D Coy was surrendering. As this was uttered the whole enemy ground became alive with advancing troops. The beach too. They advanced in fairly close order along the open beach towards the wire. I opened fire and got several. Again the order came to cease fire and on looking along the brow of the hill I saw one of the boys climbing out with his hands up…. I ceased fire. Then followed a short period of doubt and indecision for which we were all to blame. Were we entirely surrounded? Could I have got away had I made a break? These are questions for which I shall never have an answer. Two men did make a break but were shot as they got over the hill so if we were not entirely surrounded Jerry certainly commanded the whole field of fire in our rear. The advancing Jerries were now on the road and signalling us to come down. We climbed out and with our hands in the air walked down towards them.

From a runner who made the perilous trip back, Battalion Headquarters heard of the infiltration. At once Colonel Gray collected a few men from near at hand and led them forward through HQ Company, yelling to others to join them in a bayonet charge. By the time they reached D Company headquarters the party had snowballed to about three dozen. But there Gray had to leave them and hurry back to Battalion Headquarters, and the incipient counter-attack fizzled out. ‘A few,’ said Eric Sworn,

WO II E. E. Sworn, m.i.d.; Auckland; born England, 16 Nov 1899; insurance agent.

the D Company CQMS, ‘came up to Coy HQ, and a few reached Cpl. Leith's

Cpl J. S. Leith; born Dunedin, 26 Sep 1914; clerk; died of wounds 25 May 1941.

platoon on the right flank, but no bayonet charge was made and they all drifted away again….’ Company Headquarters was now on its own, and for a while didn't know what had happened to the platoons.

Shortly before Jerry got in among the forward positions Captain Sinclair had been wounded. His successor, Second-Lieutenant D. L. Robinson,

2 Lt D. L. Robinson; born Wellington, 17 Jan 1909; assistant town clerk; killed in action 25 May 1941.

went forward after the abortive bayonet charge to find out the story up front, but was killed by a hand grenade. The Germans were now right in front of Company Headquarters and very near to it. The six men remaining at Headquarters were obviously no use where they were, with no field of fire, and would inevitably be overwhelmed, so Sworn took command and ordered them back to Battalion Headquarters. The way lay across 50 yards of open field under vicious fire from a machine gun on the flank— another man was hit, and the survivors scattered, reassembling when they reached cover. The Vickers guns, which had been firing all this time, pulled back about the same time, covered by the ‘ack-ack’ platoon, whose Bren-gunners carried on the

Crete survivors—8 Platoon, A CompanyBlack and white photograph of soldiers

Combined training—Assault Landing Craft on HMS GlenroyBlack and white photograph of a ship

Combined training—landing from the Assault CraftBlack and white photograph of soldiers in a field

Gambut airfieldBlack and white photograph of an airfield

18 Battalion convoy being shelledBlack and white photograph of smoke in a field

Belhamed—18 Battalion advances on the German pocketBlack and white photograph of soldiers in a field

German prisoners at BelhamedBlack and white photograph of soldiers in a field

18 Battalion Signal truck after hitting a mineBlack and white photograph of a destroyed vehicle work and kept Jerry off the crest of D Company's hill in the meantime. Some of HQ Company who had gone forward to D Company were cut off when the others withdrew; a number of them got clear after nightfall and rejoined the battalion later.

D Company's surrender, of course, brought bitter reproach down on 18 Battalion after the campaign. But they had had to endure the unendurable—a man in HQ Company, who saw most of what went on, said of the surrender that he ‘didn't blame the poor beggars as they had had a terrible time’.

But the position was not yet lost beyond repair. Colonel Kippenberger (now acting as a sort of unofficial forward commander of 4 Brigade) urgently called forward two companies of 20 Battalion to reinforce the right flank; Lieutenant-Colonel Gray charged madly round gathering up odd groups of stragglers, and in a little while the line was intact again, a patchwork line, but fairly solid, running north-east from Galatas to the sea. Then Gray went forward again to his hard-pressed battalion.

While this was going on the Germans had struck again farther south. Back they surged towards Wheat Hill, covered by a torrent of fire from Ruin Hill that kept A Company's heads very low. Captain Lyon, knowing the inevitable end, sent runners back asking permission to withdraw, but was refused. Wheat Hill was now a key point. Its evacuation would expose the flank of ‘Russell Force’ (Divisional Cavalry and some ASC men) fighting on 18 Battalion's left, and would leave a hole for Jerry to push through to Galatas and smash the whole New Zealand line. So for A Company it was—hang on, cling to the hill at all costs.

But that was asking the impossible. The company was being battered to pieces, and the enemy was coming in close and would beyond a doubt overrun the position before long. Captain Lyon, rather than see his company wiped out, gave the order to retire, and the men fell back through Galatas, with Jerry following up close behind.

This was the blow that broke the Galatas line. Forward from Wheat Hill swarmed the Germans, pushing through in pursuit of A Company right to the outskirts of Galatas. Others set up machine guns in the gap and took Russell Force in the flank, forcing it back out of its line, and there too the enemy followed up hard after the retreating Kiwis. The tide swept over the hills into Galatas, where the Germans halted, while the New Zealanders struggled to make a stand.

Only one centre of resistance now remained to disturb the German advance, and that was B and C Companies on Murray Hill, with their attached Vickers guns, ASC and ‘infantillery’, and a few remaining stalwarts of HQ Company on their right. With both flanks gone they were in a desperate and dangerous situation. The net was tightening round three sides of Murray Hill, but the companies held their ground and refused to be crowded out, keeping up so sturdy a front against Red Hill that Jerry couldn't break the stalemate there. A lot of Germans died on Red Hill that afternoon, and a lot more in attacks on Murray Hill. Lieutenant Batty

Capt J. E. Batty, m.i.d.; Auckland; born Tonga, 17 Nov 1910; hardware assistant; p.w. 15 Jul 1942.

of C Company describes the scene:

The Germans came fwd in great waves, walking stupidly fwd through the olive trees. They were shot in great numbers but they still came on through Bn HQ and B Coy.

B Company was the first to crack. The Germans, when they made their assault on D Company, had worked their way in between D and B, and from here they pushed south on to B Company's flank, at the same time making a frontal attack from the west. The full force of this double thrust hit 11 Platoon. Under cover of the mortar fire the Germans closed in to hand-grenade range. ‘The fighting that ensued,’ says Corporal Voss, ‘was some of the most vicious in which B Company were involved throughout the war. There was no quarter given.’ Only three men from 11 Platoon got away. Battalion Headquarters, just behind 11 Platoon, had to make a quick exit with the enemy right on top of it. No. 10 Platoon with the bayonet disposed of some Germans in its rear, then extricated itself without too much damage, though in the mêlée CSM McCormack was killed.

C Company was still suffering casualties who could not be evacuated, and the Germans on both flanks were now coming in closer and threatening to cut the line of withdrawal altogether. About an hour before dusk Major Lynch (who had already been refused permission to withdraw) reluctantly sent word to Lieutenant-Colonel Gray that he couldn't hold any longer, that the pressure was too hot, and that he was pulling out in another quarter of an hour. Even at that he nearly left it too late. His covering party (a section of 15 Platoon under Sergeant Archie Fletcher

WO II A. Fletcher, DCM; born Taihape, 14 Nov 1911; service-station proprietor; died Puhipuhi, 5 Sep 1959.

) made a final stand at close range for the little time it took the main body to clear Murray Hill, then back it came too. At the same time the last of HQ Company and of the Composite Battalion men were forced back. For a few minutes all order was lost, the men streaming back with Jerry right on their heels firing everything he had. They dumped everything except rifles and ammunition. They ran as they had never believed they could. Back down Murray Hill and up to the next ridge, where Colonel Gray was shouting, swearing, rallying all comers to make a stand. The most resolute stopped there, lined a stone wall with rifles and Tommy guns, and held Jerry off for a few more minutes. ‘The Huns,’ said Gray later, ‘were caught at 50 yds range and shot down in scores.’ Then once more streams of fire came in from the flank as Jerry poured into Galatas, and back again the line had to go, every man for himself, through the outskirts of Galatas, where Colonel Kippenberger was rallying stragglers from every unit and sending them back to man another patchwork line on the Karatsos ridge. Here also, until he was wounded, was George Andrews, the 18 Battalion RSM, working quietly, tirelessly and without fuss, helping to divide the men up into groups under whatever officers and NCOs were handy. On the Karatsos ridge the depleted 18 Battalion companies turned and faced Galatas.

This moment was the lowest ebb in 18 Battalion's fortunes. For the time being it didn't exist as a unit, only as a number of mixed groups scattered among the heterogeneous collection on the ridge, tired to death, filthy with sweat, dirt and blood, shaken nearly out of their senses by continual bombardment, destitute of all possessions save their weapons and the clothes they wore. Nearly a hundred of their friends lay dead on the hills round Galatas. Many more were wounded, and some of these had had to be left behind in the final scramble. Seventy were on their way to German prison camps. Some (not many) had lost heart and were not there at Karatsos, but scattered through the country farther east, nobody knew where. The future was grim. Everyone knew that Crete was lost, and the knowledge was bitter.

And then out of the dull ashes of defeat there rose a flame, only a brief flash, but one that will be vivid in the memory of those who were there until their dying day. And that was the counter-attack on Galatas.

This mad, defiant, reckless charge has become one of the New Zealand Division's epics. In the ditch at Karatsos a brief message arrived from Colonel Kippenberger: ‘Left and right are still holding and I'm trying to build up a line in centre…. Move your people forward into Galatos and build up a line covering Russell's (i.e. Div Cav's) left.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Gray wasn't the man to baulk at such a request. He hastily whipped together a scratch force, sixty or so of 18 Battalion plus a few odds and ends from other units who happened to be there, and led the way into the east side of Galatas just as the main attack by 23 Battalion burst into the village from the north-east. Forward from house to house went the 18 Battalion men with bayonet and grenade. In those few minutes caution and reason went to the winds. Men did crazy, desperately heroic deeds that they couldn't remember later. Some died in the streets and houses and were left behind unnoticed in the onrush. Friend and enemy tangled together in the dark, and more than one New Zealander took a wound from a Kiwi rifle or bayonet. German fire was fierce at first, but by the time the 18 and 23 Battalion parties met near the town square there wasn't much coherent opposition left— here they paused for a breather, and sanity began to return. The town was a shell-smashed ruin, dead and wounded lying everywhere, men roaming round with no clear idea what they should do next; scattered, random shooting was still going on, one persistent German machine gun firing from beyond the square. Two 18 Battalion parties, led by Lieutenant Macdonald

Capt D. H. St. C. Macdonald; Hamilton; born Auckland, 15 Jul 1915; shop assistant; wounded 25 May 1941; p.w. 27 May 1941; repatriated Oct 1943.

and Second-Lieutenant Lambie, set out after this gun; Macdonald's patrol got round behind it and attacked from the rear at almost the same moment as a 23 Battalion party closed in from the front. The gun was destroyed, and the 18 Battalion men pulled back to the square, leaving 23 Battalion to patrol the western part of the village.

Galatas was pretty quiet now, and the Kiwis set about making a line in the town to prepare for the fresh attack that must s