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CHAPTER 4
The Campaign in Greece

The experiences of the engineer companies at Amiriya before leaving for Greece were equally boring and varied only in the length of time before embarkation at Alexandria. Where they were going was kept a secret from the sappers but from few others, not surprising when it is remembered that some ships in the convoy were making the voyage for the second or third time.

The official veil was removed when a special order, issued by General Freyberg, was read on each transport:

‘Before leaving Egypt for the battlefront I had planned to say a last word to you. I find that events have moved quickly and I am prevented from doing so. I therefore send this message to you in a sealed envelope to be opened on the transport after you have started on your journey.

‘In the course of the next few days you may be fighting in defence of Greece, the birthplace of culture and learning. We shall be meeting our real enemy, the Germans, who have set out with the avowed object of smashing the British Empire. It is clear therefore that wherever we fight them we shall be fighting not only for Greece but also in defence of our own homes.

‘A word to you about your enemy. The German soldier is a brave fighter so do not underestimate the difficulties that face us. On the other hand, remember that this time he is fighting with difficult communications, in country where he cannot use his strong armoured forces to their full advantage. Further, you should remember that your fathers of the 1st New Zealand Expeditionary Force defeated the Germans during the last war whenever they met them. I am certain that in this campaign in Greece the Germans will be meeting men who are fitter, stronger and better trained than they are…. You can shoot and you can march long distances without fatigue. By your resolute shooting and sniping and by fierce patrolling by night you can tame any enemy you may encounter.

‘A further word to you, many of whom, I realise, will be facing the ordeal of battle for the first time. Do not be caught unprepared. In war, conditions will always be difficult, especially

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in the encounter battle; time will always be against you, there will always be noise and confusion, orders may arrive late, nerves will be strained, you will be attacked from the air. All these factors and others must be expected on the field of battle. But you have been trained physically to endure long marches and fatigue and you must steel yourselves to overcome the ordeal of the modern battlefield.

‘One last word. You will be fighting in a foreign land and the eyes of many nations will be upon you. The honour of the New Zealand Division is in your keeping. It could not be in better hands.’

It took nearly a month to shift the Division to Greece. Sixth Field Company (transport HMS Breconshire) arrived at Piraeus on 8 March. Headquarters Divisional Engineers (SS Hellas) arrived on 15 March. Nineteenth Army Troops Company (SS Ionia) ran into a storm and after a most uncomfortable trip arrived at Piraeus late in the night of 15 March. Fifth Field Park Company (HMS Breconshire) arrived on 20 March, and 7 Field Company (MV Cameronia) arrived on 3 April.

Engineer officer appointments on 6 April were:

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If Amiriya was typical of Egypt—dusty and desiccated—Hymettus transit camp was equally typical of Greece. Captain Carrie wrote in his diary:

‘Hymettus Camp was a picturesque spot a few miles out of Athens and situated amongst foothills, which, like most Greek hills, were rocky and had no depth of soil. But there were plenty of trees and the place was a very welcome change from Egypt. The local inhabitants seemed to come there for picnics, and on Sunday particularly, the place swarmed with visitors who didn't want backsheesh, who didn't want to sell anything and who didn't want to exploit you in any way at all.’

From the moment the sappers moved off the wharf there was no doubt about their welcome. They were greeted in crowded streets with cheers, the Churchillian thumbs-up, and the graceful Grecian palms-up wave of the hand; flowers were thrown and handkerchiefs fluttered. Clearly they were welcome for their own sakes and not for the cash in their pockets. It was a new experience.

Each company spent a few days at Hymettus—just sufficiently long to see enough of Athens to want to see more.

The Allied force available for Greece was little more than a token and even some of that did not get there in time, but politically and sentimentally the gesture of not abandoning

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Greece was justifiable and necessary. There was no underestimating the task by the men who would have to conduct the coming battles. General Freyberg put his reactions on record:

‘When I said goodbye, I said to General Wavell that I had no illusions about how tough the Greek campaign was going to be.’¹

General Blamey, commanding the Australians committed to the venture, wrote:

‘I am not criticising the higher policy that has required it, but regret that it must take this dangerous form. However, we will give a very good account of ourselves.’²

Both commanders knew that when the German action to succour her Italian partner commenced, the odds against Greece were likely to be in the order of ten to one.

The diplomatic situation was unusual in that the New Zealand Division was not going to join battle with the Italian invaders—no aid beyond that already being supplied by the RAF was needed there—but was to help defend a country then technically at peace with Germany. The German Embassy was therefore free to note the landing of men and material and to transmit the information to wherever it deemed necessary.

A little Greek politico-military geography is necessary to the better understanding of the campaign. Greece is bounded in the north by the mountain frontiers of Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania; Bulgaria had already acquiesced in German occupation and Albania was an Italian-Greek battlefield. Naturally the bulk of the Greek Army was deployed against the Italians, while the rest was either in the fixed defences on the Bulgarian frontier or covering Salonika, Greece's second largest port. There was only a single-line railway between Athens and Salonika. This branched, beyond the Aliakmon River, with the left fork passing east of the Vermion mountain range, then climbing through the Edhessa Pass and the Florina valley into Yugoslavia via the Monastir Gap, the historic invasion route.

The roads were as few as the railways; the principal one, linking Athens with Belgrade, followed an inland route west of Mt Olympus (the railway ran along the coast on the eastern side of the mountain) through the Servia Pass, over the Aliakmon River, through Kozani, Florina and the Monastir Gap.

The plan was to hold a defensive position on the line of the

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Aliakmon River from the coast to the Yugoslav frontier. It was a strong position as long as the Germans did not outflank it by overpowering Yugoslavia and striking down the Monastir Gap. That was precisely what they did do and the threat forced a retirement to a shorter line. But let us return to the engineer companies.

Sixth Field Company, the first arrivals, had only a couple of nights in Athens before moving north. The stone houses and the picturesque villages were vastly different from the mud hovels and flat-topped buildings in the land they had just left. The hilly country, emphasised by Egypt's sandy monotony, drew comparisons with New Zealand, but the likeness ceased with the topography for there was no livestock on the hills and no able-bodied men in the fields where the spring corn was in early growth.

The Company left the main highway at Elasson junction (13 March) and crossed the Olympus Mountains by a secondary road that snaked through a narrow gorge, heavily wooded and with rocky outcrops, on to the northern plains. The description would cover a dozen other defiles in Greece or in New Zealand, but this one had a particular significance to the Division. It had two names, classically and officially Petras Pass, colloquially Katerini Pass, after the town 20 miles or so to the north. The Army gave it a third, Olympus Pass.

Colonel Clifton, who had gone ahead to look the area over, met the convoy near the southern end of the pass and instructed No. 1 Section (Lieutenant Kelsall) to drop out at Ay Dhimitrios, a mountain village where stone houses clung to the sides of the valley before it closed in to the steep and often sunless Olympus Pass. The job was to prepare and improve the road for the very considerable increase in traffic that would be using the pass in the near future. No. 3 Section (Lieutenant Chapman³) was detached near the northern exit about ten miles farther on with the same mission. The remainder of the Company went as far as Katerini, a rail and agricultural centre of some 14,000 inhabitants, one hotel and several cafés which provided toothsome plate-sized omelettes, wholemeal bread and the local red krassi and white retsina. There was also the universal ouzo which the sappers had met before as zibbib, and which was to reappear under the aliases of arak, anisetta and absinthe. Despite the variety of names the effect was

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remarkably uniform; mixed with water the stuff looked like milk, tasted like peppermint and acted like dynamite.

They were, however, at Katerini only a couple of days before the Company moved back nearer the mouth of the pass. Bivvies were pitched under the trees on a hillside near the Kalokhori village church and the sappers compared the daffodil studded grass underfoot with the sandy wastes of Egypt.

On the same day (15 March) the Divisional Postal Section established a post office at Hymettus and on the 20th another at Voula. This served the whole Athens area and remained in operation for the duration of the campaign. A few days later another office was opened at Katerini with branches at 4, 5 and 6 Brigades, the supply dump at Keramidhi and Divisional Headquarters.

During this period 6 Brigade (Brigadier Barrowclough⁴), right, and 4 Brigade (Brigadier Puttick⁵), left, were taking station along their sectors of the Aliakmon line, and it is hardly necessary to mention that in a mountainous country like Greece roads were of paramount importance. Engineer work therefore fell mainly into two categories—keeping roads open for the passage of transport and, in the event of a withdrawal, making them impassable for as long as possible. There was, at least as far as the troops were concerned, no question of withdrawal, and for the next fortnight the sappers worked on access roads and bridges.

Engineer Headquarters in the Hellas and 19 Army Troops Company in the Ionia had a most unhappy crossing for they ran into a gale that dispersed the convoy. Some of the transports, certainly the Ionia, were ill-found tubs with a habit of rolling alarmingly while every plate groaned under the strain of overloaded equipment and overcrowded men. The Ionia took twice as long as usual on the journey, wallowing, pitching and trying to sink under the stormy waters. Many of the sappers hoped she would succeed and thus end their misery.

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Nineteenth Army Troops Company spent a week at Hymettus sinking tent-pole holes in the rocky ground by day and ‘doing’ Athens by night. After dark their camp held only the guard and the orderly sergeant. The Company, less No. 3 Section (Lieutenant Collins⁶) sent to Chaoichani⁷, near Elasson, where it worked on underground shelters for Force Headquarters, was concentrated around Katerini by 23 March.

E and M Section (Lieutenant Smart⁸) set up workshops in a park and Smart went up to Salonika with a detachment and empty trucks. They returned with very full trucks of much prized equipment obtained from engineer dumps there.

No. 2 Section (Lieutenant Page⁹) was sent back to Ay Dhimitrios, now vacated by 6 Field Company, and for almost a month worked on the pass road. The men were billeted, some in the local schoolroom and some in the church; ‘Harry’, the village priest, was appointed civil liaison and public relations officer by the non-Greek speaking sappers, for he was a nice chap with a good command of English and an amazing capacity for dealing with the local brew.

No. 1 Section (Lieutenant Jones¹⁰) and No. 4 Section (Lieutenant Patterson¹¹) relieved the sections of 6 Field who were doing roadwork behind the brigades, and who then joined the rest of their company helping on an anti-tank ditch being dug by Greek women and men militarily unfit; and in Greece to be unfit you had, it seemed, to be at least half dead or over ninety.

There was practically no mechanical equipment available and the job of paying the civilians who took its place fell to Captain Carrie. He found that army acquittance rolls were a useless formality when the Labour Union officials spoke no English, the paying officer spoke no Greek and the official interpreter could not interpret sufficiently well to make each party's meaning clear to the other. In addition the villagers were illiterate, many had the same name about twenty letters long, which for good measure then ended with ‘opoulos’, and there wasn't

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enough room on the roll to get it all on. The only way to balance the account was to resort to artifice, as Captain Carrie admits:

‘By this time we'd realised the sheer impossibility of getting each man personally to sign the payroll, and our consciences had become a bit more elastic. As a matter of fact they had been stretched a little in our first pay out when we had finished with 10/- short.¹² We didn't feel like parting out with 10/- out of our own pockets, so we paid up the 10/- to a purely fictitious “Georgius Papadopoulos” and forged his signature. But this paled into insignificance compared with the last pay out. We had a big session at which the Union officials, together with a few helpers signed all the rolls varying the handwriting and putting in an “X his mark” at intervals. The result was a very convincing document which I am sure would never have been detected for the forgery it was. We then handed over the money in bulk which saved us all the bother of change and left the Union officials to pay the men or their representatives…. It's amusing to think now of all those headaches and the trouble those rolls gave us when not one of them got back to the Chief Paymaster. They were all destroyed before the final evacuation and we left Greece without a receipt for a penny of the £15,000 we'd spent.’

Fifth Field Park, the third company to be deployed, was concentrated near Katerini on 25 March with a supply section (Corporal Bob Sweet¹³) at Larisa and one (Sergeant Len Morris) at Katerini railway station.

Seventh Field Company did not have the opportunity of ‘making an entrance’ on the Field of Mars, for it arrived in Katerini the same day that Germany declared war on Greece and everybody was too excited to take any notice of it. In accordance with a decision already taken to speed up work on the Olympus reserve positions, the 7th sappers were moved the next day back through the Olympus Pass to Kokkinoplos, a mountainous village on a by-road about five miles south-east of Ay Dhimitrios. From there they began to form a road over the shoulder of the mountain and down to the right flank battalion in front of the pass. The sappers were spread along its length in a world of their own high on the shoulder of Olympus—a world of cold winds, driving rain squalls and

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sudden snow flurries. They agreed that snow in Greece was no different from snow in England, but wasn't a man ‘stiff’ to leave England in the depth of winter for sunny Egypt and then find himself freezing in the mountains of Greece?

It will not be forgotten that Captain Nevins and his survey section had been in Greece since November; their record of being the first New Zealand troops in Greece was now added to by being among the first under fire. The section was still quartered in the New Phaleron hotel with other RE units when the Germans followed their declaration of war against Greece by raiding the Piraeus harbour.

Wave after wave of bombers came over about midnight (6 April), rocking the city with explosions and setting fire to the harbourside, but the hotel was well away from the danger zone and the sappers finally went to bed. They were wakened by an explosion loud enough to bring them back to the windows, but nothing could be seen through the dense smoke. The noise came from the freighter Clan Fraser which had been hit by a bomb and set on fire; she was loaded with TNT, and an hour later blew up with such force that windows in the hotel were shattered and a cascade of giant sparks was heaved high into the smoky night—sparks that were red-hot sections of steel plate and superstructure.

There was an urgent call for fire fighters; the sappers jumped into their truck and made for the waterfront; on the way they passed a section of the Clan Fraser's steel plating folded up like a piece of paper.

Dawn was near when Captain Nevins reported to the Admiralty building and was taken to a military officer connected with the dock area. He was a brigadier with a patch over one eye and was christened Lord Nelson on the spot. He very soon earned the respect of the sappers, for he did a neat job all by himself: about two hundred yards from the wharf where a minesweeper was tied up, a small vessel was burning and a Greek gun crew was trying to sink it—it was loaded with petrol. The Greeks, either through excitement or ignorance, were missing the target.

‘God's teeth! Give me that gun!’

Lord Nelson pushed the crew aside and, single-handed, holed the ship at the water line. Then he produced a tug and took the sappers over to the Clan Cumming which was also on fire. Her sides towered above the tug, for she had just left the slipway

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after being torpedoed, was quite empty and very high out of the water.

There was nobody aboard except the captain and the chief engineer; buckets of salt water were hauled up the steep sides and thrown on the flames while everything that was movable and burning was thrown overboard. All around them drifted burning barges filled with petrol drums exploding like a ragged barrage.

The battle was won by mid-morning and the next job was the Davies some distance away. The section boarded its truck and passed warehouses on fire, cranes lying twisted and forsaken like children's discarded toys and crowds watching their homes burning. They passed an Australian just standing and swearing; for two days he had helped load petrol drums into a rake of box wagons and now they were burning and he could do nothing about it—the points were fouled and the wagons could not be moved.

The fire on the Davies was more readily got under control, and when the last smouldering ember had been put out the section returned to the Admiralty building for further orders. They were thanked and told that that would be all. Besides the destruction of the Clan Fraser another merchant ship and a tug had been sunk, six merchantmen, twenty lighters and a tug burnt out.

The section, prior to returning to its billets, found a two-gallon jar and a five-gallon keg of cognac in the deserted Admiralty café. The jar was consumed easily enough but the keg was a little beyond their capacity and was sold to less fortunate inmates of the billets.¹⁴

The Greek garrison on the Bulgarian frontier took the first shock of the invading blitzkrieg and put up a valiant defence, but there was disturbing news of a German column sweeping around the Greek flank, thence down the Axios River towards Salonika.

By the afternoon of 8 April Yugoslavia was in a political turmoil and an uncoordinated resistance was swept aside. The Greek Eastern Macedonian Army was on the point of being isolated and it was possible for enemy troops to be in Monastir by nightfall; the only counter to the threat was an immediate withdrawal.

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Orders were issued forthwith: 4 Brigade was to move post-haste to cover the Servia Pass, where the road from Monastir crosses the Peria Mountains north-west of Olympus and 30 miles south-west of Katerini, while an Australian brigade with some British tanks and artillery, plus half the New Zealand Machine Gun Battalion, was to block the Monastir Gap.

Sixth Brigade was to move back into reserve near Elasson and cover the junction of the roads from Servia and Olympus, while 5 Brigade would stand fast on Olympus Pass and fight where it stood. While the realignment was taking place two squadrons of Divisional Cavalry would ensure that the enemy was not unduly precipitate in crossing the Aliakmon River.

By the night 10–11 April the redeployment was complete and the engineer situation was as follows:

Fifth Field Park Company was spread along a side road between Ay Dhimitrios and Kokkinoplos, whence it charged the demolitions prepared by 6 Field and 19 Army Troops Companies in the pass and on the bridges forward of it. At this point it must be stated that 5 Field Park Company did not for the rest of the campaign in Greece carry out its normal functions as a supply unit for the field companies. On the contrary it was used as a reservoir for parties on work for which it was neither trained nor equipped, but needs must when the devil drives. And the Teutonic devil drove exceedingly hard in the ensuing few weeks. Normally a field park company maintained a bridging section which delivered bridging material where needed and then replenished from Corps dumps, a field stores section which had charge of the divisional dumps, and a workshops section composed of tradesmen who repaired, built, altered, invented, or, that all-embracing word, ‘procured’ anything asked for from a latrine seat to a chronometer. It was in effect a company of storekeepers, drivers and tradesmen. At that stage there were only four officers on the establishment and one, Lieutenant Skinner,¹⁵ was attached to 6 Brigade so that practically all the details were commanded by sergeants.

To resume, 7 Field Company, assisted by working parties from 26 Battalion, continued forming the access road. General Freyberg had been informed, wrongly, that it could be built without much trouble, for very deep cuttings through solid marble alternated with retaining walls. The real obstacle, however, was a deep valley, almost a ravine, a major engineering

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project, that would have to be crossed before wheeled traffic could make any use of the work.

Most of the Company was camped in the valley, a thousand feet below the job, but Lindell's¹⁶ section occupied the Kokkinoplos schoolroom and the school mistress, late of the USA, acted as interpreter for him in organising the man and woman power of the village for work on his section of the project.

Sixth Field Company was widely spread. No. 1 Section (Lieutenant Kelsall) moved with 4 Brigade (8 - 9 April) to the Servia Pass. As at Olympus there was a pass, called variously Portas and Servia, through the dividing range.

No. 2 Section (Lieutenant Wheeler) left with 6 Brigade the following night in rain. It had a very nasty drive, without lights, through a misty darkness back through Olympus Pass to Livadhion, another mountainside village in the south Olympian foothills, and began working on an access road to Ay Dhimitrios.

No. 3 Section (Lieutenant Chapman) remained with a troop of field guns and the two squadrons of Divisional Cavalry on the New Zealand sector of the Aliakmon line, which stretched from the little fishing village with the big name—Neon Elevtherokhorion—about 15 miles westward to the Australian sector. Company Headquarters (Captain Woolcott) moved close to Kokkinoplos but Major Rudd stayed at Kalokhori in touch with Lieutenant Chapman, whose sappers were manning road blocks and mined bridges between the Aliakmon River and Olympus.

Nineteenth Army Troops Company found itself even more spread out than it was before:

No. 1 Section (Lieutenant Jones) left Katerini by a coastal track for Platamon, where 21 Battalion was digging in along a ridge running from Mt Olympus to the sea. The railway from Katerini to Larisa skirted the beach at that point and there was a tunnel through the ridge. The job was to prepare the tunnel for demolition without impeding the traffic. It was thought most unlikely that the enemy would move in any force against Platamon for the road was ill defined and not capable of carrying much heavy traffic.

No. 2 Section remained at Ay Dhimitrios repairing a fast deteriorating road surface.

No. 4 Section left the anti-tank ditches and reinforced No. 2

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on the pass road. Lieutenant Page made his headquarters at the Gibraltar feature near the left flank of 22 Battalion.

No. 3 Section (Lieutenant Collins) stopped digging shelters for Force Headquarters at Tsaritsani (it had already decided to move somewhere else) and a detachment was sent to strengthen bridges west of the New Zealand sector for the passage of Anzac Corps tanks, and at the same time prepare the bridges for demolition. It returned on the 13th to Tsaritsani.

E and M Section went with Company Headquarters to Pithion, near Divisional Headquarters at Dholikhi. Some worked on roads in the vicinity and the rest began to erect its plant.

The New Zealand Division, instead of holding a river line across a plain (or as near to a plain as a country lying along a seismic fault and convulsed by aeons of earthquakes could provide) was holding passes through a tangled mass of mountain ridges that broke down into narrow valleys; communications were foot or bridle tracks, where a mile as the crow flies meant hours of mountaineering.

The reader must now visualise a situation where the enemy held absolute air superiority. Why it was so is not the province of this history to explain in any detail. Shortly, there were few planes for the same reason that there were not enough troops—more were just not available, and those aircraft that were there were overwhelmed by numbers. They put up a gallant fight but did not last long.

The next three days¹⁷ were spent in waiting for the oncoming enemy. The weather, up till then generally fine, broke with misty rain and low cloud. Reconnaissance planes daily showed their black crosses over Olympus but they were more objects of interest than alarm to the busy sappers.

The Germans and Italians met at Florina in Albania and the Greek armies, with only horse-transport and no anti-aircraft guns, were disintegrating. Sixteenth Australian Infantry Brigade was marching south across the ranges to fit in between 5 and 4 Brigades.

Out on the left flank the Luftwaffe was more active and Kelsall's section was dive-bombed while it worked. It was an unnerving experience to have planes plummetting out of the sky, screaming like banshees in pain. The noise was supposed

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to upset the troops on the ground and was not without its effect; later the German refinement to ground strafing was assessed at its true value—merely to put the wind up raw troops. But there was nothing tranquillising in the sight of bombs, up to a thousand pounds in weight, hurtling through the air and apparently going to drop on the same spot that the viewer stood on.

German advanced elements felt their way up to the Aliakmon River (12 April) and a motor-bike patrol surveyed the blown bridges. Those who were not machine-gunned by cavalry armoured cars hull down behind the south stopbank departed with some expedition and later in the day enemy infantry tried to launch pontoons. Colonel Clifton, who had been ceaselessly traversing the whole area since the withdrawal began, describes what followed:

‘… over the northern stop bank poured hundreds of infantry, carrying folded assault boats. Jammed in the thirty yards flat between stop bank and water, with Vickers guns firing in enfilade up and down the river, they never had Buckley's chance. Three determined attempts failed, leaving bodies and shattered boats along the stained river's edge or floating down to the sea. Very much on the alert, the New Zealanders peered through the night rain, expecting the right answer—a night assault—but nothing happened until further heavy ineffective shelling next morning, to which the four twenty-five-pounders vigorously replied. In the late afternoon, according to plan and under cover of soaking rain, the cavalry pulled back. They were delighted with their first scrap and left the river most reluctantly.’¹⁸

But more menacing was the fact that the Monastir Gap was being forced, with the consequent threat to the Anzac Corps left flank.

Easter Sunday, 14 April, opened fine and sunny. At Platamon, 21 Battalion, isolated on its ridge between the mountain and the sea, was working on its positions and enjoying the warmth. No. 1 Section, 19 Army Troops Company, was adding a few finishing touches to the Platamon tunnel by mining the track over the ridge and was making some home-made grenades for the infantry, who had not been supplied with those amenities. Lieutenant Jones, however, was not very happy about the tunnel. He had had only about one-fifth of the explosives necessary for a proper job and no tools for laying the charges;

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a compressor is not an Army Troops Company tool, and driving holes in the concreted sides of a tunnel with a pick is not a recognised method of preparing a demolition.

A part of Lieutenant Jones's demolition equipment consisted of a naval depth-charge which had been obtained in an irregular manner by Colonel Clifton. He had been told of the use of such charges on roads and bridges in Norway and had without any authority whatsoever obtained forty from the naval authorities in Alexandria and then talked the captain of his transport into carrying them to Greece. The mines used on the Platamon ridge had a longer history but an equally irregular origin. When the Second Echelon was withdrawn from its anti-invasion role in England, 7 Field Company managed to avoid handing back much of its demolition and anti-tank stores, which were eventually shared among the other engineer units in Greece. Major Hanson confesses:

‘These mines were brought by 7 Field Company from U.K. and closely guarded until arrival in Greece. We had to talk very persuasively to the shipping authorities in England before we were allowed to take the mines with us. This was not to be our greatest obstacle however. The shipment from Egypt to Greece presented many problems, but in this case I don't think the shipping people were notified that so many of our trucks were loaded with mines. My arguments were that a bn of machine gunners or infantry would not embark without taking front line ammunition, and in the same way engineers should not move without at least some supply of mines. Lt Rix-Trott¹⁹ was a wizard in achieving what we wanted and he got those mines to Greece. Risks must be taken in war and I consider that our risk was justified.

‘Although the engineers of Rommel's Army in the desert are usually given the credit for being the first to mine the locality of demolitions, this is not so. 7 Field Company made many demolitions more difficult by mining in Greece. The bridge demolished by Lieut Thomas²⁰ just north of Elasson was a good example where all likely by-pass routes were well mined. Demolitions by 7 Field Company on the Lamia-Molos road were also generally mined. Some effective mining was done around the demolition on the direct road route over the hills

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from Elasson to Tyrnavos. All this was possible by virtue of bringing mines from the United Kingdom.’

General Freyberg called on 21 Battalion during the afternoon with the news that successful resistance so far north was not now possible and that another withdrawal, this time to the Thermopylae line in southern Greece, was under way. Twenty-first Battalion, which need expect only infantry patrols, was to hold Platamon until instructed to the contrary, and was to blow the tunnel when circumstances required it.

Circumstances required it shortly after the General's departure, when sun glinting off glass windscreens denoted the approach of an enemy force and the tunnel was blown forthwith.

The ridge rocked with the explosion and smoke poured from the tunnel openings, but on inspection it was not a satisfactory job, partly from insufficient charges and partly because cavities behind the concrete lining had absorbed some of the shock. An emergency reserve of 50 lb of gelignite was placed in a breach in the roof and brought down a lot of debris, but even so Jones estimated that the damage could be repaired within six hours. In point of fact the roof was still falling four days later, and 2 Panzer Division's diary states that the German movements were seriously hampered thereby.

No. 1 Section packed up and set out for the Pinios Gorge about six miles to the south, where the railway line crossed the river on a steel arch bridge at the far end and where road and railway track ran on opposite sides of the gorge.

In front of 5 Brigade the enemy, after the withdrawal of the cavalry screen, crossed the Aliakmon River and began making paths over the anti-tank ditches and repairing the cratered roads and blown bridges. A ‘blow and go’ job does not hold up engineers for long, and as it was beyond the capacity of the cavalry to impose further delay they were recalled. Lieutenant Chapman's section and Major Rudd's headquarters retired with the cavalry, the former blowing the prepared demolitions to cover the retreat. They passed through the infantry at the mouth of the pass in the late afternoon and carried on to Dholikhi. There were a few ‘recce’ planes overhead but nothing offensive, and for the sappers in the gorge the position was unchanged. The decision to retire had not yet been announced there.

It was still very lively on the Servia sector, with enemy columns approaching in plain view across the flats below the

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infantry positions. The New Zealand guns, plus some British mediums which had arrived the previous day and given the engineers a job of roadmaking, tore holes in the lines of vehicles making for the shelter of villages. By nightfall, the Kiwis were in contact with the enemy from the sea to Servia and were rather looking forward to the prospect of action on the morrow. But at 10 p.m. the brigadiers were told that the Division was not going to fight. On the contrary, 6 Brigade would cover the withdrawal of 5 and 4 Brigades and become the rearguard.

At first light (15th) 21 Battalion was attacked by infantry and later by armour and infantry, but the steepness of the ridge defeated the tanks and the fighting died down.

It is not too much to say that messages from 21 Battalion, at first thought to be bogus, describing the armour arrayed on the plain in front of Platamon ridge gave Corps Headquarters, as Colonel Clifton wrote in his diary, ‘One Hell of a shock’.

There was, however, nothing bogus about the tank, infantry and motor-cycle units which tried to take possession of Platamon ridge and 16 Australian Brigade was sent to reinforce. Clearly the German intention was to push, in spite of its drawbacks, along the shortest route to Larisa and so isolate any force north of that badly battered town. And that force at that time was the main bulk of Anzac Corps.

On the other side of Mt Olympus 5 Brigade spent the day watching the enemy build up, and at Servia, after a cheeky attempt to rush the defences in the early morning, the position was much the same as previously. Behind the fighting troops the sappers began moving again.

Fifth Field Park was instructed to take over an RE dump a few miles south of Larisa.

Seventh Field Company ceased work on the access road; the narrow track from the main pass road to Kokkinoplos had been metalled and widened where necessary and the new road formed and metalled for a distance of approximately five miles. But the gorge still remained to be crossed. The Company went by independent vehicles to Tirnavos, halfway between Elasson and Larisa. Lieutenant Hector's²¹ section was detached before the move and came under command of 5 Brigade.

Sixth Field remained dispersed; Company Headquarters moved three miles south of Elasson. No. 2 Section reported to

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6 Brigade in the Elasson area; No. 1 was at Servia with 4 Brigade. No. 3 was still with the Divisional Cavalry along the Elasson-Dheskati road disposing of a ton and a half of explosives and 200 anti-tank mines in and around four road blocks.

Nineteenth Army Troops Company moved again. Lieutenant Smart repacked his workshop and the section set out for Lamia where, after some vicissitudes, it arrived safely the following day. The rest of the company, less Lieutenant Jones's section at Platamon, concentrated five miles south of Larisa and took possession of a deserted tented area.

The enemy attacked 21 Battalion again at dawn on the 16th and the battalion, attacked frontally by tanks and with its left flank turned, was forced off the ridge. The first Lieutenant Jones knew of the disaster was the arrival of Colonel Macky²² reconnoitring the route out. Two pits had already been sunk in likely places in the road with crowbars and sundry tools borrowed from a Greek roadman, but there were no explosives to charge them. A small quantity found in a railway hut was used to block a tunnel by first hauling a box-car from a siding and then blowing off its undercarriage, blowing the rails at each end of the tunnel and demolishing a culvert.

As soon as Colonel Macky's message concerning the withdrawal had been received at Divisional Headquarters, Colonel Clifton sent 19 Army Troops Company post-haste to blow the bridge at the south end of the gorge, and prepare demolitions on the road back to Larisa and on two bridges on the northern outskirts of the town. Major Langbein sent Lieutenants Page and Collins with 2 and 3 Sections to look after the Larisa bridges while he took the rest of the company to the Gorge. When he found that Jones was out of explosive he sent Sapper Les Condgon²³ back to the RE dump for more. Condgon's trip was fairly hair-raising, for with a large quantity of explosive aboard, a drive through a town under heavy bombardment is nothing to look forward to. He was lucky to arrive with his load.

In the meantime parties of 21 Battalion withdrawing from Platamon had concentrated at the mouth of the gorge, but the only way to cross the river there was by a hand-operated barge and it was late in the afternoon before the men were across.

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The guns of the supporting section of 25-pounders were also ferried over, but the artillery quads and the battalion carriers had to bump along the railway tracks and cross over the bridge Major Langbein was working on.

The pursuing enemy had been expected momentarily, and the reason why contact had been so easily broken was because the tanks had not only run on to the mines Jones had scattered along the track but those that did manage to struggle to the top of the ridge had been marooned there by the steepness of the descent. Third Panzer Division supplies the enemy version:

‘The tanks pressed forward along narrow mule path. Many of them shed their tracks on the boulders or split their assemblies and finally the leading troop ran on to mines. A detour was attempted. Two more tanks stuck in a swamp and another

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blew up on a mine and was completely burnt out. After strenuous exertions a track was cleared while the engineers carried out a very successful sweep for mines.’

After the troops had passed through, the barge was sunk and the road blown in two places. They were, Lieutenant Jones wrote, ‘reasonably effective demolitions but presented only temporary obstacles unless covered with fire as they were in such positions that they could be fairly easily bridged.’

When the last of the unit vehicles had crossed the rail bridge it was blown and dropped into the river and both sapper parties returned to Larisa. Meanwhile 2 and 3 Sections, after sharing a bale of contraband tobacco with passers-by and dining off a young porker allegedly killed by bomb blast, had begun their jobs on the Larisa bridges. Sundry German pilots, judging by the attention they were lavishing on the project, were anxious to assist. Jerry, however, wanted the bridges destroyed at once and thus sorely inconvenienced the Anzac Force north of the Pinios River. One great consolation was that the sections had the free run of a deserted canteen, and between dodging streams of machine-gun bullets and whistling bombs secured ample supplies of beer, cigarettes and tinned foods, much of which was handed over to convoys passing through.

Fifth Brigade was to vacate the Olympus Pass that night and Lieutenant Hector, with sappers standing by the prepared demolitions on the pass road, worked on the best remaining site with compressor and explosives to lessen the chances of an early pursuit. The section, working in relays non-stop for twenty-four hours, blasted a fourteen-foot hole through the solid marble and then filled it with two cases of gelignite, half a ton of ammonal and the packing. All this was done to the accompaniment of the echoing roar of guns and the explosions of searching enemy shells, while faintly in the distance crackling noises rose and fell.

The last of the troops coming out by that route passed about midnight and the forward road blocks were fired. It was hoped that the charges would blow the whole road into the gorge below, but the result was only a series of craters of varying depths. Unless covered by fire they would not give the German engineers much trouble to repair.

The Maori Battalion had difficulty in disengaging and had not shown up at 3 a.m., at which time it should have been in a defensive position at the mouth of the gorge. It was to come off the hills into the gorge near Hector's last demolition, where

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Brigadier Hargest²⁴ was waiting to see the troops through. He ordered another half hour's wait, after which the charge was to be blown without more ado. Right on 3.30, just as the plunger was about to be pushed down, there was a sound of men moving in the darkness. Germans or Maoris? Maoris! But it was a near thing. Fifth Brigade took up a defensive position from Kokkinoplos to Ay Dhimitrios covering the exit from the Olympus Pass.

Fourth Brigade had a relatively quiet day; perhaps the enemy's success in forcing 21 Battalion off the Platamon ridge had been encouraging enough to leave the unpromising Servia area alone for the time being. The brigade was, however, in a most precarious situation for 16 Australian Brigade on its right had departed to reinforce 21 Battalion and 19 Australian Brigade on its left was also moving back, followed by 26 NZ Battalion which was under its command. Farther to the left Greek divisions were dispersing under the weight of enemy air and ground attacks, so that actually 4 Brigade had both its flanks open. Lieutenant Kelsall's section stopped filling bomb craters and began preparing demolitions instead.

At this stage it should be mentioned that the withdrawal timetable had been altered and 5 Brigade was to move back from Olympus a day earlier, to take advantage of the continued misty weather in the foothills which made it possible to use the roads in daylight. Accordingly 5 Brigade began to move during the afternoon. No. 3 Section, 7 Field Company, went with the brigade. A last-minute change of route from the coastal road, which had been reported as impassable, on to the central route, which was more than full of Australian traffic, resulted in a night of stopping and starting before Lamia was reached.

With the departure of 5 Brigade the enemy was free, if the blocks in the gorge did not prevent it, to get his vehicles as far as the Elevtherokhorion crossroads, five miles north of Elasson.

The Elasson area, where 6 Brigade was preparing a rearguard position, requires some description. The roads from the Olympus and Servia passes, the only practicable routes for wheeled traffic, met at Elevtherokhorion a little to the north, on the edge of the plain that surrounds Larisa. Elasson itself was also

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a junction with the road from Dheskati almost due west (some of the Australian troops and 26 Battalion came out that way). From Elasson to Tirnavos, about halfway to Larisa, there were two roads, the direct eastern route winding over hills and through a pass while the longer and easier western road followed the Xerias River for some distance. From Tirnavos the one road led direct to Larisa.

Seventh Field Company, less No. 3 Section, had arrived at Tirnavos before daylight, and Major Hanson was given a number of bridges and road blocks to get ready around Tirnavos and the two roads north to Elasson. Of course, there were insufficient power tools for so many jobs to be done simultaneously. Lieutenant Wildey describes how to demolish a road in constant use by transport and under continual attention by enemy bombers:

‘I prepared a demolition on the hill route and placed it about a quarter of a mile down the road from the crest on the slope facing the enemy approach. I had a sub-section of men from Lindell's section, I think, and Sergt I. Larson.²⁵ We had no rock drills or compressor so that meant very slow hand work. The crust of the road was about 4? thick but beneath that it was solid hard marble. We had no time to attempt tunneling in under the road so I arranged to have some shafts sunk down from the centre of the road and some against the bank so that trucks could straddle our shafts as we worked. I went to the Elasson demolition to try and borrow a compressor from Lt G. Thomas but it was fully engaged and he promised it as soon as they were finished. To get our shafts down we used cold chisels to make small holes—charged these with explosive, shattered the rock and then excavated it. This was repeated until the holes were about six feet deep after working flat out in relays for about 24 hours.

‘We were straffed by fighters while loading these holes and it was very disconcerting having to crouch in a hole with some hundreds of pounds of explosive while the Jerries had their fun. While we were filling in these shafts the withdrawal of vehicles nose to tail was so continuous that we bobbed down while they straddled us and continued the work of tamping as soon as a gap occurred. Lt Wheeler had a demolition on the other side of the hill and it was arranged that he fire both.’

Besides the bridge at Elevtherokhorion where Lieutenant

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Thomas was working, other parties were in the Elasson Gorge between the two places, at the Elasson bridge where the track from Dheskati crossed the river, at the Black Bridge where the western fork crossed the Xerias River, and in the Tataritsos Gorge between the bridge and the town.

The 17th was a day of excursions and alarms around Larisa. It was also a slaughterous day in Larisa for the enemy air force expended great energy in trying to block the only exit for the retreating Anzac Corps. By this time, with the rain and the tremendous traffic, the roads were breaking up beyond repair and mud was the prevailing feature.

A big strain was taken by the Postal Section with units drawing rations in advance, and in consequence not being where the Divisional Postal Unit thought they were. The previous day 144 bags of mail had arrived but it had not been possible to deliver 46 bags, which were brought back to Larisa. Those postal sappers, like the field engineers, were fairly versatile types and did not always restrict themselves to delivering mail. The war diary of the Divisional Postal Unit contains the following entry dated 17 April:

‘Larissa heavily bombed, train abandoned by Greek railway officials. Cpl Sangster,²⁶ Postal Courier, with the assistance of a soldier, brought a train into the station from about 2 miles south of Larissa. One bag of mail delivered to HQ PO at Tyrnavos.’

The first bad news that reached Divisional Headquarters was of the premature blowing of a bridge on the Trikkala-Larisa road. It was to have been destroyed after the Australians had crossed the winding Pinios River, but was accidentally demolished before they arrived. What happened is best told by one of the actors in the drama.

‘While I was there I was in rather a poor show. I went out on a bridge on the Larissa/Trikkala road to prepare it for demolition. It was a fairly big one of about 5 spans each 100 ft about 40 ft above water level and was of steel struss construction—about 16 ft roadway and about 14 or 15 ft high. Well I found a fellow from the 6th Fd Coy. on the job and I was talking about some of the steel I struck on a reinforced concrete bridge I had trouble with the previous day. The result was that he put on a test cut to try the steel on one of the struts. After the explosion you can imagine our consternation when

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we found that we had blown up the bridge by accident…. I was extremely upset but nothing could be done except divert the traffic on a 10 mile detour. It caused a devil of a lot of trouble and was made much worse when later in the day the dive bombers blew up another big bridge on the detour and the fresh detour had to be increased to about 30 Miles.’²⁷

What actually happened was that the decking of the bridge was set on rollers on top of the piers, with the usual allowance for expansion and contraction. The shock of the test charge, a mere five plugs of explosive, was sufficient to make the span jump the rollers and drop into the river. The result of this accidental demolition, probably the cheapest on record, was that the Australians had to feel along the Pinios River for fords and crossings with the enemy at no great distance behind them. There was another bridge farther north but an unlucky, or according to the point of view, a well aimed bomb sent it up before their arrival. The troops had to cross by punts and fords while the vehicles continued on to Tirnavos and thence to Larisa.

Fifth Field Park Company had found nobody to take over from at the RE dump, which was being hammered by enemy planes. So in the absence of further orders, Captain Morrison on his own initiative sent the bulk of his company south to Lamia, while he with fifteen sappers returned to Larisa, where he met a very disturbed Australian officer wondering how he was to get his men across the river at the demolished Trikkala bridge. There was a punt nearby but the ropes were wearing, and it was feared that they would part and leave the troops stranded.