The Unvanquished: After the fall of Crete

sprang up. The rotten, weakened planks of the boat gaped open, the sea gushed in. But the Australian would not surrender. He had brought his drinking water from Crete in a two-gallon can which was watertight. He emptied the last of the water from the can and stoppered it as the boat sank under him. Then, resting on the buoyant can, he paddled in through the intervening miles of rough sea and staggered up the beach.

Two men trotted down the sand to meet him. He raised his head and blinked at them with salt-water blurred eyes, and his heart fell. He thought they were Germans.

"Are you Germans?" he gasped as they trotted up.

"Germans be beggared !" one of them hotly replied. "We're British."

Outside the barbed wire fences of the prisoner of war cages German guards armed with Tommy-guns watched night and day. Watched, but not very alertly. Seventy miles of sea separated Crete from German-occupied Greece, 250 miles from the nearest point of Egypt. A man who did succeed in escaping from the cage would have little chance of eluding the German patrols that systematically combed the mountains for fugitives, practically no chance of crossing the ocean to Egypt if he did remain at large.

The prisoners knew it, too. They knew that the Germans were making plans to ship them as soon as possible to the mainland of Europe, that once there nothing short of a miracle could save them from years of incarceration in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp. In those warm, clear days of June, 1941, they walked in Gethsemane. Defeated in battle, ill-fed, war-weary, their spirits were low. Yet even in those grim hours many thousands of men, singly and in groups, revolved in their minds plans for breaking through to liberty. 

Anything, even the risk of quick death from the machine guns mounted outside the wire or the guards' guns-guns, was preferable to the dragging hours of waiting for nothing. So thousands of men planned escape while the drowsy German guards watched them through the wire. Hundreds did no more than plan. Hundreds attempted to escape and were killed or recaptured. But hundreds found their way along the perilous road that led to freedom

One was an Australian infantry captain, whose battalion had surrendered at Retimo. He was determined from the outset that he would not spend the rest of the war in a German prison camp. He made his first break for freedom on the night of June 12. He had learned that all the officers in the camp where he was imprisoned were to be shipped away from the island early the next morning, and he realised it would be more difficult to escape and find his way to liberty on the mainland of Europe than on Crete. He returned to the camp next day. At that time, he did not know if the Cretans were friendly, and he felt his prospect of getting away from the island would be improved if he had companions on the venture. His information had been correct; all his brothers officers had been sent to Greece in the night.

The Germans were suspicious when he reappeared. He told them he had been ill and inadvertently left behind. They accepted his story, never guessing that he had been out of the camp for nearly twenty-four hours. Now, he went to work cool-headedly to organise his escape. Arms would be useful; the Germans were not keeping a very close watch on arms they had captured and, by the beginning of July, he had stolen a Bren gun, gun-gun, five rifles and ammunition. He had also stolen a quantity of tinned food. This, with the arms, he buried in a vineyard.

He made his second break on July 3. This time he was not alone. He was accompanied by two other Australians, a gunner and an infantry private. They struck for the hills. The Cretans greeted them suspiciously. They feared these might be agents provocateurs, disguised Germans masquerading as British soldiers to test the sentiments of the peasants. But when they were convinced of the identity of the three they helped them. They sheltered them, gave them food, supplied guides to lead them southwards across the rugged mountain heights.

The Australians met many other escaping soldiers as they moved oil through the mountains. They searched the south coast without success for a small boat. The Germans had already taken harsh reprisals against Cretans, who had sold or given boats to escaping soldiers, and the Cretans were terrified. Some had sailed their boats to other islands. The owners of the few boats that remained guarded them day and night. Some even slept in them to prevent their being spirited away. Their sympathy in almost every instance was with the fugitives, but they had to protect themselves and their families from the brutal hand of the Nazi masters of Crete.

The captain separated from the gunner and the private after a week or two in which they wandered together. The three decided that their chances of escape might be improved if they worked alone. The captain had been wandering nearly three weeks when he met the man who was to lead him to safety -a  Greek lieutenant-commander who was serving in the Royal Navy. This Greek was a man of high determination. He had a fine knowledge of the Aegean and its many islands. He had escaped from Suda Bay to the hills when Crete fell and had worked tirelessly persuading villagers to hide and feed men on the run while he found boats to carry them out of Crete. He had already put many men on their way to freedom.

His first effort to help the Australian proved a slip. He had a boat hidden in a coastal cave, but the Germans discovered it a few hours before the captain and the rest of a small party assembled by the Greek were to have embarked. They took to the hills again and lay low while the Germans, infuriated by the number of men they suspected were slipping through their fingers, opened another reign of terror against the Cretan peasants. They hid, on the move most of the time, for two or three weeks, then worked their way down to a peninsula where trading caiques from Greece were accustomed to slip in under cover of night to unload their cargoes. The Germans suspected that fugitive soldiers were escaping in these caiques and had forbidden the trade. Therefore, the skippers of the caiques were able to touch at Crete only furtively and by night. It was a risky undertaking even with these precautions. The Germans kept watch on peninsulas and coves where caiques were suspected of creeping in to unload, and sank or captured any that appeared.

Now there were agonising days of waiting for the Greek, the Australian and their party. One night their luck was in, it seemed. Two caiques crept in to the peninsula and began to unload. They had been there only a few minutes when an enemy patrol pounced from the darkness and seized them both. Grimly, the watchers stuck out the anxious days and nights of waiting. And then on the night of August 16 another caique stole in to the shore. This time the luck of the waiting men held. The Greek naval man bargained with the skipper, and after a few minutes' haggling, the Greek, the Australian, two British officers and a British corporal were permitted to climb on board. The caique also carried away from Crete a number of Greeks and a Cretan who had guided the Australian's party to the peninsula. He wanted nothing better than to escape from his native island now that Hitler's grip had closed on it.

After three days the caique reached Greece and put the Greek lieutenant commander and his companions ashore. The people of the Greek mainland had suffered from the same brand of German savagery as the Cretans for having assisted British fugitives, but here again their spirit transcended their fear. They gave the party food and sold them a small boat.

The Greek, the three Englishmen, the Australian and the Cretan guide set out to conquer the Mediterranean in a cockleshell of a craft. They rail through rough weather for two days until they reached an island. On again, and this time strong, unfavorable winds drove them off their course, and they were forced to shelter at another island. One of the British officers had been injured in an accident and required medical care. The party learned there was a doctor at a certain island, and they set a course for it.

Bad weather drove the little craft to shelter in the bay of a different island. It was really a piece of luck. The party not only found a doctor there to treat the injured Englishman but also obtained a fresh stock of food. Food had been short from the start of the journey; in fact, long before it had begun. For months, too, every member of the party had been living on rough fare and all of them were suffering with boils or sores.

They stayed a few days at the island while the injured man was recovering. Then they headed out into more bad weather. Heavy seas and high winds drove their boat to another island. They had to spend two days there until the storm subsided. And then they set out again-this time on the last lap of their journey. It ended on the Turkish coast on September 4.

They had won to freedom in the teeth of hunger, storm - and the Germans,

Meanwhile, the gunner and the private who had escaped from Malame prison camp with the captain, and parted from him, wandered from village to village in the mountains. They met a number of men who had contrived to evade capture after Crete fell or, like themselves, had broken out of the compounds where they were herded. Two had had seafaring experience, another was a radio operator. A little community of fugitives began to gather.

They found there was little chance of picking up a seaworthy boat oil the coast. It would be necessary for them to wait a few weeks until the Germans lost some of their zest for hunting men down. They hid in the mountains, never staying in any village longer than a few days, until well into August. Then they moved down to the coast and hid in the hills overlooking a spot where trading caiques might be expected to put in to shore. There were nine of them now, Australians and New Zealanders. They were living on bread and olives and brackish water-poor fare but a low price to pay for a chance of freedom. By day they slept, wakened at times by the roar of German aircraft passing low overhead on coastal patrols. Once or twice they saw small boats, rowed by Greeks and manned by Germans, pulling along the coast and probing bays and inlets in search of men in hiding. B-,, night they watched.

Their vigil was rewarded at ten o'clock on the fourth night. A caique came inshore. The watching men satisfied themselves it carried Greeks. The precaution was necessary. The Germans had a trick of running close inshore in a caique and opening up with machine guns on any fugitives who were misguided enough to show themselves or hail it. But this one was Greek all right. The nine men ran out of their hiding-place and splashed through the shallows. The Greek skipper took fright. He knew the reprisals awaiting

him if he were found carrying such passengers as these. He tried to fend them off with a boathook and hurriedly turned the caique's head to sea. Mitt he was not quick enough. Six of the nine managed to scramble on board. and the skipper resignedly accepted their presence and headed for Greece.

Dawn broke. A formation of Stukas passed overhead, later a formation of German heavy bombers. None of the aircraft bothered about the caique. But the skipper was nervous. They sighted Cape Malea, the most southeasterly point of the Peloponnesus. And here the skipper was adamant. The Australians and New Zealanders must go ashore. He sailed close in, and they sprang into shallow water and waded to the beach. They had escaped from Crete, but they were not much better off here. They were still stranded, still in enemy-held territory-and farther than ever from friendly soil.

A succession of shots echoed across the cape. Then the six men heard shouts. And the shouted words were Italian. The caique had put them ashore within a quarter of a mile of Cape Malea lighthouse. Looking towards the lighthouse they saw men in Italian uniforms running towards them, firing as they came. They ceased worrying about the long-term policy of saving their freedom and concentrated on the short-term policy of saving their lives. They scattered and ran for it. The Italians could see they were outdistanced. They fired a few more shots, then abandoned the chase and returned to the lighthouse.

The hunted men lay low for a time, then collected again in a nearby village. The villagers welcomed them as friends. They even gave them donkeys to carry their bundles. And so the ragged, unshaven party of six moved on from village to village. They met kindness everywhere, but it was kindness often tinctured with fear. The hand of German ruthlessness lay heavy upon conquered Greece.

They wandered for more than two weeks, then settled down in a shelter they built for themselves in hills overlooking the sea. The enemy had expected that some fugitives from Crete would find their way to Greece, and they were on the alert all the time. The men were in constant danger of being surprised and recaptured by Italian parties on the prowl in search of troops in hiding. They lay low and usually hunted singly when they went out in quest of a boat.

After a week the means of gaining freedom seemed to be within their reach. The owner of a boat agreed to sell it to them without a cash payment. They drew up a contract and each man signed it. This contract provided that the agreed purchase price should be paid to the owner's credit in an Alexandria bank if the purchasers reached safety. A protective clause was solemnly inserted.

It stated:

In the event of our becoming deceased or being retaken prisoner of war, this deed shall be sufficient evidence to the respective Australian and New Zealand Governments that we entered into this contract in all good faith in furtherance of our duty as soldiers to return to our respective units.

They seemed well on the way towards clearing their first hurdle, but it was not to be. The Italians evidently got wind of the presence of fugitives and sent out parties to comb the neighborhood. The men scattered, and it was days before they came together again.

By this time their number had grown. Others who had escaped from Crete to the Peloponnesus and were looking for a boat had joined up with the original six. They held a council of action and decided to move to a point on the coast overlooking a certain bay, where they believed they might
seize a boat. They made the move at night on September 30, travelling in small groups in order to minimise the danger of exciting unhealthy notice.

They camped, eighteen in all now, in a cave deep in sheep dung. It was not a pleasant retreat, but at least it was reasonably safe. And here they evolved their plan. Two men were appointed to keep watch on the bay each day from dawn to dusk while the rest lay hidden. It was the task of the watchers to signal to the men in the cave if a small boat from a caique or from any other vessel should put ashore for water. Six men were chosen as a boarding party. They were armed with two revolvers, which were the total firepower of the fugitives, and wooden bludgeons. It would be their
task to overpower the men in the dinghy, row out to the larger vessel and persuade the crew to carry the party to Egypt. It was hoped that oral persuasion would suffice, but the men intended, if necessary, to use their revolvers, and bludgeons to emphasise their arguments. Once the vessel's crew had agreed to take the fugitives, a signal by the boarding party would inform the men on the shore and they would swim out to the ship.

For a  week no suitable vessel appeared. Then a caique dropped anchor tin the bay and sent a boat ashore. The watchers signalled, the boarding-party seized the dinghy and rowed out. They swarmed up over the caique's side and parleyed with the crew. The Greek skipper, eyeing the revolver and bludgeons of the six unshaven, piratical Anzacs, listened attentively. Yes, he said, he was eager to help. He crossed himself. He whipped a miniature Union Jack from his pocket, like a rabbit from a hat, and waved

it in brave defiance of Britain's enemies. Ah !, how he loved the British and hated the Germans!

All was well . . . or seemed to be.

But first, said the skipper, he must return to his home port in one of the islands, take on more fuel and find the charts he required if he were to cross the Mediterranean. He seemed sincere and the stranded men wanted to be fair to him. All except one of them returned to the shore, believing the skipper would keep his promise to return for them early next morning. The man who stayed on board, intending to go along to the caique's home island for the ride, nearly paid with his freedom for his misplaced trust in the skipper.

A high wind was blowing when the caique doubled Cape Malea, and the skipper swore he must put into port or they would be wrecked. It was plain that the weather was only a pretext. The caique put in to Neapoli. There the man who had stayed on board managed to slip away. He rejoined his friends next morning, bringing with him the tale of the skipper's perfidy.

It was heartbreaking - but the fugitives had learned a useful lesson. They had learned that fear-driven men are not to be trusted. They held no rancor against the Greek skipper. They knew he had his boat, his family, his own life to protect. And they knew the Germans had a rough hand for Greeks who helped soldiers to escape. But they were determined that this piece of history should not repeat itself.

They waited a few days. Another caique anchored and sent a small boat ashore. The boarding party took possession of the boat, rowed out to the caique and climbed on board. They did not parley this time. They firmly shepherded the crew into the forecastle, told them to stay there and clinched the order by barring the door. Then they signalled to the rest of the watchers on shore, who swam out and went to work to make the vessel ready.

They weighed anchor in the early morning darkness of October 10 more than four months after the fall of Crete.

A perilous journey lay before them, and they knew it. They had found two flags on board. One was the national flag of Greece, one the flag of Nazi Germany flaunting the insignia of the Hooked Cross. A man was allotted the task of standing ready to hoist one of these flags to the masthead at sight of an aircraft. If it were a German plane, he would run up the Nazi flag, if a R.A.F. plane the Greek flag. The men in the caique thought their danger from any R.A.F. aircraft on patrol would be no less than from any German aircraft unless they could identify themselves. They were right. They cruised south, setting a course for Sollum, the frontier town marking the boundary of Egypt and Libya. 

Two aircraft were sighted flying from the south. The men in the caique strained their eyes to identify them, but at first they were too far off. Well, the balance of probability at that time was that they were German. The Swastika flag ran up to the masthead and fluttered there in the breeze-ironically, above men who were risking their lives to return to Egypt in order to fight the things it represented. The aircraft came on fast. And too late they were identified.

"For Christ's sake, pull that flag down," one of the watchers yelled. "They're ours, they're Blenheims."

Feverishly, the man on the halyards hauled down the Nazi flag and raised the Greek flag in its stead. The others stood on the deck waving their arms, shouting, vainly trying to warn the pilots skimming down towards them that they were friends. But the Blenheims had seen the caique and identified the Nazi flag before it was lowered. They were not to be tricked by such an obvious device as that of running up a Greek flag at the last moment. They dived on the little vessel and let go four bombs when they were not much higher than the top of the mast. The bombs fell within thirty feet of the caique. Providence must have thought this party of Australians and New Zealanders had earned a lucky break. None of the bombs exploded. The Blenheims flew on their way and the caique ploughed on towards Egypt. 

But the hazards were not over yet. Next morning a German Dornier came plunging on the caique and released ten bombs from high level. His aim was not as good as that of the Blenheim, which was as well, because his bombs were better. They burst in the sea, none nearer than two hundred yards. A direct hit or a near miss by any of them would have blown the caique out of the sea. But the Dornier pilot was not finished yet. He came low and dived and sprayed the deck with machine gun bullets. One of the Greeks-the crew had been released when the vessel was safely at sea was slightly wounded, but none of the others was hurt, no damage was done.

A Dornier appeared again in the afternoon. It was probably the same one, refuelled and re-ammunitioned, intent on finishing off the caique. But  now the vessel was nearing Egypt, and the soldiers on board were, for once. blessing a desert phenomenon that all of them had thought they would never do anything but curse-a dust storm. The wind had carried the powder-fine dust many miles out over the Mediterranean, hiding the sea under a great dun blanket. The men on board the caique could see the Dornier occasionally, as the German zoomed low overhead, searching for them, but he could not see them under the screen of dust. It seemed an interminable  time before the menacing drone of the Dornier's engines receded and died as he flew away.

That night the Luftwaffe raided Tobruk as if raided that fortress every night throughout the long 1941 siege. The garrison sent up the usual terrific anti-aircraft barrage. And out at sea eighteen young Anzacs on the deck of a caique watched the flashing of the guns and the bright scribbles of tracers in the sky and told each other "That's Tobruk!"

They ran eastward down the coast before a stiff breeze. The breeze freshened and soon a storm was howling along the Mediterranean coast. The wind ripped the mainsheet clean away, but the caique continued to bucket on through the night on her jib. Dawn broke and the storm abated. The caique worked close inshore, east of Sollum. The men believed they were near safe country now, but they had no guarantee that the enemy had not pressed deeper than they knew into Egypt in the five months or so since they had had reliable news of the war in Libya. One of them rowed ashore in the dinghy to reconnoitre. His mates waited for his signal. When it came they knew they were safe at last. A strong sea was still running, but this was no time for loitering. Every man who could swim plunged overboard and struck out for the beach.

And so they ended their adventure wet to the hide. But what did a dripping skin count when friendly earth was beneath their feet at last?

Many other men escaped from Crete in circumstances which demanded no less daring, no less enterprise than the daring and enterprise of the men whose stories I have told. They went hungry. They chewed shirt buttons and sucked pebbles in the fight against thirst. When a boat was found and more men were on the spot than it could hold they tossed a coin or drew lots for the right to places. Six men solemnly cut cards in a cave near Sphakia for the single remaining place in a dinghy. One of them won the cut with the Jack of Spades, and so found a place in the boat and his way to freedom.

But there is a story of the escape of a group of officers and men in a motor landing craft which, for native drama and high courage, seems to me to outshine all other stories that I have heard of the fugitives of Crete. To me, it is the apotheosis of that courage that flowers so wondrously in the hearts of men whom defeat can never conquer.

The motor landing craft left Crete on June 1 and put into a small island about twenty miles south in search of food and fuel. No petrol was to be had. but the islanders gave the party some food. The landing craft, with more than two hundred miles of the Mediterranean separating it from Egypt, had only enough fuel to cover a quarter of the distance, only enough food 'o allow each man a few mouthfuls on each of the days they must inevitably d at sea, even if favourable currents should drive them to the Egyptian coast.

Their highest hope was that they would be picked up by a passing ship. But the hope was a slender one, and they knew it.

A number of men had travelled to the island from Crete in the landing craft. Others had rowed and sailed there in small boats. On the evening of June 2, an Australian private who had fought at Retimo and crossed Crete on foot after the surrender, called the castaways together and told them he intended to take command of the landing craft and head for Egypt. Anybody who cared to risk death by thirst or starvation on the high seas might come with him. Fifty-two officers and men chose to make the journey. Others stayed behind.

And so they set out that night.

The skipper's private's log tells the story of the eight days they were at sea.

2 June, 41.-All aboard again. Have procured more water and food but unable to get petrol. Supply very low. Wind light, northerly. Hope to intercept a patrol vessel to-night. If not, must drift around until we do. Some members decide to, stay behind, but four new members join party. 2040 hrs.: Have again started on our journey south. Breeze rather fresh from the west. Sea choppy.

3 June, 41.-0200 hrs.: Have discovered that through grounding on a rock we have loosened a plate in the starboard balance tank and it is making water fairly fast. All hands awakened and baling water out for quite a few hours. 0230 hrs.: Several Verey lights were fired at half-hour intervals until 0500 hrs., but we got no response. 0630 hrs.: Leak discovered and repaired. Water well under control. 1615 hrs.: Sighted vessel to east. Excitement high, but hopes dashed, as it turns out to be another invasion barge on the same errand as ourselves. 1830 hrs.: Fuel expended. Now drifting. Estimate our position 60 miles off African coast.

4 June, 41-1050 hrs.: Rigged jury mast and' sail (four blankets stitched together). Wind north-westerly. Making progress to south.

5 June, 41.-Still making slow progress south-easterly. Food very short restricted all hands to quarter pint of cocoa for breakfast. Would give anything for a good square meal. 1600 hrs.: Flat calm. No sign of any shipping or land. Everybody very hungry and getting weak, but can last three or four days yet. 2300 hrs.: Plane flew across at fair height. Do not know whether Allied or enemy, so did not show signal. Planes were heard again, three times, before daylight.

6 June, 41.-1030 hrs.: We have had nothing to, eat or drink, but the spirits of the men are excellent, so I do not intend signalling blindly to a plane at night for a day or two yet. 1200 hrs.: Light breeze from north. Once more making slow progress south. Issue of water, but all food gone.

7 June, 41.-1200 hrs.: A number of planes-approximately 17/18-flew over our bow, but were too far away to distinguish whether they were Allied or enemy, and at 1500 hrs. a German long-range bomber flew directly overhead on an easterly course.

8 June, 41.-1000 hrs.: I have sighted land immediately to our south, so it is obvious we have kept a fairly good course throughout our journey. Have disclosed same to members on board and they are jubilant. Excitement prevails everywhere. Five members decided to make a raft and head for land. I advised against this. The breeze is very light from the west, and we are unable to get our barge to sail, so are just drifting towards land, which is damned awful.

9 June, 41.-0230 hrs.: We have safely grounded on the rocks at Sidi Barrani, having safely traversed the whole of the sea journey under our own power. Ever), member of the crew has disembarked, and' we find that we have landed right in the midst of a Tommy camp. Here we have been treated like lords. Plenty of food, tea, cigarettes and shelter, which is greatly appreciated by all. And so ends our sea voyage.

The stripped phraseology of the log contains no hint of the hopes and disappointments, the fears and bodily trials that the men in the landing craft endured on that strange journey. The skipper does not trouble to record that the supply of water became exhausted in a few days and that he and his comrades kept themselves alive by distilling sea water. It was brackish, but it slaked their thirst. He does not even mention the religious ceremony they conducted on board the craft on Sunday, June 8. It was mid-morning. No land was in sight, and the voyagers, weakened by lack of food, were beginning to despair. 

Somebody suggested a church service. It could not have been more simple, but it had a quiet grandeur that no ceremony in a cathedral could surpass. There were men of every denomination on board the landing craft, and they all joined in silent prayer and stood with bowed heads while a sergeant read from Chapter Eleven of the Book of Hebrews. The words fell like a message of hope on the morning calm, which was broken only by the slap of the tide on the steel plates of the landing craft

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. . . . But without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."

And soon the skipper-private, shading his eyes to stare at the horizon said: "Well  boys, I guess our prayers have been heard. I can see land." 

That grey smudge on the horizon was the coast of Egypt.

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Australian Soldier:  a 1940/42 portrait of the Digger's in North Africa