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{ IBRARY UNIV:RSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ
GREECE AND CRETE 1941
This volume has been written at the request of H.M. Government as one of a series designed to furnish the general reader with a short military history of the Second World War 1939-45, pen- ding the publication of the Official Histories. The author has been given access to official documents and sources of information: for the presentation of material, for the statements made, and for the opinions expressed, he alone is responsible.
Other Volumes in this Series: ARMS AND THE MEN THE CAMPAIGN IN ITALY NORWAY—THE COMMANDOS—DIEPPE
in preparation or projected: THE CAMPAIGNS IN AFRICA
IRAQ—SYRIA—PERSIA—MADAGASCAR— THE DODECANESE
N.W. EUROPE, 1944-45 THE FAR EAST, 1941-45
THE SECOND WORLD WAR, 1939-1945
A POPULAR MILITARY HISTORY BY VARIOUS AUTHORS IN EIGHT VOLUMES
GREECE AND CRETE 1941
BY CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY
LONDON HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE 1952
First published 1952
Crown Copyright Reserved LONDON : PUBLISHED BY HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE To be purchased directly from H.M. Stationery Office at the following addresses: 423 Oxford Street, London, W.1; York House, Kingsway, London, W.C.2;- P.O. Box 569 London, S.E.1; 13a Castle Street, Edinburgh, 2 ; 39 King Street,
Manchester, 2; 2 Edinund Street, Birmingham, 3; 1 St. Andrew’s Crescent, Cardiff ; Tower Lane, Bristol, 1; 80 Chichester Street, Belfast ;
or through any bookseller. Price 12s. 6d. 1952 8.0. Code No. 63-111-1-3*
Printed in Great Britain under the authority of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office at The Curwen Press Ltd., London, E.13
Foreword
THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE and the Battle for Crete, 1941, form a further contribution to this series by the late Christopher Buckley. The author and the publisher are very greatly indebted to the official historians of Australia and New Zealand who devoted much time and trouble to a critical reading of the narrative and supplying additional information ; also to Lord Freyberg for his valuable notes and suggestions.
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Contents
THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
Chapter I. The War Spreads Eastward . . : : _
II. Swastika over the Balkans. , : : 11
III. British Troopsin Greece. ; : . 29
IV. Germany Strikes . : ‘ : : ‘ 37
V. The Western Flank . ; : : : 49
VI. The Olympus Position. . . . . 65
VII. Retreat to Thermopylae ‘ : : d 79
VIII. Evacuation . : ; . , : . 104
Epilogue : . es . . : : . 138 THE BATTLE FOR CRETE
Chapter I. ThelIsland . : : , ‘ : . 145
II. The First Day. . : ‘ ; . 173
III. Royal Escape : : ‘ : : . ii
IV. The Days of Decision . : : : . 217
V. Evacuation . ; E : . ; . 261
VI. Conclusions . ‘ ; : : . . 291
General Index. ; i : F , F . 305
Index to Formations and Units : ; : 2 . 309
vii
bi a a a da
MAPS
All heights shown are in metres
Greece: The Lower Aliakmon and the Vardar Plain Greece: The Western Flank
Greece: The Olympus Position .
Greece: Tempe-Elasson
Greece: Thermopylae-Brallos
Greece: The Road to the Beaches
Greece: The Beaches in the Peloponnesus_ . : General Map.
: Maleme :
: The ‘Prison Valley’ .
: Canea-Suda .
: Retimo .
: Heraklion
: The Road to Sphakia
: Balkans—Mediterranean, North
: Balkans—Mediterranean, South.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Between pages British Troops Arriving at Piraeus
72-3
Greek Welcome A British Gun Passing Through Lamia New Zealand in Greece
PAGE 42 48 68 88
110 118 130 148 180 190 196 200 204 266 front back
Transport Old and New on a Greek Mountain Road
Mount Olympus The Pass at Thermopylae
On the Way to the Beaches: Australian Interlude
Between pages Suda Bay under Attack
232-3
Cretan Countryside
The King of the Hellenes and 2nd-Lieut. Ryan A German Troop-Carrier
General Freyberg
Parachutes at Heraklion
Cretan Air-Raid Refuge near the Beach Trophies from Crete
vill
THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
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CHAPTER I
The War Spreads Eastward
m1 le Aims of the Axis Powers
THE fall of France and the declaration of war by Italy in June 1940 marked the beginning of a new phase of the struggle. With the British armies seriously weakened by the loss of the campaign in North- West Europe, the British Commonwealth and Empire faced the might of Germany and Italy, and continued to do so for a whole year, alone without ally.
There were, at first, two major theatres of operations. One was the sky over south-eastern England where the Battle of Britain was fought and won during the late summer and autumn; the other was the eastern Mediterranean and the Balkan peninsula. Throughout the autumn and winter Germany was in the process of conquering the Balkans by infiltration. German troops passed through Hungary. They took over control in Rumania in October, having previously retroceded half the province of Transylvania to Hungary. And during the winter signs were not wanting that they were preparing to descend upon Bulgaria and that Bulgaria was not in the least likely to offer them any opposition.
That had been the direction of the German land drive after the fall of France; and to many observers—the present writer included— it seemed that Hitler was about to pursue the traditional Drang nach Osten, that drive to the East which seemed to offer such rich prizes— the control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles; Mosul and the Persian oil-fields ; the Suez Canal; ultimately perhaps even India.
Italian participation in the war seemed to point the way towards this strategy still more strongly. If Germany were to drive through Turkey to the Persian Gulf or the Suez Canal or both, the natural corollary was for Italy to thrust from Libya, the whole forming one
3
4 - THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
gigantic pincer movement to eliminate the British forces in the Middle East, which, failing a direct attack upon the British Isles or their reduction by slow strangulation, furnished the best chances of dealing an early decisive blow against the one Power still in the field against them.
This was logical enough; and we know now that Germany’s venture through the Balkans to the eastern Mediterranean caused the postponement of the invasion of Russia for a full four weeks. The decision was taken by the Fiihrer at a conference held in Berlin on March 27th, 1941, when it was announced that Yugoslavia must be liquidated. The attack on Greece was to be carried out simultaneously. Later, the objective of these operations was described as ‘that of driving the British from the Balkans and laying the foundation for _ German air operations in the eastern part of the Mediterranean’.
Nevertheless, the moves into the Balkans, which were initiated by Germany in the autumn, winter and spring of 1940-1 may be re- garded as a buttressing of her southern flank for the forthcoming campaign into Russia as well as preliminary operations against our forces in the Middle East. Germany needed Rumania as a base and jumping-off ground for the attack upon Russia in the following year, and she needed control of Rumanian oil. It was realized that Bulgaria and Yugoslavia must be absorbed into the German system. Thus the swoop of the German forces upon ill-equipped, unready Yugoslavia ; the relentless drive down through the Greek passes; the bold and hazardous airborne invasion of Crete—these might be viewed as part of a strategically defensive operation to neutralize Turkey, and to prevent the possibility of a British diversion northwards from bases in Greece, whence British bombers might operate against the oil wells of Ploésti in Rumania.
Probably Hitler, and a fortiori the General Staff, who had still less liking for divergent operations, hoped that such action would involve the minimum dispersal of force and would take the minimum time to accomplish. When Mussolini’s ineptitude did involve a considerable German commitment both against Greece and Yugoslavia, Hitler and the General Staff were certainly anxious to finish as soon as possible the spring campaign in south-eastern Europe prior to the great offensive against Russia. Moreover, a swift and easy success in the Balkan countries would hasten the day for the opening of the aforesaid German air operations in the eastern Mediterranean.
Actually, as will be seen later, the course of events was to lead to German intervention in Africa.
But in any study of the Balkan campaign of 1941, and especially of the motives that conditioned the despatch of a British force to
THE WAR SPREADS EASTWARD 5
Greece, it is as well to see it as it must have appeared to us at the time. Though evidence was building up through the months to suggest the German intention of attacking Russia, it was not sufficiently sure- founded to act as a basis for British strategy. The direction of the forthcoming Axis advance was assumed to be towards the south-east, with Hitler and Mussolini pursuing a closely co-ordinated plan for the dismemberment of the British Empire and the destruction of Britain.
Under these circumstances, and following the decision to abandon the proposed ‘Operation Sea Lion’ (the code name for the invasion of Britain) which seems to have been taken as early as September 19th,! the centre of gravity of the war began to shift eastward from the English Channel to the vast area between the Danube and the Nile.
Germany enjoyed the prestige of continuous victory, the advantage of very much shorter lines of communication and the possibility of deploying her numerous magnificently equipped and battle-trained divisions against us; Italy was in a position to strike directly across the desert into Egypt or, from her advanced base in Albania, into Greece or Yugoslavia. Between them the two Powers appeared to have all the cards in their hands. The tide of the Axis advance across the Balkan peninsula was sweeping on, by means of conquest (Albania), military infiltration and disintegration (Rumania) and economic penetration and encirclement (Hungary and—as it seemed —Yugoslavia).
For months Britain could not hope to do more than play a waiting game, holding off the converging attack upon Suez—if it should come—until such time as sufficient reinforcements of men and material should have arrived in the Middle East to enable her first to safeguard the immediate Canal zone and then to take the offensive. Therefore the best that could be hoped for fully twelve months would be a series of ‘delaying actions’ on our part. Wherever there seemed some chance of temporarily staying the onset, the meagre British resources must be disposed—to parry here, to snatch advantage from an unguarded move there, to retard, even though it could not prevent, a débdcle elsewhere. That was the strategy planned by the Chiefs of Staff and executed by Wavell during those twelve months when we stood alone in face of the Axis Powers.
1 See Peter de Mendelssohn, The Nuremberg Documents, p. 217.
6 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE om [2 ]«
Italy Attacks
For Mussolini the Greek campaign represented aggression along the line of least resistance. By declaring war in June like one who buys on a rising market, he had hoped to secure easy profit, despite the fact that Italy was actually unready for war. Intervention in Spain had been a costly and exhausting undertaking. The armed services needed re-equipment with modern material, yet she could not hope to do this from her own resources. Her vulnerable position in the Mediterranean, so long as the British fleet remained in being in that sea, predisposed her to neutrality. But the opportunity seemed too good to miss. France was beaten to her knees, and good Fascists could not forget that it was only a matter of months since they had been clamouring for Tunis, Corsica, Savoy, Nice and Jibuti. Now it seemed that they might be secured with little effort. Most of Europe at that date would have endorsed Weygand’s view that within three weeks England would have her neck wrung like a chicken. And when the three weeks came to an end and England still stood erect, most of Europe still thought that there might be peace by September; so Mussolini was able to reflect that there might be time after all for a victory campaign.
On the Alpine frontier the Italians had contributed little to the defeat of France. Malta, which many had believed would rapidly become untenable for the British, had been repeatedly raided from the air—at great cost to the attackers and very little to the defence. The Italian forces had hitherto had all the worst of the skirmishing on the frontier between Libya and Egypt. Their navy shunned a trial of strength in the eastern Mediterranean. Small penetrations across the Kenya and Sudan borders and the occupation of a number of frontier posts were a poor gesture on the part of the East African army which could at any one of these points have commanded a ten- fold or twentyfold superiority in manpower. Mussolini might speak in florid terms at the opening of August of the forthcoming develop- ment of an all-out offensive against the British Empire in Africa to synchronize with the German air attack upon England, but the labour of the Fascist mountain produced only the ridiculus mus of the over-running of British Somaliland.
It is not surprising that in seeking easy triumphs and bloodless victories Mussolini’s eye should have turned upon Greece. Of all the neighbours to whom he had issued his guarantee in June, Greece appeared the weakest, seemed to present the easiest prey. Fascismo
THE WAR SPREADS EASTWARD 7
had long conducted a vendetta against its small neighbour on the further side of the Ionian Sea, and after Albania was annexed in the spring of 1939, Italian forces could be launched in a direct invasion of Greek territory.
On August 4th, General Metaxas, the Greek Dictator, had cele- brated the fourth anniversary of his assumption of power—and the occasion had been signalized by congratulatory messages from the German and Italian Governments, but not, be it observed, from the British or American. The régime in Greece was dictatorial. It had copied many of the characteristics of the Fascist and Nazi models. It commanded some respect but no affection from the nation. Not only was it unpopular with the Venizelist (Liberal and Anglophile) party, but also with the Royalists. For these reasons Mussolini, with a mis- judgment of the Greek character and Greek patriotism that was to prove disastrous to Italian arms, probably assumed that there would be little support for the régime in the event of an Italian attack.
On August 15th the Greek light cruiser Helle was sunk by torpedo at her anchorage off the island of Tenos. When fragments of the torpedo were recovered they were found to be of Italian origin. The Greek Government studiously refrained from publishing the facts, the torpedo being described as coming from a submarine of ‘ unknown origin’, though the truth was well known throughout the country. The attack upon the Helle had been made by Italy to test Greek reactions, and quite the wrong deduction was drawn from the official silence. It was assumed that the Greek Government was silent through fear and therefore was unlikely to offer more than token resistance in the face of invasion. Actually the outrage provided the occasion for a closing of the ranks within the country.
The torpedoing of the Helle was not the only, nor indeed the first provocation which Greece had to endure from Italy during the period August-October 1940. Frontier ‘incidents’, so familiar a cause or result of friction between Balkan states, grew in number; the Albanian Press, inspired and encouraged by Italy, voiced many a grievance against the Greek Government and people.
Metaxas stood his ground against Italian provocation. He notified the Italian Ambassador that force would be met with force in the event of any military action being taken against Greece. The bold- ness of this decision, made in the very nadir of the fortunes of anti- Axis resistance, should never be forgotten. Greece at that moment was quite unready to face attack. Her armed forces were unmobilized, inadequate and hopelessly under-equipped even by Italian standards. France had collapsed. Russia was still in close alliance with Germany. Britain was fighting for sheer existence against the great air attacks
8 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
which were to have been the preliminary to invasion, and it appeared unlikely that she could provide even token support to implement her guarantee of help against aggression given in April 1939.
Hitler gave no encouragement to his junior partner; which may explain why Mussolini held his hand for a time, continuing to rein- force his garrisons in Albania and trusting to a war of nerves to do nine-tenths of his work for him.
With October tension grew greater in Greece. Early in the month an Italian aircraft flying over Greek territory dropped three bombs between Thebes and Levadia, but the incident was hushed-up by the Greek censorship, as the Government was, very sensibly, striving to avoid any action that might be interpreted as ‘provocation’ of the Fascist Power. The Greeks, however, who had been quite unprepared in August, were now disposing their scanty resources to the best of their ability. The army, partially mobilized, was awaiting attack on the Albanian frontier. Metaxas told his Cabinet that the troops would be kept under arms until the threat to Greek independence was definitely past, though the cost of this continued state of semi- mobilization was appalling, and he could not begin to consider how it was to be met.
With winter approaching, the prospects of immediate aggression seemed to decline. Italy, indeed, might have been well advised to have delayed her offensive until the spring of 1941; but Mussolini does not seem to have regarded the Greek campaign asa serious military under- taking. If he envisaged a triumphant military parade of probably not more than a week’s duration, it was immaterial to him at what time of year it might start. Italian forces had occupied British Somaliland ; they had penetrated into Kenya and the Sudan; Graziani had gone forward nearly a hundred miles into Egypt; nowhere had the Italian troops as yet withdrawn. And so it was unthinkable that Greece should provide any serious opposition.
On Monday, October 29th at 3 a.m., General Metaxas was handed an ultimatum by Count Grazzi, Italian Minister in Athens. This ultimatum accused the Greek Government of having weighted its neutrality heavily in favour of England, of having allowed the British fleet to make use of its territorial waters, of having facilitated the re- fuelling of British aircraft and of having allowed a British Intelligence Service to establish itself in the Greek islands: the Greek Govern- ment was further accused of allowing Greek territory to be ‘transformed into a base for warlike operations against Italy’, Italy therefore demanded the right of immediate occupation of certain un- specified strategic points in Greece for the duration of the war against England. It asserted that this was a measure of purely defensive
THE WAR SPREADS EASTWARD 9
character and that it would not be in any way prejudicial to Greek sovereignty over these territories. Greek troops were required not to impede the movements of the Italian forces.
General Metaxas promptly refused these demands. War was in- evitable. With speed and unanimity the Greek nation responded to the mobilization summons.
It seems fairly clear that the Italian ultimatum was not meant to be accepted. Even before the close of the brief period allowed for acceptance or rejection Italian troops were moving forward in the frontier districts. Documents later discovered showed that every detail of the attack had been prepared. If the ultimatum had been accepted Italian troops would, of course, have moved forward to assume occupation of the unspecified districts of Greece in the interests of Italian security; but one can be safe in supposing that Mussolini preferred that the Greeks should put up at least some show of resistance. His prestige needed some indisputable victories to balance the sweep of Napoleonic triumphs of Nazi Germany.
The world was prepared to see Greece fall an easy victim of aggres- sion. How could the courage and resolution of the Greek dictator and the spirit of the Greek people prevail over the Italian preponderance of force? Despite her commitments in Africa, Italy had massed upon the Albanian frontier troops which outnumbered the Greek defenders by nearly four to one. Possessing no tanks themselves and very few aircraft, the Greeks were ill-equipped to resist Italian armour or Italian attacks from the air. And yet the unexpected happened. Heroic Greek endeavour brought a triumph of Greek arms.
The principal Italian thrust was delivered in the Pindus towards Yanina and made some progress at first ; but the Greeks proved them- selves superior in the tactics of mountain warfare so that the invaders were soon driven back and pursued beyond the frontier. Further north the Greeks checked Italian attempts to advance, and then passed to the offensive, crossing the Albanian frontier on October 31st. Soon they were threatening Koritsa. In Epirus, where the open ground favoured the employment of mechanized forces, the Italians reached and crossed the river Kalamas, but the failures further north had their repercussions and a general retreat set in. By November 25th Greek soil was clear of the invader and a Greek counter-offensive was in progress.
This effort was crowned with remarkable success, a change of Italian commanders and the arrival of considerable Italian reinforce- ments having little effect. After the capture of Koritsa, the largest town in Albania, Pogradec on Lake Ohridsko fell to the Greeks, and only the onset of winter stayed further advance in the mountains.
10 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
Near the coast Argyrokastron was captured on December 8th, Himare on the 24th, and Kelcyre on January 10th, 1941; but the port of Valona remained in Italian hands.
After weeks of inconclusive winter warfare the Italians, under another new commander, struck again with considerable forces. This offensive was pressed with something like desperation but only re- sulted in heavy losses: the Greek defensive victory near Tepelene in March 1941 meant that Italy’s last attempt to prevail by force of arms had collapsed. For she did not try again.
Yet, although the prowess of the Greek Army was fitly rewarded by success, the efforts of the troops had left them overstrained and their numbers sadly thinned as a result of the hardships of the winter campaign. Re-equipment was a vital need, for all resources, military and civilian, had been used without stint to repel the invader. The whole Greek people sorely needed a period of recuperation, instead of which they were soon to be subjected to a much greater ordeal which ended in disaster.
It is now time to turn to the diplomatic developments of the winter of 1940-1, months which saw the small beginnings of Britain’s assistance to her Greek ally and brought Germany to the point when she would intervene.
CHAPTER II
Swastika over the Balkans
om 1. Jee
British Aid to Greece?
THE Italian attack on Greece called for the British assistance against aggression guaranteed in April 1939; but the occasion was hardly propitious. Britain’s exiguous land and air forces were urgently required for defence of the mother country against the most formid- able threat of invasion that we had ever known. What could be spared for service elsewhere was required with scarcely less urgency for the defence of our position in the Middle East, based on-the Nile and the Suez Canal and now much weakened by the defection of France, whose co-operation had of course been assumed at the time that the guarantee was given. The Middle East was regarded as the lynch-pin of the whole Empire; if that went, the war could be lost almost as surely as if Britain herself were to be invaded.
With France out of the war it became quite clear that, in view of our vital defence commitments elsewhere and our extremely limited resources, there could be no question of taking the initiative in ex- tending our protection to Greece, though the guarantee remained valid and Greece, unlike Rumania, took no steps to repudiate it or to seek protection elsewhere. It was to be hoped—and it was little more than a pious hope—that with increasing strength we should be able progressively to extend our help to Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia, all of whom were still nominally linked together by the Balkan Entente and by a common interest in opposing the further expansion of the Axis Empires.
The first definite plan for coming to the help of Greece in case of need appears to date from May 1940, before Italy came into the War and before France was defeated. The Middle East Command had then been ordered to prepare an expedition which, with the consent of the
11
12 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
Greek Government already secured, would occupy the islands of Crete and Milos, in the event of Italy attacking Greek territory. Originally this was intended to be a Franco-British expedition, but the orders were confirmed in June, the Royal Navy being of opinion that Suda Bay, on the north coast of Crete, would form a valuable re-fuelling base for light craft. For the time being, however, it was our policy to keep out of Crete rather than provide Italy with an excuse for aggressive action. And when, early in August, the first clear signs of Mussolini’s hostile intentions towards Greece became apparent General Wavell, then in London, reported to a meeting of the Chiefs of Staff that there was not so much as a single brigade available for the garrisoning of Crete in the event of an Italian attack on the mainland of Greece. Nor did it seem possible at that stage that we could provide even the most modest air assistance or anti-aircraft defence for the island.
By October, things were a little better. Graziani had stopped short at Sidi Barrani in his advance towards the Delta, and the Duke of Aosta was still trifling on the frontiers of Kenya and the Sudan. It was decided that it would now be possible to contemplate the occupa- tion of Crete in the event of Italian aggression. With the consent of the Greek Government, at the end of the month a small British force was landed in Crete and became responsible for the defence of the island. Even so, we were still incapable of any considerable contribu- tion to the Greek resistance, although Mr. Churchill’s speech in the House of Commons, announced that General Metaxas had requested from Sir Michael Palairet, British Minister in Athens, such aid as we could give in accordance with our guarantee. It must be remembered that what resources were available in the relative proximity of Egypt were being carefully husbanded for a counterstroke against Graziani with the object of driving the Italian force from Egypt before it could resume its advance from Sidi Barrani.
Fortunately the requests of General Metaxas were not excessive. He was a realist, and he was perfectly well aware how little we our- selves possessed. Moreover, he knew that the appearance of any significant British force in Greece might be the signal for Germany to come to the assistance of her Fascist partner.
Accordingly, Metaxas limited his requirements to an appeal for the naval protection of Corfu, air protection for Athens and general assistance in terms of finance and supply. The British fleet was already, to all intents and purposes, in control of the eastern Mediter- ranean ; it was therefore improbable that any immediate danger was to be feared from the Italians at sea. The most urgent need was, con- sequently, for air support on the most immediate and the fullest scale
SWASTIKA OVER THE BALKANS 13
possible. The Italians were in a position to employ over five hundred operational bombers and fighters; the Greeks had available a first- line strength of some 26 bombers and 28 fighters, and perhaps half as much again in terms of obsolete aircraft of quite negligible value under modern conditions.
. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore, A.O.C.-in-C. Middle East, here acted on his own responsibility. To provide Greece with air assistance he disregarded our commitments in the Western Desert and ordered squadrons from Africa to Greece, relying upon rein- forcements from the United Kingdom to fill their places. This course gained the entire approval of the Prime Minister who cabled ‘You have taken a very bold and wise decision’ and promised reinforce- ment as soon as possible.
Accordingly, No. 30 Squadron of Blenheims began to arrive as early as November 3rd, six days after the beginning of the Italian campaign. It was followed by No. 211 Squadron of Blenheims, No. 84 Squadron of Blenheims, No. 80 Squadron of Gladiators and No. 70 Squadron of Wellingtons; and on November 6th Air-Commodore J. H. D’Albiac arrived in Athens to assume command.
Two points of major importance arose in the first conference which D’Albiac held that same evening with the Greek Prime Minister and Greek Commander-in-Chief. The first referred to the general air strategy to be employed by the British forces; the second related to the selection of airfields from which they were to operate, and the preparation of new ones. On the first issue the British com- mander had his way; on the second the Greeks were able to impose their views—with far-reaching consequences to the development of the campaign.
Briefly, D’Albiac found the utmost pressure brought to bear upon him to employ his air force in direct and close support of the land forces. The Greek air force, which was under the control of the General Staff, was employed in this manner; the German air force, which had achieved such striking victories in Poland, Norway and the Low Countries had operated with great success during those campaigns in the closest co-ordination with the army. Such methods appeared to provide the pattern for air victory, and, which was a matter of importance to the Greek leaders, they would be of very great value in maintaining the morale of the Greek troops, since soldiers are always heartened by the spectacle of friendly aircraft immediately overhead.
D’Albiac pointed out that his small force of bombers could be best employed in striking at the enemy’s disembarkation ports in Albania and at certain important centres of communication, and that the
14 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
Italian advance could be more easily retarded by these means than by head-on attacks under unfavourable conditions upon advancing troops. In the end he was successful in carrying his point, and during the weeks that followed the maximum air effort was employed against the ports of Valona and Durazzo by which reinforcements and supplies were fed into Albania. Nevertheless, the British policy of long-term strategic bombing, still far from the peak of its efficiency, was not one that commended itself to the Greek military mind.
On the matter of airfields D’Albiac was less successful, for the question involved issues of diplomacy right outside the range of air strategy. Apart from the two at Elevsis and Tatoi (Menidi), both in the Athens area, the best airfields lie in the Macedonian plain around Salonika ; and though much of the ground is liable to be water-logged in winter, the Larissa region would naturally be convenient for the concentration of our bombers engaged in operations over the Albanian and Italian ports.
But at this point the shadow of Germany—as yet a cloud no larger ~ than a diplomat’s hand—looms over the scene. Hitherto Germany has acted with the utmost correctness towards Greece. The Italian attack had been undertaken on Mussolini’s own initiative. Hitler was definitely opposed to such action in October 1940; eventually he would incorporate Greece in the ‘New Order’, but the time was not yet. The German Government pointedly refrained from withdrawing its Minister from Athens or counselling German subjects to leave ‘Greece. Everything was done to create the impression that in the German view the quarrel was one which concerned only Italy and Greece. General Metaxas had even been told privately by the German Minister in Athens that Germany would not be disposed to regard the presence of a small British air increment as a casus belli provided that it was not permitted the use of airfields in northern Greece. We may assume that Hitler was genuinely nervous about the possibility of bombing attacks on the Ploésti oil installations, and perhaps also of the political repercussions that might result.
Consequently, D’Albiac found himself met with a firm refusal when he applied for the use of air bases in the neighbourhood of Salonika. Such a concession would provoke Germany, and to pre- vent Germany from intervening in the Greek war Metaxas was quite prepared to ban the Royal Air Force from bases in northern Greece.
It is difficult not to sympathize with the point of view of the Greek ruler. Greece seemed to have the measure of her Italian adversary, but a clash with Germany promised almost certain destruction. The fallacy lay in supposing that Germany could afford to allow her ally ‘to be beaten in the field. She must, inevitably, come to the rescue.
SWASTIKA OVER THE BALKANS 15
General Wavell had drawn attention to this as early as November 16th when commenting upon an appreciation of the situation sub- mitted by his Deputy Director of Military Intelligence. He wrote: *I am sure Germany cannot afford to see Italy defeated or even held, and must intervene.’
In fact, Hitler had just begun to plan for this purpose. Only four days earlier he had issued an order to the General Staff to prepare for the invasion of Greek Thrace on the basis of a twelve-divisional operation. At the same time he was toying with the idea of sending a mountain division to help Mussolini out of his difficulties in Albania. Badoglio came up to meet Field-Marshal Keitel at Inns- bruck a day or two later, and between them the first Biuepant for German intervention was prepared.
Nevertheless, Hitler saw that no intervention would be practicable before the spring. His troops had entered Rumania during the month of October, though not in great strength, and were in no position yet to move down through the Bulgarian mountains to attack Greece. Besides, it was necessary to put pressure upon Yugoslavia to ensure her co-operation, since any advance across Bulgaria to Thrace would be exposed to a possible hostile reaction from the side of Yugoslavia which would threaten its communications with the north.
So it came about that our first attempts to bring aid to Greece were not carried out in the happiest circumstances. D’Albiac had to be content with the limited accommodation afforded him by the two airfields in the Athens neighbourhood for his bombers, while his fighters had to operate from the most primitive stations behind the front line under conditions of extreme hardship and discomfort. He was not allowed even to reconnoitre, much less use, airfields in the Salonika area, and when a British aircraft crashed near the town members of the R.A.F. were forbidden to visit the spot to salvage what was left of it.
There remained the plain of Thessaly around Larissa, the only other area in Greece where the country is sufficiently open to provide a large number of suitable sites for airfields. But the rains had already begun, and the one squadron which was stationed here was soon flooded out. It was clear that the construction of further accommoda- ton would have to be put in hand speedily. Having reconnoitred all available sites D’Albiac recommended to the Greek Premier the immediate construction of all-weather airfields at Agrinion (near the west coast, north of the Gulf of Corinth) and at Araxos (in the north- west corner of the Peloponnesus). The advantage of these sites was that they allowed a considerable margin for Greek withdrawals and could still be operated even though the whole of northern Greece
16 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
were lost. D’Albiac was given assurances that they would be ready by the end of January 1941. Unfortunately, through shortage of labour, material and transport, and, it must be added, through a failure fully to realize the importance of giving a high priority to the work, this estimate proved sadly over-optimistic. Neither of these airfields was ready for use when the British troops evacuated Greece at the end of April. Araxos was almost immediately put into com- mission by the Germans after their occupation of the Peloponnesus. It was a melancholy comment upon the situation. We spent the winter getting the runways ready for use in the spring. Then, when the fine weather arrived, the Germans swept in and occupied them, completed what remained to be done with conscripted local labour and promptly turned them to their own use.
Meanwhile Major-General M. D. Gambier-Parry' had arrived as chief military representative of a British Inter-Services Mission to Greece, specifically charged to avoid giving promises or making com- mitments. Apart from the air squadrons, the first of which opened its operations on November 6th with a highly successful bombing attack upon Valona airfield, British help at the start had been limited to the despatch of nineteen anti-tank rifles, which had been flown over from Egypt to Patras and thence up to Yanina. These anti-tank rifles were hurried straight to the front line in the southern sector, where they are said to have done good service.
Still more opportune was the attack of the Fleet Air Arm upon the Italian fleet in harbour. On the moonlit night of November 10th/11th two waves, one of twelve and one of nine Swordfish flown from the carrier Illustrious, swooped down upon Taranto. Their brief and brilliant low-level attack with torpedoes sank two battle- ships, partially sunk a third, and damaged a cruiser and two des- troyers. The price of their success was two naval aircraft.
On November 16th a British convoy arrived at Piraeus from Alexandria. It contained the base personnel for a British Expedi- tionary Force and totalled something over 4,000 men (284 officers and 3,913 other ranks) divided between R.A.F. and the Army with a slight preponderance of the former. Though a senior officer was privately informed that he should select a base which would permit expansion to accommodate two divisions for ‘possible develop- ments’, the formal instructions forbade discussing with the Greeks an increase which must raise hopes which could not be realized. The force, apart from the crews of the operational aircraft, was mostly non-combatant, being composed of signals, supply and intelligence units, bomb disposal detachments and oil sabotage specialists
1 He was succeeded later in November by Major-General T. G. G. Heywood.
SWASTIKA OVER THE BALKANS 17
together with a certain number of officers with specialized know- ledge of modern weapons and mountain warfare. It could scarcely be regarded by the Germans as providing a casus belli and beyond noting its presence they paid it little attention.
Now began an elaborate diplomatic game in the Balkan peninsula, a game which extended throughout the winter months until with the
-coming of spring weather German armies were in position to attack.
German threats and blandishments were directed towards the three Balkan States, Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey, but especially towards Greece. Bulgaria, true as ever to her tradition of siding with the bully, needed no persuasion. Germany knew that Greek resistance must be crushed, and if the Italians could not achieve this it remained for German arms to do so. Assured of the peaceful co-operation of Bulgaria, Germany wanted that of Yugoslavia ; for the present she was content that Turkey should remain outside the conflict, though there was some justification for the current British assumption that the subse- quent line of German expansion would be in the direction of Asia Minor and the Middle East.
For Britain, with her slowly expanding and still very meagre re- sources, the chief object was to avoid enticing Germany further into the Balkans and to be in a position to offer some sort of obstacle to her penetration to the eastern Mediterranean. The amount of aid that could be afforded to Greece required to be very carefully judged. The Greeks wanted enough to enable them to overcome the Italians but not enough to provoke Germany to intervene. As we have seen these two aims were incompatible; but the Greek Government affected not to recognize this.
At the beginning of December 1940 Mr. Churchill was already of the opinion that British intervention on an increased scale would probably become necessary against Italy and possibly against Germany with the coming of spring, and the Chiefs of Staff were requested to prepare plans on this assumption. By the end of the year, however, nothing had been done to increase the operational capacity of the existing airfields and no significant progress had been made with the new ones at Araxos and Agrinion despite promises to the contrary.
Since the commitment estimated at this stage amounted to no more than two divisions (and we should be hard put to it to find even these) and since the minimum force necessary to defend the Salonika and Larissa areas was estimated at four divisions, it was decided in principle that further airfields should be only constructed south of a line from Mount Olympus to the Gulf of Arta.
18 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
Then on January 8th the Chiefs of Staff came to the conclusion that no effective resistance could be undertaken if Germany inter- vened in Greece and that any formations sent by us could do no more than delay the outcome and would, judged in terms of the Balkan campaign alone, prove to have been wasted. Nor could our air strength be increased in the course of the next two months to more than five bomber and three fighter squadrons. Under the cir-
- cumstances, therefore, there seemed little case for pushing the pro- ject further unless we wished to invite a second and more disastrous Dunkirk. Seen as a purely military problem divorced from any consideration of political expediency, the case against our inter- vention in Greece with land forces appeared to be complete and unanswerable.
On the German side Hitler’s personal decision to attack Russia in 1941 had been made in the autumn of 1940. It was determined in part by the Russian occupation of Bessarabia at the end of June 1940, in part by the realization that ‘Operation Sea Lion’, the attack upon Britain, could not be launched under the cover of a beaten Luftwaffe with any reasonable prospect of success unless the potential threat from Russia were eliminated. The Russian pact had never been regarded by Hitler as anything more than an ingenious military expe- dient to free him from the danger of war upon two fronts, the night- mare of the General Staff. Ultimately, Soviet Russia was always the enemy par excellence.
Hence the entry of German troops into Rumania at the beginning of October 1940, while governed in part by a desire to safeguard the oil-fields for Germany’s future use, served the further important purpose of lengthening the base for future operations against Russia. At the same time Rumania served as a strategic turn-table. Troops established there could be used for the invasion of southern Russia ; equally, they could be employed for the subjugation of the rest of the Balkan peninsula by way of a complaisant, and probably actively co-operative, Bulgaria.
A secret directive had fixed May 15th, 1941 as the date of the com- pletion of the German deployment for the Russian campaign. But Greece remained in arms against the Fascist ally, forming a potential British bridgehead for operations driving deeper into Europe and therefore a threat to the southern flank of the grand offensive against Russia. Accordingly War Directive No. 20 for ‘Operation Marita’ (the move against Greece) was issued on December 13th, 1940. Its purpose was to ‘foil British attempts to create air bases under the protection of a Balkan front . . . for this would be dangerous above all to Italy as well as to the Rumanian oil-fields.’ At the same time the
SWASTIKA OVER THE BALKANS 19
Italian defeats in the Western Desert were opening up the possibility of the British over-running the whole of Libya and fundamen- tally altering the Mediterranean balance in their favour. Accordingly, a further War Directive, issued after the loss of Bardia, on January 11th arranged for the despatch of German forces to Tripolitania (the beginning of the famous Afrika Korps) and the establishment of a German air force in Sicily.
Thus, with the beginning of the new year, two German thrusts were developing southwards to the Mediterranean. One was destined to operate from Rumania through Bulgaria into Greece and the Aegean, the other into Africa by Sicily. Both were the subject of much speculation in the British Press at the time. It seemed reason- able to suppose that they represented the horns of Germany’s 1941 summer offensive and that they aimed at converging by the conquest of Turkey and Egypt and driving through to the Persian Gulf. This, it must be repeated, was not the primary objective. Hitler, having considered and rejected the possibility of an advance through Spain to seize Gibraltar, was concentrating upon the campaign against Russia. The two operations in the south were, therefore, both in the nature of divergences imposed upon Germany by the weakness of her Italian ally. Italy had embroiled herself in Albania and got the worst of it. Therefore, Germany must make herself responsible for the subjugation of Greece. Italy was on the run in Libya, and if this débdcle continued, there was a grave danger of an entire transform- ation of the situation in the Mediterranean. Therefore the Afrika Korps had to go to Libya and the bombers had to go to Sicily. Both represented a dissipation of force from the main objective.
So far as this narrative is concerned December 13th is the impor- tant date, when Hitler issued the directive for operations against Greece. A month elapsed before any corresponding—defensive— step was taken from our side. Then in mid-January General Wavell, at that time engaged in operations for the reduction of Tobruk, was instructed by the War Cabinet to proceed to Greece and make an offer to the Greek Government of armoured troops, field artillery, anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns to assist their forces in the defence of Salonika and Macedonia against possible German aggression.
With Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore, Wavell journeyed to Athens, arriving there on January 13th and remaining until January 17th. During these days conferences were held with General Metaxas, the Prime Minister, and General Papagos, the Commander- in-Chief, in which future operations in Greece were discussed.
' De Mendelssohn, The Nuremberg Documents, pp. 257-81.
20 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
Metaxas declared categorically that Greece would resist a German or combined German and Bulgarian attack with all the means at her disposal even though there appeared little possibility of either Yugoslavia or Turkey departing from her attitude of neutrality; and he called upon General Papagos to state the military needs of the Greek Government.
Papagos stated that in view of the German concentrations in Rumania (they had already twelve divisions in the country and were receiving constant reinforcements) and the preparations developing in Bulgaria for the passage of German forces, a thrust against Greek Thrace and eastern Macedonia must be anticipated. In this area Greece would have only three divisions. Accordingly the Greek Commander-in-Chief requested, in order to establish a defensive position in adequate strength along the Greco-Bulgarian frontier, the despatch of nine British divisions with corresponding air support. He further advocated a rapid pressing on with the reconditioning of airfields in Greece, and the building up of magazines for the supply of the British troops in Greece; also the development of a ‘cover plan’ to create the impression that these forces were destined for large-scale operations in Tripolitania. The British divisions could be shipped to the ports of Salonika, Amphipolis and Kavalla and take up their positions on the right flank of the Greek forces, thereby extending the front as far as the Turkish frontier, an operation which might be expected to produce favourable repercussions in Turkey and Yugoslavia.
General Wavell may well have felt embarrassed by the scale of this request. He was obliged to point out that he could offer only two or three divisions and a relatively small number of aircraft, and that the troops were not likely to be available, owing to problems of shipping and reconcentration, for over two months. Thus they could scarcely begin to arrive before the end of March, whereas there was much evidence to suggest that a German attack might be expected at any time after the beginning of March.! The only immediate assistance he could promise was one artillery regiment and a unit of 60-65 ‘armoured cars.
Metaxas naturally replied that such a force would be quite in- adequate and could only serve the purpose of providing the Germans with a pretext for launching their attack upon Greece. He therefore could not accept the British offer, and requested us not to proceed with the despatch of the first contingent. The conference broke up on
1 When the occasion arose for the despatch of the force Wavell proved a good deal better than his word. The first flight of British troops landed at Piraeus on March 7th. By the end of the month over 30,000 had arrived.
SWASTIKA OVER THE BALKANS 21
this note, and the question of military aid for Greece remained in abeyance for nearly three weeks.?
On January 29th, General Metaxas died after a fortnight’s illness following a throat operation. In the critical situation in which Greece found herself, the death of the Dictator robbed the country of the one man who, whatever may be thought of the nature of his régime, possessed greater prestige and authority than any other figure in the country. His successor, Alexander Koryzis, while lacking nothing in patriotism, was a man of less force of character and less dominating personality. The new Greek Government approached Great Britain on February 8th to ask what help could be expected in the case of a German invasion ; it was requested, however, that no British troops should move until German forces had crossed the Danube into Bulgaria, the old fear of precipitating a clash with Germany being again in evidence.
The War Cabinet now formulated a new policy for the Middle East. General Wavell received a telegram from the Chiefs of Staff directing that no operations be undertaken beyond the frontier of Cyrenaica—Benghazi had fallen on February 7th—where a strict defensive would be maintained; all troops and aircraft which could be spared would go to help the Greeks against the expected German invasion.
om [2] Defence Problems
THE two Allies, with their slender resources, had now to evolve a defence scheme with the least possible delay; and, considering their divergent points of view, it was perhaps inevitable that difficulties and misunderstandings should arise. To give up large tracts of Greek territory—including the port of Salonika—or to relinquish the well- won gains in Albania was likely to affect gravely the morale of the Greek armies and the Greek people. Thus it was not surprising that General Papagos favoured the holding of a forward line, the more so as the Greek divisions lacked modern or suitable transport—there was a shortage of the pack transport essential on the mountain routes, and ox-wagons were largely in use for the heavier loads—and therefore moved so slowly that withdrawal and re-grouping would be difficult and tedious tasks. But a forward policy involved the active
1 According to Papagos, The German Attack on Greece, this refusal to accept British assistance was communicated by Metaxas, in confidence, to the Yugoslav Government who passed it on to the Germans.
22 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
co-operation of Yugoslavia which could not be counted upon, though the Greeks seem to have hoped for it almost to the last. General Wavell was more immediately concerned with the military needs of the situation, and could not count upon the favourable turn of political events to simplify his problems.
If Yugoslavia did throw in her lot with Greece and Britain it would be essential to hold Salonika, the only port through which Yugo- slavia could be supplied with war material. In that case it might be practicable to hold the so-called ‘Metaxas Line’ which consisted of a chain of forts from Mount Beles, close to the junction of the Yugoslav, Greek and Bulgarian frontiers, across the Struma by Fort Rupel to the Mesta river. The fortifications of the Metaxas Line lacked depth, and their length—over one hundred miles—was excessive in relation to the troops available to occupy them, for the garrison had been depleted in order to reinforce the Albanian front. These con- siderations apart, it would be absolutely necessary for Yugoslavia to concentrate sufficient forces in southern Serbia to prevent a turning movement by the Germans down the Vardar valley or through Monastir which would take the Metaxas Line in rear.
As there was really no justification for counting upon effective aid from the Yugoslavs, it is difficult to establish a case for holding the Metaxas Line, or even for occupying a position from Mount Beles to Rupel and thence down the Struma to the sea. This line, some seventy miles in extent, had been held by British forces in the First World War for two years (1916-18) but had never been subjected to serious attack; and in 1941 it was as much exposed to a turning movement as was the Metaxas Line.
If Yugoslavia could be considered as a neutral willing and able to deny passage to the German and Bulgarian armies a strong position —and a shorter one, for its length was little more than sixty miles— might be established from the mouth of the Aliakmon river across to Verria and Edessa and thence to the Yugoslav frontier at Kaymak- chalan.1 This line follows the edge of the table-land of western Macedonia, the mountains rising abruptly, from the flat Vardar plain. The roads that pierce this mountain line at Verria and Edessa do so by steep gradients which offer every opportunity to the defence. Towards the coast the country is flatter, but here, too, the defender would have the advantage since the steep mountain slopes south of the Aliakmon give excellent observation over the bare and open country. It was intended to harry the German advance by the action of covering detachments in selected forward areas, but this position, Aliakmon-Verria—Edessa-Kaymakchalan, which became known as
1See Maps 1 and 2.
SWASTIKA OVER THE BALKANS — 23
the ‘Aliakmon Line’ was eventually accepted in principle as the main line of defence, to be held by British and Greek forces. Even on this Position special measures would have to be taken to safeguard the vulnerable left flank. If Yugoslavia should display neither the will nor the ability to resist a German invasion, enemy forces might reach Monastir without much trouble or delay, and thence advance south- ward to Florina and Kozani penetrating to the rear of the Aliakmon Line.
A defensive position further in rear, sited to join at a point in the Pindus mountains with the main Greek armies on the Albanian front would be considerably longer; and it would involve the withdrawal of the Greek forces from Koritsa and all their conquests at the northern end of the line in Albania. Whether such a withdrawal could be carried out in the face of the enemy with the very limited means of transport which the Greeks possessed and without the morale of the army going to pieces was extremely doubtful. It was even doubtful whether some of the local commanders would obey orders calling upon them to surrender territory to the despised Italians in accordance with an over-all strategic plan which they could scarcely be expected to appreciate.
Thus, whatever dispositions they made, the attitude of Yugo- slavia was of vital importance to the Allies; and time was running short.
For the purpose of co-ordinating defence measures in the eastern Mediterranean theatre, which meant gauging the possibility of sup- port from any Balkan country not yet under the German heel, Mr. Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary, and General Sir John Dill, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, left London for Cairo on February 12th. Unfortunately they were delayed en route by unfavourable fiying weather and did not reach Cairo until very late on the 19th, ‘five valuable days being thus lost at a critical time’. The words are General Wavell’s. Delay was indeed serious, for the German forces in Rumania were steadily increasing and might be expected to enter a complaisant Bulgaria at almost any moment. And on February 17th Turkey had signed a non-aggressive treaty with Bulgaria. As the Germans were preparing for bridging operations on the Danube and German troops were awaiting the signal to cross the river, the treaty could have but one meaning: Turkey would not regard as a casus belli the entry of German troops into Bulgaria for the purpose of invading Greece. This triumph of German diplomacy was made possible by the presence of powerful German forces on the Danube. Von Papen, German Ambassador at Istanbul, displayed the iron hand within the velvet glove: Mr. Eden had nothing but the glove.
24 © THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
On February 22nd our Foreign Secretary and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, accompanied by General Wavell and Air Chief Marshal Longmore, journeyed to Athens, and conversations were held in the greatest secrecy at the Royal Palace at Tatoi. No word of these conversations leaked out either then or for some time subsequently. Eden began by stating that there was little probability, according to his information, that either Yugoslavia or Turkey would intervene on the Allied side and that therefore defence measures should be taken with this fact in view.
On behalf of the British Government he offered a force of 100,000 men, 240 field guns, 202 anti-tank guns, 32 medium guns, 192 A.A. guns and 142 tanks. These figures included all categories of base details and what Major! De Guingand, ‘who was responsible for preparing the list, has described as ‘doubtful values’. In any case they con- siderably exceeded the total that actually arrived, although more would have been sent had the campaign lasted longer. Asked for a survey of the military situation General Papagos stated that the abandonment of eastern Macedonia—that is to say the Metaxas Line and Salonika—and also of certain forward positions in Albania would cover a period of twenty days; and at the end of this period he would be able to dispose thirty-five battalions along the Aliakmon Line. Before taking the irrevocable step of abandoning so large a strip of national territory, Papagos urged that the Yugoslav Govern- ment be informed of the decisions taken and requested to clarify their attitude.
Quoting the account published by General Papagos, this suggestion was adopted and ‘it was resolved to send an urgent code message to the British Minister in Belgrade. According to the reply received, the order for evacuation and withdrawal would be issued or not, as the case might be. This was agreed upon by all... .’
This was not the impression left upon the British representatives when the meeting broke up in the early hours of the morning. Both Mr. Eden and the two soldiers believed that while a reply from Belgrade was awaited the three Greek divisions would be on their way back from eastern Macedonia to take up their positions in the Aliakmon Line. To them it was obvious that this movement must be carried out at once or not at all. The lack of unanimity towards the close of the conference was noted by an eye-witness who described Papagos as looking ‘none too happy’, whilst, when the party dis- persed, ‘Eden came in looking buoyant’.”
The British would certainly have cause for satisfaction if they
1 Afterwards Major-General, and Chief of Staff to Field-Marshal Montgomery. 2 De Guingand, Operation Victory, pp. 58-9.
SWASTIKA OVER THE BALKANS 25
thought that all available forces would be concentrated in the Aliak- mon Line without delay; and General Papagos might well be a prey to anxiety, if in his view, the fate of eastern Macedonia and Salonika hung in the balance.
Mr. Eden and General Dill now journeyed to Ankara, but the visit produced little that could be regarded as encouraging. The Turks did not deny all intention of entering the War as an ally, but stated that they were in no condition to do so at this juncture: they certainly could not declare war upon the Axis powers if Greece should be invaded.
On returning to Athens, where they arrived on the evening of Sunday, March 2nd, the British party were greeted with two items of news, both unwelcome, one expected and one unexpected. The entry of strong German forces into Bulgaria on the previous day occasioned no surprise, but it came as a shock to learn that General Papagos had not begun the withdrawal of his divisions from eastern Macedonia. Nor had any preparations been undertaken along the Aliakmon Line.
Papagos pointed out that no reply had been received from Belgrade regarding the attitude of the Yugoslav Government and that there- fore he had felt unable to take responsibility for giving the order to withdraw, and that it was now impossible to do so in view of the presence of German and Bulgarian troops deployed in strength just across the frontier: the slow-moving Greek divisions might be attacked in the process of withdrawal and destroyed in detail. Politi- cally, too, any hope of Yugoslav co-operation would disappear with the abandonment of Salonika. He now recommended what was, in effect, a council of despair: the maintenance of a purely static front along the Metaxas Line with British divisions coming up to reinforce piecemeal. Mr. Eden and General Dill found themselves quite unable to agree to this.
Nothing, therefore, was decided at the meeting on March 2nd, and the crowds who next day acclaimed the British Foreign Secretary outside the Grande Bretagne Hotel, Headquarters of the Greek General Staff, in the brilliant spring sunshine little knew what an impasse had been reached. General Wavell was summoned from Cairo and discussions were resumed until they resulted in the follow- ing signed agreement :
(1) The Greek Army would leave in Macedonia three divisions to defend the prepared positions in the Mesta—Rupel Line (i.e. the Metaxas Line).
(2) The Greek Army would concentrate with all speed on the Aliakmon Line the following forces:
26 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
12th Division from western Thrace, already moving west- wards by train.
20th Division from Florina.
19th Motorized Division from Larissa.
Seven battalions from western Thrace, provided that the Turkish Government agreed on the principle of their release from the neighbourhood of their frontier (where they con- stituted a potential check against Bulgar aggression), at the request of the Greek and British Governments.
(3) A separate Greek commander would be appointed forthwith for these forces.
(4) British forces would be despatched as rapidly as shipping would permit to Piraeus and Volos.
(5) The British forces would concentrate on the Aliakmon posi- tion, where it was intended that the Greco-British forces should give battle.
(6) The command of all forces on the Aliakmon position would be entrusted to Lieut.-General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, but under the high command of General Papagos. The date on which General Wilson assumed his command would be settled by General Papagos in consultation with him and would de- pend upon the arrival of General Wilson’s headquarters and the establishment of his communications.
This decision represented a not very satisfactory attempt to reconcile the British desire to base the defence of Greece on the Aliakmon Line and the Greek reluctance to abandon Salonika and a large portion of national territory so long as there remained any reasonable prospect that Yugoslavia might adhere to our ranks. But compromises, though the essence of successful diplomacy, are rarely justified in the realm of war. On whatever position the Allies decided to make their stand, it was clear that they would require the con- centration of all their resources. It is doubtful if any of those who signed the agreement felt really happy about it. Certainly there were no illusions on the British side.
General Wilson, who had handed over his command in Cyrenaica to Lieut.-General P. Neame arrived in Athens on March 4th. At the urgent request of the Greek Government, fearful as always of doing anything which might be construed by the Germans as an act of provocation, the General appeared in plain clothes under the name of ‘Mr. Watt’. His personal staff were likewise incognito, also our military attaché by whom he was greeted at Tatoi airfield. There is no reason to suppose that the Germans were deceived; but General Wilson, who required to make extensive reconnaissances and to
SWASTIKA OVER THE BALKANS 27
supervise the arrival and disposition of his forces, was hampered by these restrictions for a whole month.
The first flight of our combat troops had left Alexandria and was due to arrive while the always threatening situation was still obscure. As ever, in war, time was the important factor. How soon the Germans would be ready to strike we could not know. Actually, the deployment of List’s Twelfth Army along the Greco-Bulgarian frontier was barely completed by March 20th, and on the 24th Army Headquarters suggested an April date for the attack. Meanwhile the Germans were putting the squeeze on the Yugoslav Government and the Italians indulged in their futile and costly offensive in Albania.
Divided counsels were the ruin of Yugoslavia. The Regent, the Oxford-educated Prince Paul, was emotionally Anglophile, but weak and easily terrorized; Tsvetkovitch, his Prime Minister, was a mediocrity; Cincar-Marcovitch, the Foreign Secretary, inclined to- wards the Axis, and so the Government pulled all ways at once, now seeming to lean towards the Allies and now towards the Aggressors. They had no definite policy and were at the mercy of circumstance. It is true that the Belgrade Government despatched to Athens on March 8th a Lieut.-Colonel Perescitch, of the Yugoslav General Staff, under the not inappropriate pseudonym of ‘Mr. Hope’. Mr. Hope had no power to commit his Government and did not seem to be aware of any plan for the defence of his country. The sole purpose of his visit appeared to be to ascertain the extent of British aid in the event of Yugoslavia joining Greece and Britain and to stress the importance of Salonika as a means of securing Yugoslav communica- tions. It was impossible to co-ordinate any defence plan as the result of this visit.
Throughout March, German diplomatic pressure upon Yugoslavia was steadily intensified. Hitler spent precious weeks endeavouring to get a diplomatic agreement signed. Russian influence was effective in delaying this for some little time, but on March 25th the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary of Yugoslavia signed in Vienna a pact of adhesion to the Axis.
The signing of this treaty appears to have persuaded the Greeks that Yugoslavia was lost as an ally : they now asked if General Wilson could supply transport for the withdrawal of their divisions from the Metaxas Line. No more, however, was heard of this, for two days later came fresh and more hopeful news.
The pact did not commit Yugoslavia to intervention on the side of Germany and Italy, or even to allowing the passage of troops through their country. But it implied a benevolent neutrality towards Germany and it allowed ‘sealed trains’ to pass, bringing, in theory, medical
28 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
supplies and stores. Its implications were obvious and they were fully recognized by the Yugoslav people. On March 27th, less than forty- eight hours after the signature of the pact, as a result of a widespread and simultaneous revolution, the Government was overthrown, King Peter assumed power in place of the Regent Prince Paul, and the new Government of General Simovitch, was established by coup d’état.
It was an heroic gesture, by which the people redeemed the pusil- lanimity of their Government, but it came too late to make very much difference to the pattern of the campaign in the Balkans. And it gave Hitler the excuse for drastic and immediate action. He was deter- mined to destroy Yugoslavia militarily and as a national unit. No diplomatic enquiries would be made nor ultimata presented. And so he issued his ‘Operation Number 25’ for the immediate destruction of Yugoslavia. No great redistribution of forces was necessary, and the campaign was to open concurrently with the attack upon Greece in the first days of April.
CHAPTER III
British Troops in Greece
WHILE the Germans were coercing Yugoslavia and completing their concentrations on the Bulgar-Greece frontier, while Mussolini was making his last effort to do his own work in Albania, troops of the British Commonwealth were crossing over from Egypt to Greece and taking up their position on the Aliakmon Line.
Throughout those vital months when the Italian entry into the war and the defection of France threatened disaster to our whole position from Gibraltar to the Persian Gulf the defence of the Middle East had been maintained by a mixture of bluff and daring on the part of our commanders and troops and almost incredible ineptitude on the part of the Italians. Increased reinforcements had supplemented the results of the victories in the Western Desert, but at the beginning of February 1941 Wavell still disposed of only four divisions and a Polish brigade in Egypt and the Western Desert; two Australian divisions in Palestine ; two Indian divisions in Eritrea;.and a South African division and two native African divisions in East Africa.
Not all these formations can be described as battle-worthy. The tanks of the 7th Armoured Division, which had carried out the advance to Benghazi, required a complete overhaul ; the 7th and 9th Australian Divisions in Palestine were both short of training and equipment ; the native African divisions were not suitable for opera- tions in North Africa or Europe. The 2nd Armoured Division was newly arrived, and the engines and tracks of its two regiments of cruiser tanks were already giving trouble.
Wavell had to perform some intricate jugglery to produce even the modest contingent to which we had pledged ourselves for Greece. The expeditionary force, under Sir Henry Maitland Wilson’s com- mand, was to consist of the New Zealand Division (Major-General B. C. Freyberg, V.C.); the 6th Australian Division (Major-General Sir Iven Mackay) ; and the Ist Armoured Brigade Group (Brigadier H. V. S. Charrington). The Australians and New Zealanders were
29
30 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
to form the I Australian Corps under Lieut.-General Sir Thomas Blamey. In General Wavell’s words, ‘the despatch of this force involved removing from the Middle East practically the whole of the troops which were fully equipped and fit for operations’.
Subsequently the 7th Australian Division and the Polish Brigade were to be added as soon as they could be got ready. As it happened, the German counter-offensive in the Desert, which began on the 31st March and made rapid progress, kept both these formations in Africa. In any case, considering the rate of the German advance through Greece, they could not have arrived in time to affect the situation.
While still posing as a civilian, General Wilson was able to make a fairly extensive reconnaissance of the Aliakmon Line where his troops were to take up their positions. Extending from the mouth of the river to the Kaymakchalan massif on the Yugoslav frontier, its great advantages lay in the excellent observation over the open Mace- donian plain and in the restricted lines of approach; yet to hold it securely would require more troops than were likely to be available.
There were four possible routes of attack.! The first was directly down the coast following the line of the Salonika—Athens railway between Mount Olympus and the sea; the second by the pass that ‘runs on the inland side of Olympus from Katerini to Elasson, a steep and narrow road, with wooded and precipitous slopes on either side ; the third by the steep and exceedingly difficult Verria pass; and the fourth by the somewhat easier Edessa pass to the north. In addition a successful turning movement was possible by a penetration from Monastir in southern Yugoslavia through to Florina, and thence by the road that runs south-east to Kozani and Servia, parallel to and at an average distance of twenty miles from the Allied position.
A further weakness lay in the indifferent rearward communica- tions. Piraeus, the port of Athens, was the only major port of supply available, but communications with the front three hundred miles to the north depended upon one railway and a road so narrow in many places that it had to be regarded as a single-line route. There existed a secondary port at Volos, much nearer the front, but possessed of quite inadequate means for unloading shipping. It was connected with the advanced base area at Larissa only by a single-track railway line and by a road which proved quite impassable for three-ton lorries. In addition, lateral communications were wholly inadequate, consisting of minor roads and mountain tracks, the latter at all times, and the former after rain, being quite impracticable for
1 See Maps 1 and 2.
BRITISH TROOPS IN GREECE 31
wheeled transport. There was the further disadvantage that the civilian telephone and telegraph could not be regarded as secure! and the mountainous country interfered greatly with wireless communication.
The Aliakmon Line had never won general acceptance from our Ally. General Papagos could not but regret the surrender of so much national territory without a fight. As we have seen, he would have liked to have held, in the greatest possible strength, the Metaxas Line on which so much labour and treasure had been expended: and he had always felt that a forward policy designed to retain the port of Salonika was the best, the only, hope of securing the help of Yugoslavia.
At his request, on March 6th, General Wilson had promised that when the British armour arrived it should move forward without delay to manceuvre in front of the Aliakmon Line.
Our own build-up developed well during the early part of March, and the first and second flights (the Ist Armoured Brigade and the New Zealand Division) had arrived in Greece on time. Both forma- tions reached the forward area during the latter part of the month. In the towns and villages the troops were loudly acclaimed by the people who threw flowers and brought them gifts of food and wine. Spring had come to Athens, but travelling northwards the men had to endure the rigours of winter. The cold was bitter.
The third flight was delayed by exceptionally unfavourable weather, and the fourth by the naval battle off Cape Matapan. The Italian Fleet had been urged out by its German Ally, partly in the hope that it might catch one of the British convoys at sea, partly to distract the attention of Admiral Cunningham’s Fleet from the con- voys crossing with German troops to North Africa. Failing com- pletely in its first objective, it paid the penalty by being brought to action in the open sea by Cunningham on March 28th.?
The coup d’état of March 27th brought no closer liaison with the Yugoslavs. News of this development reached our Foreign Secretary and the Chief of the Imperial Staff after they had started for home and caused them to return to Athens; but although Sir John Dill flew to Belgrade on April Ist he could obtain no agreement to a plan of con- certed action. We did not give up trying. General Wilson—no longer in civilian guise—and General Papagos met General Yankovitch, the new Yugoslav Deputy Chief of Staff, at the little frontier station of
1 ‘until the Germans attacked it was possible to telephone from Athens to Berlin...’ Wilson, Eight Years Overseas. p. 84.
2 The Italians lost three heavy cruisers and two destroyers sunk, and a battleship
and a destroyer seriously damaged. This our Fleet achieved without the loss of or damage to a single ship.
32 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
Kenali, south of Monastir, two days later.! It then transpired that the Yugoslavs had made no preparations to meet a German invasion and had a very exaggerated idea of the strength of the British forces. Nothing could be decided and so, when the Germans attacked on April 6th, the Allies were in no respect depending upon Yugoslav resistance.
It is easy to criticize the new Yugoslav Government which, at the eleventh hour, found themselves unable to control and direct the national will to resist German aggression. Yugoslavia was not ready for such a war and there was no time to prepare for it. The bulk of her forces were concentrated in the north, for Croatia was ever an uneasy part of the union, and a re-deployment to safeguard old Serbia would have been too long and too clumsy a process. It was useless for the Yugoslav Government to declare Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana open cities ; useless for it to obtain on April Sth, the very eve of the invasion, a treaty of friendship and non-aggression with Soviet Russia. Nothing at this stage could have saved her. The Yugo- slav campaign was bound to repeat most of the characteristics of the war in Poland, and no one supposes that a better grouping of the Polish armies could have altered the issue of that campaign. This Balkan campaign was a combat between mechanical armies moving perhaps, at fifteen miles an hour and troops moving in bullock wagons at no more than three miles an hour. Tanks against ox-carts! When the equipment and means of battle are so disparate, strategy scarcely enters into the matter at all.
The British commanders could not but regard the Greek troops sent to assist in holding the Aliakmon Line as a poor substitute for the well-trained divisions which they had hoped to welcome from eastern Macedonia. The Greek 19th (Motorized) Division consisted of ‘just over 2,000 quite untrained and recently enlisted garage hands’, with ‘no possible prospect of fighting usefully as a mobile force, having only a few Bren carriers, motor cycles and small cars’. They had also a number of captured Italian lorries and some Italian and Dutch tanks.’ The 12th Division had only six battalions, two machine- gun companies and three mountain batteries ; the 20th Division could muster only six battalions, having no artillery. As originally planned the 19th Division was to occupy the coastal sector with the New Zealand Division on its left and the 6th Australian Division on the
1 Mr. Eden and General Dill were also present but took no part in the discussion. Before they left the country they paid informal visits to some of our troops who had arrived in the Aliakmon region.
2 The armament of the division was given officially as: 24 light tanks; 123 machine guns; 78 light machine guns; 30 mortars; 22 A/Tk guns; with one field and one mountain battery.
BRITISH TROOPS IN GREECE 33
left again. The other Greek divisions, 12th and 20th, were allotted to the defence of the Edessa Pass and to the left flank. Our Ist Armoured Brigade was to operate in the Axios (Vardar) plain, well forward of the main position.
On March 20th, it was decided to move out the Greek 19th Divi- sion into the plain in an anti-parachutist réle, which meant that the New Zealanders were called upon to extend their right to the coast, giving them a total frontage of 23,000 yards. Both the divisional com- mander, General Freyberg, and the corps commander, General Blamey, recognized that this was an impossible task for one division. They favoured a modification of the whole line, making Mount Olympus itself the principal bastion of the defence on the right flank : the New Zealand Division could defend the Platamon tunnel be- tween Olympus and the sea, and the line would run from the mountain westward to the Aliakmon, south-west of Servia, along the river to Grevena, and in that region join up with the Greeks to present a co-ordinated defence against attack through the Monastir Gap. General Wilson recognized the advantages of occupying such a posi- tion, but knew that it would first be necessary to persuade the Greeks to pull back from Koritsa. And they were not yet ready to give up any of the conquered ground in Albania, even if they were capable of a successful withdrawal.
By April 4th, the day before he openly assumed command of what was given the name of ‘W Force’, General Wilson felt justified in reassuring the Greek Commander-in-Chief as to the state of prepara- tions in the Aliakmon Line; but he was well aware that we could not compete with the German concentration. The enemy was estimated. to have from nineteen to twenty-one divisions in Bulgaria, of which it appeared that not less than eleven were grouped opposite the three Greek divisions holding the Metaxas fortifications. Six or seven might be expected to deliver the initial attack upon the Aliakmon Line, which would be held by two improvised Greek divisions and the equivalent of less than two British divisions.
On the eve of the German attack our forces in Greece were still coming into position on the Aliakmon Line. The Ist Armoured Brigade Group, first to be landed, had been in the forward area since March 21st and was disposed in several detachments each with a different task. The 4th Hussars, with a company of the Rangers,’ one battery of the 2nd Regiment R.H.A. and one battery of the 102nd Anti-Tank Regiment (Northumberland Hussars), had its headquarters
1 A London Territorial rifle battalion, the 1st Rangers (9th King’s Royal Rifle Corps) had been converted into a motorized unit in 1940: hence its presence in an armoured formation.
B*
34 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
at Yannitsa and had pushed well forward into the Vardar plain, its mission being to cover the carrying out of demolitions and, by every means in its power, to delay the advance of the enemy towards our main position. The Rangers, with the other battery of the 102nd Anti-Tank Regiment were near Skydra, east of the Edessa Pass which they covered with the support of the second battery of the 2nd R.H.A. The 155th Light A.A. Battery held a series of positions stretching across the plain from Edessa. Further west the 64th Medium Regi- ment R.A., north of Lake Petersko, supported the 20th Greek divi- sion. Finally the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment was located near Amyntaion south of the Monastir Gap, and with it was the 27th New Zealand Machine-Gun Battalion, less two companies. This de- tachment, soon to be augmented, was under the command of Brigadier J. E. Lee who had been lent, originally, to General Blamey to com- mand the corps medium artillery.
The 4th Hussars had 52 light tanks ; the 3rd R. Tank Regiment the same number of cruisers. The latter, as has been said, were not in satisfactory condition. When the 2nd Armoured Division arrived in the Middle East, its commander had drawn attention to the poor state of the tracks of his cruisers, already nearly worn out, and to the engines which were in sore need of overhauling. There had been no opportunity to remedy these faults, so the 1st Armoured Brigade, supplied by the division for service in Greece, took the field in a condition which could not be described as battle-worthy. It may also be remarked that the 2nd R.H.A. and the 102nd Anti-Tank Regiment consisted of two batteries each, although the third battery of the anti- tank unit arrived later.
The New Zealand Division which completed its arrival during the last week of March had just taken over the coastal sector, its 4th Brigade and 6th Brigade, from right to left occupying the high ground overlooking the Aliakmon river from the south. Most of the divi- sional cavalry regiment (armoured cars and Bren carriers) was stationed in an advanced position on the river bank, with a view to carrying out a delaying action. The Sth Brigade occupied a reserve position on the Olympus Pass, twelve miles south-west of Katerini.
Coming by later convoys, the 6th Australian Division was still in the process of arriving. Its 16th Brigade was actually taking over the Verria Pass locality from the Greeks, its 19th Brigade was in Greece and moving up towards the front; and the 17th Brigade was still on the sea.
The three Greek formations, ill-equipped and weak in numbers, already mentioned as co-operating in the defence of the Aliakmon Line had been formed into the ‘Central Macedonian Army’ under
BRITISH TROOPS IN GREECE 35
General Kotulas, with its headquarters at Kozani. The 19th Division ’ was now well forward, echeloned between the Vardar and the Struma, the 12th Division was being relieved by the Australians at the Verria Pass, and the 20th was near Edessa with detachments further west towards the Monastir Gap.
As far as was possible General Wilson was contriving that our troops should hold the defiles and the Greeks defend the mountain positions so that each nation should fight on ground best suited to its own type of training and transport.
The Force was notably weak in anti-aircraft artillery. In addition to the 155th Light A.A. Battery with the forward troops there were one heavy battery and one light regiment on the lines of communica- tion and one heavy and two light batteries for airfield protection under the R.A.F.
Whatever fortune we might expect in the military operations in Greece, it was clear that we should be heavily and probably deci- sively outnumbered in the air. The five squadrons which had been operating in Greece during the closing weeks of the previous year had now been increased to eight by the arrival of No. 11 Squadron (Blenheims) in January, No. 112 Squadron (Gladiators) on February 10th and No. 33 Squadron (Hurricanes) on February 19th. Striking successes had been achieved in a series of air combats against the Italians. In one encounter a formation of Hurricanes and Gladiators destroyed many Italian aircraft—the number was reported as 27 at the time—without loss to themselves. But during March the demands upon our air strength had expanded considerably. D’Albiac, as the result of constant pressure by his Greek colleagues, had had to modify his strategy of concentrating against the Italian supply ports and lines of communication, being constrained to detach a part of his force to give immediate air support to the troops in Albania. This method proved successful from the point of view of maintaining or raising the morale of the front-line soldiers but the achievements of the British aircraft proved more spectacular than useful. -
With the forthcoming German attack in view, D’Albiac organized his scanty resources into two Wings:
A Western Wing (one bomber and one fighter (Gladiator) Squad- ron) to support the Greeks in Albania.
An Eastern Wing (two bomber squadrons and one (Hurricane) fighter squadron) to support the Anglo-Greek forces operating against the Germans. The squadrons of this wing were under the necessity of occupying improvised landing-grounds on the Larissa plain which, though now drying, were still soft after the rains of a delayed spring.
36 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
In the Athens area one bomber and one fighter squadron were stationed. There was also an army co-operation squadron available, but since most of its aircraft consisted of obsolete Lysanders (there was rarely more than one Hurricane available at a time) it was able to do very little effective work in face of the enemy. Airfield accom- modation was still limited, but had the German attack been delayed by even as little as a week we should, in the opinion of D’Albiac, have enjoyed the benefit of several more satellite landing-grounds, whereby at least one subsequent holocaust might have been avoided.
Expressed in terms of numbers, the R.A.F. could muster some eighty serviceable aircraft to do battle with approximately 800 German, supported by 160 Italian aircraft based on Albania and another 125-150 based in Italy but operating over Albania.
The odds were heavy. They were the odds of Thermopylae, and the Royal Air Force in Greece could hope for little better than to win for itself the fame of Leonidas.
CHAPTER IV
Germany Strikes
»([1 ]«
The Fate of Yugoslavia
AT 5.45 on the morning of Sunday, April 6th, the German armies thrust across the Yugoslav and Greek frontiers, while the German Ministers in Athens and Belgrade were handing declarations of war to the Governments of these two small nations which had refused to be coerced by Germany. In the case of Greece the Germans justified themselves by claiming that they entered the country merely to drive out the British troops, whose presence was evidence that Britain was seeking to build up a front in the Balkans against Germany. This argument ignored the fact that the British force had only been despatched after the German troops, which had been massing in Rumania for months past, had actually crossed the frontier into Bulgaria and had penetrated to positions overlooking Greek terri- tory. In the case of Yugoslavia no such excuse was proffered. That she had repudiated the pact of alliance and/or subjection was regarded as sufficient proof of her warlike intentions towards Germany.
The Germans had concentrated thirty-two divisions for the Balkan campaign, of which only twenty-one were actually committed to action. These were grouped in two Armies, the Second Army of von Weichs being directed to invade Yugoslavia from the north and north-west while the Twelfth Army under von List advanced into the country from the east and also attacked Greece. Von Weichs appears to have had two panzer, one motorized, one mountain and six infantry divisions; von List, who had the more important and the heavier task, was allotted five panzer divisions, two motorized, three mountain and eight infantry divisions, three independent regiments and the SS Adolf Hitler Division. Besides these forces, more than adequate to the task in hand in view of their vastly superior
37
38 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
armament, the Italian Second Army could be relied upon, at least in a defensive capacity in the Julian Alps, while the presence of the two Italian Armies in Albania would prevent the Greeks from with- drawing troops from that front to reinforce central Macedonia.
The story of the campaign in Yugoslavia can be briefly told. Against overwhelming German mechanized strength and a plan well devised and executed with the utmost resolution and speed, the Yugoslavs could set only the unquestioned courage of their troops. It was the Polish disaster over again, in more difficult but by no means impassable country. The Yugoslav High Command quickly lost control of the situation: contact was severed between the Government and the General Staff on the one hand and the various army commanders on the other. As a result of the savage bombard- ment of the capital on the opening day of the war, Belgrade radio closed down for forty-eight hours. The first official war communiqué, broadcast by wireless on the morning of Tuesday, April 8th, opened with the remarkable statement ‘On all fronts the situation is in our favour’. In fact, the Government, shifting constantly across Serbia and Bosnia, from Belgrade southward to Uzice, from Uzice westward to Sarajevo, and thence to the coast, constantly bombed from the air, can never have had much idea of what was happening in other parts of the country.
The main German drive came from von List’s Army into southern Serbia, and it met with instantaneous and spectacular success. It took the form of a three-pronged drive in great strength upon Nis, Skoplje and Monastir. At the same time a further detachment attacked the Strumitsa Pass in the extreme south of Yugoslavia and by a swift turning movement by way of Doiran advanced into the Vardar Plain and thence towards Salonika.
Von Stumme, who commanded the advance on Skoplje met with some tough opposition at the frontier pass but his forward troops reached Skoplje by 5 p.m. on April 7th, less than thirty-six hours after the opening of hostilities. In 1915 the Bulgarians had made their most powerful and their most swiftly successful thrust into Serbia in exactly the same direction, and Skoplje had been the first town of importance to fall to them. Now, twenty-five years later, the Germans had repeated the achievement, the defenders showing themselves much less prepared to resist.
The southern column of von Stumme’s corps, after an engagement on the frontier, crossed the Vardar at Veles and reached Prilep on April 8th. The subsequent operations of this column and also those of the Strumitsa force belong to the story of the Greek campaign.
Further north von Kleist’s corps did not occupy Nis until the
GERMANY STRIKES 39
morning of April 9th. Then, wheeling north, von Kleist advanced on Belgrade which he entered, after some fighting, on April 13th. While he had been hurrying up from the south, however, the German advance from the north had been equally rapid, and on the evening prior to von Kleist’s arrival a very small party had reached the Danube from the opposite direction. The fact that these few men were able to cross the river and obtain the effective surrender of the capital shows what a state of demoralization existed, following the air bombardments and the disappearance of the Central Government.
The hardest fighting, and that in which the Serbs showed to the best advantage, occurred when the Germans, thrusting north-west from Skoplje, were held up some days in the Kacanik Pass and lost a number of tanks. This stand enabled many Yugoslav units to break contact and disband, thus avoiding capture as prisoners of war. But apart from the Kacanik action the Germans were at no point seriously checked. Zagreb, capital of Croatia, was occupied by the Second Army on April 11th, without having put up any defence, and on the same day German and Italian troops joined hands on the Yugoslav-Albanian frontier north of Lake Ohridsko. After a week’s fighting, organized resistance was practically at an end. Sarajevo, one of the last of the inland centres to yield, fell to the Germans on April 15th and Split, on the Adriatic coast, on the same day. The formal capitulation of the Yugoslav armies took place on April 17th. As in the Battle of France, the losses of either side in the field were relatively light. Even the prisoners of war captured by the Germans were fewer than might have been expected, for many of the Yugoslav soldiers were able to break away and hide in mountain retreats whence many reappeared as guerrilla fighters under the command of General Mihailovitch or Marshal Tito.
oo [2 ]« Greece Invaded
THE German invasion developed along the whole of the Greco- Bulgarian frontier. In Thrace, at the eastern extremity the enemy met with little opposition, for this region lay beyond the protection of the Metaxas Line and it had never been the intention of the Greek Com- mand to hold it—unless with the co-operation of Turkey. Attacking the fortifications, however, the Germans encountered the most deter- mined and courageous resistance : heavy assaults against the Metaxas Line were hurled back with the courage of despair. The Greeks had
40 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
been ordered to hold these positions to the last and delay the Germans’ occupation as long as possible. This order was obeyed. The defenders were attacked by wave after wave of infantry, bombed by Stukas, shelled without respite by light and heavy artillery. Two forts were taken on the first day, but only after they had been destroyed by artillery fire and bombing from the air. Elsewhere the Germans forced their way into the underground galleries only to be driven out by counter-attack. In the Struma gorge parachutists to the number of about 200 were dropped behind the Greek lines: within a few hours two-thirds of these men were killed and the remainder captured. Assault teams with flame-throwers, hand-grenades and explosive charges were engaged and worsted in close-quarters fighting.
The tragedy lay in the fact that the heroic resistance of these Greek divisions was of little or no avail. While they continued to give of their best and to hold the enemy at bay other German forces were penetra- ting the Strumitsa Pass, where Yugoslav opposition was of the slightest, to reach Lake Doiran and begin an advance down the Vardar valley with nothing but open country between them and Salonika. The Metaxas Line was turned. We have seen how in February the prompt withdrawal from this position had been discussed, and then rejected by the Greek Command: useless now to stress the fact that the successful defence of the Metaxas Line depended upon Yugoslav active co-operation in which the Greeks had never had much cause to trust.
In the early hours of Monday, April 7th, Piraeus received a terrible reminder of the realities of war. At 3 a.m. an immense explosion, followed at intervals of about half an hour by two others, shook every house in the port. Even seven miles away in Athens doors were blown in and windows broken. A 12,000 ton ship, s.s. Clan Fraser, heavily laden with T.N.T., had been blown up by a delayed action bomb. Six merchant ships, sixty lighters and twenty-five caiques were sunk or burnt out. The docks office and two quays were wrecked. An ammu- nition barge and an ammunition train were blown up. The work of unloading the ammunition ship had apparently been suspended for the whole of Sunday, which in itself is hard to understand in view of the declaration of war by Germany early that morning. And the ship was left in port partly unloaded instead of being moved to an outer anchorage for the night, a normal precaution to take. We could ill afford to lose the cargoes, and another unfortunate consequence was that a Royal Engineer company destined for Amyntaion was kept in Piraeus to clear the debris while a light A.A. battery which should have gone to Larissa, was detained for the protection of the port.
Perhaps the moral effect was greater than the material loss. Having
GERMANY STRIKES 41
heard the great explosions and seen the resultant havoc, the popula- tions of Athens and Piraeus were in no way deceived by the official communiqué of the Ministry of the Interior which announced that ‘a steamer and some buildings had been damaged’. The incident was, indeed, nicely calculated to give a foretaste of the thunderbolt quality of the German offensive which had just been launched in Thrace and Macedonia. Coupled with the news of the air bombardment of Belgrade, it convinced many of the inhabitants of the Greek capital and its port that the hour of destruction of their own cities was at hand. As a matter of fact, apart from a little machine-gunning of roads in the outskirts of Athens during the last days of the campaign, the German raiders confined themselves strictly to military targets in Greece. Athens remained unbombed, but the port was raided with considerable thoroughness and efficiency nightafter night, and was very nearly put out of action, though there was nothing so spectacularly disastrous as the explosion of the munition ship on that Sunday night.
On April 7th the Germans pushed down through Thrace to the Aegean Sea, occupying Alexandroupolis and Komotini by the even- ing. This had been foreseen and caused no particular concern: what spelled disaster was the German break-through on the other flank of the Metaxas Line where a German armoured division, followed by a mountain division, reached the Vardar and swung south to cross the Greek frontier at Doiran and Gevgeli.
By April 8th the magnitude of the Yugoslav disaster had already become apparent, and a Greek Government communiqué issued at noon was not calculated to hearten the people of Athens. It referred boldly, and somewhat vaguely, to the plight of the heroic defenders of the Metaxas Line. Further depression was caused in the capital by the pricking of another bubble. When, during the morning, it was rumoured that Turkey had declared war on the side of the Allies the people thronged the streets to salute the event. Turkish flags were carried alongside the British and the Greek, and there was a pro- cession to the Turkish Legation, where the Minister very prudently refused to show himself. Within an hour or two, of course, the cold truth was known, but the demonstrators were at first reluctant to believe it. One may well suppose that the rumour was deliberately inspired by enemy agents. Certainly the ultimate result was to depress still further the spirits of the Athenians, and from about this time may be noted the emergence of certain defeatist elements in the capital, though the population as a whole stood firm as a rock.
German tanks and armoured cars were now racing down the broad and easy corridor of the Vardar towards Salonika, delayed at first only by the small Greek ‘motorized’ division with its tragi-comic
THE LOWER ALIAKMON MAP No.l. AND THE VARDAR PLAIN 20
SCALE
30
GERMANY STRIKES 43
assortment of vehicles. At Axioupolis, where the railway and road to Salonika cross the Vardar, British troops, on this day April 8th, made their first contact with the invader. A patrol of the 4th Hussars encountered some German carrier-borne troops and after an exchange of fire blew the bridges and withdrew westward. Other forward de- tachments of the Armoured Brigade did likewise, after carrying out demolitions on the roads leading towards the British position. In Salonika there was time to destroy the oil stocks, installations and stores, the task of a special detachment of Canadian Royal En- gineers known as the Kent Corps Troops. The vanguard of the German advance penetrated the outskirts of Salonika that night, and occupied the city at dawn the following morning, April 9th.
In eastern Macedonia, where several of the forts still resisted, the evacuation of the rear echelons of the divisions holding the Metaxas Line had begun from the ports of the Aegean coast.
After the opening of hostilities our main force stood awaiting attack for four days, an anxious and fretful period with little rest for either commanders or troops.
On April 6th reports of German progress made it tolerably certain that some enemy columns were heading for Monastir, while the thrust down the Vardar seemed bound to develop into an advance across the plain against the Aliakmon position. Our troops were still so thin on the ground that a characteristic German punch by the Twelfth Army would have broken the line anywhere; and the com- mander of the Australian Corps was in favour of pulling back the New Zealanders to the line of the passes without delay. General Wilson, however, considered that time was needed to clear stores and other impedimenta from the Katerini railhead but authorized a bigger allocation of labour to the Olympus positions.
The detachments of the Ist Armoured Brigade in the Vardar plain still expected to advance eastward to fight. At the Verria Pass the 16th Australian Brigade, fresh from the Western Desert, did not welcome the change of scene and climate. The three battalions were approaching positions 3,000 feet above sea-level ; they had little pro- tection from the bitter cold; and nearly all their gear required to be man-handled, for only a few pack donkeys were procurable and nothing on wheels could negotiate the steep mountain tracks. The relief of the Greek 12th Division promised to be a long and arduous affair. When the other two brigades of the 6th Australian Division should arrive Wilson intended to concentrate them near Kozani ready to reinforce either the main front or the Amyntaion position as the need arose.
44 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
First blood in the air operations went to the British. In a fighter sweep over the Beles-Rupel area a patrol of twelve Hurricanes met thirty ME 109’s and shot down five of them without loss to them- selves. The weather grew worse and after the first day the German advance was carried out under chilly grey skies and frequently in thick mist and through pelting storms of rain and sleet ; but, although our own air reconnaissance and fighter and bomber attacks were hampered, we certainly gained more than we lost under these conditions. Once the skies cleared the Luftwaffe, in overwhelm- ing strength, made short work of the task of establishing total air supremacy.
Early on the morning of the 8th a British motor patrol pushed across the Yugoslav frontier to Monastir which it found almost empty. There were no troops in the vicinity and no arrangements had been made to carry out systematic demolitions. The local police chief was in charge of the town and it appeared most unlikely that any resistance would be offered. The British patrol arranged for the demolition of the bridge across the Crna some miles to the north on the Prilep road and then withdrew, bringing back three Yugoslav tanks and four anti-aircraft guns.
That day a number of officers of the Yugoslav General Staff arrived over the Greek frontier in Florina. The news of the break- down in southern Yugoslavia was confirmed. It was learned that three Yugoslav divisions had capitulated in the south and that the Germans were likely to be in Monastir by nightfall.
General Wilson came forward in the morning to confer with Generals Blamey, the corps commander, and Mackay, commanding the 6th Australian Division which was still arriving. On his way Wilson met the streams of Greek and Yugoslav refugees, military and civilians, in flight from the frontier regions. They were mainly on foot, but also on donkeys, in ox-carts, in antiquated buses and ramshackle cars, the vehicles covered with a medley of bedding, furniture and pots and pans lashed to roofs, mudguards and running- boards. This tragic exodus—one all too common in war—had already continued for several days and nights; and the Allies had no means of checking and organizing these pitiful crowds which might yet contain enemy agents, fifth columnists and other undesirables.
As the result of the conference at which Greek staff officers were present the decision was taken to withdraw from the Aliakmon Line to a position defined as Olympus—Servia—mountains west of the Kozani-Amyntaion valley. This course had the approval of General Papagos. It was imperative to defend the Monastir Gap with ade- quate forces, and orders had already been issued for the detachments
GERMANY STRIKES 45
of the 1st Armoured Brigade who were operating in the Vardar plain and to the northward of lakes Vegorritis and Petersko to fall back that night to the area Vevi-Kozani. These units were to reinforce the Amyntaion detachment which on expansion would be commanded by Major-General Mackay with the incomplete 19th Australian Brigade added to the force. Of this brigade the 2/4th Battalion was arriving ; the 2/8th had been directed to the Verria region ; the 2/11th was still on the sea.
It would be necessary for Mackay to hold on at Vevi, selected as a suitable position for the defence of the Monastir Gap, for two, probably three, days, in order to allow time for the withdrawal of the two Greek divisions, the 12th and the 20th, in the mountains between Verria and Edessa to the heights between Servia and Kastoria. So far as could be judged General Papagos was not yet reconciled to giving up the Albanian fruits of victory; but he was sending some support to the British left flank where a cavalry divi- sion and an infantry brigade from Albania were to link up with Mackay’s command.
General Mackay reached Sotir—headquarters of Brigadier Lee who commanded the original Amyntaion detachment—shortly before midnight, April 8th/9th. No troops had yet arrived on the Vevi position for most of the Ist Armoured Brigade were driving west- ward by way of Edessa and Verria in fitful moonlight and rain, over roads greasy with mud and stony tracks running with water, all routes congested by Greek horsed transport, pack animals, bullock wagons, marching men and refugees. By dawn of the 9th, however, . the troops were beginning to take up their positions in the Vevi Pass, one of the first arrivals being the 64th Medium Regiment R.A. which had come from the Kelli area.
At Vevi the valley is at its narrowest, and the Monastir-Florina road follows a winding course through a pass which varies in width between 100 and 500 yards. The Ist Rangers, now included in Briga- dier G. A. Vasey’s 19th Australian Brigade in place of its missing battalion, had two companies at the top of the slope north-east of Vevi village and one in the foothills north-west of the highway which it thus bestrode. On the left of the Rangers the 2/4th Australian Battalion, which lacked one company, was given a four-mile front along the hills, linking up with Greek infantry on the eastern slopes of the eminence called Hill 1001. On the other flank the 2/8th Austra- lian Battalion did not arrive from Verria until the morning of the 10th, officers and men having suffered considerably during the bitter cold night following the lack of opportunity for sleep while on their way to the front. The 2/8th linked up with the Rangers; and on the
46 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
right of the Australians a Greek unit, the Dodecanese Regiment, came into position at the lakes.
The New Zealand machine-gunners were to support the 2/8th and the Rangers. The 1st Australian Anti-Tank Regiment put guns in forward positions with good observation of the road. In front of the Rangers the 2/Ist Australian Field Company completed the laying of a minefield. Artillery support was supplied by the 2nd R.H.A., the 2/3rd Australian Field Regiment and the 64th Medium Regiment.
As a reserve in the region of Perdhika were collected the remainder of the 1st Armoured Brigade: 4th Hussars, 3rd R. Tank Regiment, and 102nd Anti-Tank Regiment (Northumberland Hussars).
April 9th was a day of great activity and preparation in the Vevi position which extended for nearly twelve miles, far too great a fron- tage for the three infantry battalions to hold, although the support of three artillery regiments might compensate, in some measure for the thin line. Lateral communication was difficult to maintain across the steep hillsides, and the position of the anti-tank guns, sited on the forward slopes and inadequately camouflaged, gave cause for some concern. Greek troops and refugees were still passing through our position, and in Vevi village, just in advance of our line were some unorganized soldiery among whom the presence of Germans in Greek uniform was suspected.
Fortunately the German advance was not so swift as had been anticipated. The hostile columns appeared to have been held up by the Crna demolition, for they did not enter Monastir until five o’clock on this afternoon. This extra respite was of great value not only to Mackay’s force but to the whole of our troops and those of our Greek ally. The New Zealand Division was pulling back gradually from the Aliakmon mouth to the Olympus and Servia passes, where the defensive positions were strengthened. There was general regret that so much material had been used on the Aliakmon Line, for wire, sandbags, battle stores of all kinds, were not to be had in abundance.
Our forces were nowhere strong enough for the defensive tasks to which they had been committed. On the right the New Zealand Division holding the Olympus passes, the 16th Australian Brigade and the Greek 12th Division in the region of Verria, were under General Blamey; next on the left, the Greek 20th Division which occupied the wooded heights beyond and whose Dodecanese Regi- ment linked with Mackay west of the lakes, was the command of the Greek General Kotulas, superseded on the morning of April 9th by General Korassos; and Mackay’s force was also directly under Wilson. Wilson who commanded this Anglo-Greek army had, of
GERMANY STRIKES 47
course, to fight his war under the strategic direction of General Papagos, Greek Commander-in-Chief, although, if occasion arose, he could appeal to General Wavell, Commander-in-Chief Middle East. Advanced G.H.Q. were near Elasson, not far from General Blamey. Rear G.H.Q. remained in Athens, 200 miles away.
MAP No.2.
-THE WESTERN FLANK 20 30
(sr, L.Vegorritis ree G ndeleimon
n “¢
Perdhika »)
A rdhassa
CHAPTER V
The Western Flank
»([1 ]«
At the Monastir Gap
Snow fell during the night of April 9th/10th and the bitter cold persisted. At 6.15 a.m., before daylight came, two armoured car patrols—one of the 4th Hussars and one of the New Zealand divi- sional cavalry regiment, each accompanied by a sapper detachment— drove forward from the Vevi position to reconnoitre. If possible, they were also to carry out more demolitions. They saw the heads of German columns about six miles away, and returned after an ex- change of shots. The stream of refugees was thinning and no more Greek troops were expected to pass through, so, at 10 a.m., the Rangers blew up the road in front of the minefield. The Germans were now advancing steadily, and from noon onward the British and Australian gunners indulged in long-range shooting at the enemy vehicles. One of the first rounds fired by the 64th Medium Regiment put a German tank out of action and further casualties were inflicted as the hostile infantry and armour sought cover behind the ridge which runs between Lofoi and Sitaria. This ridge was some three miles beyond our forward positions.
It was obvious that the German artillery was not yet up, so no serious attack was to be expected until next day. Soon after four o’clock in the evening a German aircraft flew low over some of our batteries.
During the night German patrols crept forward up the slopes held by the 2/8th Australian Battalion and the Rangers. In the murk it was hard to distinguish friend from foe and some of the enemy took the Australians unawares by hailing them in English. Four Austra- lians and six of the Rangers were captured, but when daylight came no hostile infantry could be seen.
49
50 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
At 6 a.m. on April 11th the 64th Medium Battery fired on Vevi village where lights and movement had been reported.
Snow lay heavy on the mountains, but the morning was fine in the valley ; the bitter cold persisted, and in the afternoon rain and snow hampered our gunners in their search for targets. A few German tanks appeared, one, and then another coming to grief at the minefield in front of the Rangers. Later our artillery shelled the road leading to Kelli where German infantry were reported to be digging.
The German artillery came into action about noon, but our troops were more concerned with the mortar and machine-gun fire which began to open from Vevi village and from behind the Lofoi ridge. Movement between the forward posts became difficult and the infantry and the Australian anti-tank gunners began to lose men. Some of the German machine-gun posts were engaged effectively by the Rangers’ small-arms fire; but the company on the immediate left of the Australians withdrew for 400 yards in order to shorten the line which was woefully thin.
As the light began to fail, about two battalions of German infantry attacked astride the road but were soon checked by the fire of our artillery. On the left the enemy was more persistant, his infantry advance against the 2/4th Australian Battalion making slow but steady progress despite the accurate shooting of the R.H.A. By 10 p.m. the Germans were digging in on the lower slopes about 300 yards away. At this time German infantry were dribbling forward between the posts of the 2/8th Australian Battalion and as the result of several encounters two prisoners were sent back. They proved to be hardy and well trained young soldiers of the SS Adolf Hitler Division.
In the early afternoon a report had been received that German tanks from Kelli were attacking the Greek troops between the Vegorritis and Petersko lakes where a break-through would carry the enemy down to Amyntaion and Sotir behind the Vevi position. To deal with this serious threat, a squadron of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment and a troop of the 102nd Anti-Tank Regiment (Nor- thumberland Hussars) were hurried across from Amyntaion to Pandeleimon, moving in snow and sleet over eight miles of ploughed vineyards. It seems that the Germans did not press their advance after losing one tank, and our troops were not engaged at all; but the occasion threw into relief the principal weakness of our armoured force. Six of the cruisers broke their tracks and were permanently out of action; another broke down through mechanical defects. We were notably deficient in tank repair facilities and, as a consequence, in the course of the campaign our armour wasted away.
THE WESTERN FLANK 51
On this day, April 11th, the 6th New Zealand Brigade completed the withdrawal from the lower Aliakmon in the coastal sector, pass- ing through the 5th New Zealand Brigade which held the Olympus Pass, with one battalion detached to cover the Platamon tunnel corridor where the railway runs between the mountain and the sea. Meanwhile the 4th New Zealand Brigade consolidated its position around Servia. A cavalry screen of Bren carriers and armoured cars was left watching the crossings of the lower Aliakmon to the north.
And meanwhile General Bakopoulos had surrendered on behalf of his army in eastern Macedonia. Since the fall of Salonika these troops had been completely cut off from the rest of the Anglo-Greek forces, but even after their commander had capitulated the men in the frontier forts and some of the field troops continued to battle on. About 17,000 were made prisoners by the Germans, and some thousands were killed or wounded ; but it may well be that, as the result of the resistance maintained by the forts of the Metaxas Line, half the total number of Greek troops between the Vardar and the Turkish frontier were able to escape by sea. The three lost divisions contained some of the finest fighting material in the Greek Army, and it was the more unfortunate that they had not been used in a sector where their courage and skill would have been of real profit to the Allies.
With the Germans in Florina General Papagos could not fail to see the threat to the right flank of his forces in Albania. Early on the morning of the 11th he made known his proposal to disengage in northern Albania and said that by so doing he would be able to provide a whole corps for the protection of the British left flank ; but
‘he asked for an assurance that our armoured brigade would carry out a diversionary operation towards Florina to cover the Greek movements. This assurance was given by our Rear Headquarters in Athens, although ignorant of the situation at the front where the Ist Armoured Brigade was hardly in a position to carry out any such task. In any case Wilson had issued his orders at 3.45 a.m., the with- drawal of the two Greek divisions, 12th and 20th, from their Verria ~Edessa position to start first. Our troops at Vevi were to withdraw gradually during April 12th: the Rangers would cover the movement and come away during the night.
General agreement was reached by the British and Greek com- manders when they met at Pharsala later in the day. Yet General Wilson was only too well aware of the problems which remained to be solved. The immediate one was to move back over the same roads a force consisting partly of mechanized troops with a high proportion of motor transport and partly of Greek infantry dependent upon
52 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
bullock-wagons and mules. General Karassos had stressed the im- portance and the fighting quality of the Dodecanese Regiment which was posted in the area of Lake Petersko, and urged that every effort should be made to bring it safely back. We were prepared to move some troops with such transport as could be spared, but it was clear that the rate of retreat would be very uneven and that the slower- moving units might not get away at all.
And whatever might befall, Wilson saw his troops committed to tasks which they had not the numbers to fulfil. Every position they occupied would be too thinly held, with few or no reserves. There was no hope of further reinforcements from Egypt. General Wavell had arrived in Athens in the course of the day and, after conferring with General Blamey, confirmed his decision that the 7th Australian Division and the Polish Brigade, previously ear-marked for Greece should go to the Western Desert. There they were sorely needed, for the Germans, after retaking El Agheila, Benghazi and Derna, were already approaching Tobruk and Bardia. Wavell’s decision was un- avoidable, for the safety of Egypt and the Nile Delta mattered more than all.
Already there were signs that the next German thrust would develop at the junction of the British and Greek forces : if the enemy could reach Kastoria he would be in the rear of the Army of Western Macedonia, and the capture of Yanina would put him right across the line of retreat of the Army of Epirus. And that would bring down the curtain on the epic of the Albanian campaign. Wilson had already determined that his left flank must provide its own protection: when Mackay withdrew, the Ist Armoured Brigade would act as flank- guard, moving via Kozani and the Siatista defile.
The course of events next day, Saturday, April 12th, seems to have determined the trend of the whole campaign. It would hardly be true to say that nothing went well, but a part of our own forces suffered severe loss, and serious doubts arose as to the military capacity of our Ally. General Wilson was soon led to the conclusion that even the Olympus Line could only be held as a stage in our general with- drawal; and the loss of Olympus would involve the abandonment of the Larissa plain where our forward airfields lay.
Opinions differ as to the degree of disintegration which set in during the retreat of the Greek 12th and 20th Divisions from the Verria—Edessa heights to their mountain positions between Servia and Kastoria. The movement was bound to be a difficult one as its direction, roughly from east to west, crossed the line of communica- tion and eventual withdrawal of Mackay Force; but it is seldom safe to judge foreign troops by our own standards. The Greeks, like the
THE WESTERN FLANK 53
soldiery of many other nationalities, do not move with our formality and precision. Their withdrawal would, naturally, be carried out in small groups bearing little semblance of purpose and order even if they were ready and willing to respond to the next call for action. The primitive and varied types of transport was bound to slow down the march, causing traffic blocks and delay. The state of these two divisions, at least, may not have been so bad as some of our observers believed. Certain it is that the language difficulty caused misunder- standings and annoyance, while the Greek staff work proved to be of indifferent quality. Also it may be significant that Papagos asked us to assist in the defence of the new positions to which the two Greek divisions were directed, the Siatista and Klisoura passes.
Here a word must be said for the Greek cavalry division holding the Pisodherion Pass, west of Florina, where for several days the Germans had been able to make no headway.
We had promised to do what we could to get the Dodecanese Regiment out intact, but these troops were fully 50 per cent more numerous than had been estimated. They were lent thirty 3-ton lorries which were used mostly for the sick and wounded and they thinned out steadily during the day from their position on the right of the 2/8th Australian Battalion.
The withdrawal of the Greek armies in Albania formed the larger and more important issue, which was as much a psychological as an administrative one. The Greek commander-in-chief, who, before the German attack was launched, had been so reluctant to withdraw his troops from Thrace and eastern Macedonia could hardly bring him- self to order the abandonment of the gains made with so much glory and at so much cost in Albania. He knew the limitations of his trans- port, and he knew also the moral effect of such a withdrawal upon his troops. This reluctance to abandon the tangible fruits of victory in the face of the despised and defeated Italians was not limited to the men in the front line. Several of the divisional commanders were showing themselves unwilling to withdraw ; the Chief of Staff of the Army of Epirus had stated with a sublime disregard for strategy that he would go back no further than the Greek frontier ; and the Bishop of Yanina, an extremely politically-minded prelate, was exhorting the troops in the same sense.
Yet withdrawal from Albania there must be, or the western flank of Mackay Force, and therefore of the entire British force in Greece would be placed in great jeopardy. Even now when General Papagos was about to act it might be too late.
54 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE wr [2 ]« The Action of Vevi
THE conditions under which fighting proceeded during these days are described by an Australian correspondent as follows:
Temperature has dropped to ten degrees below freezing point during this cold snap. . . . Since the Germans began to invade Greece our men have been fighting in the snow, sleeping huddled together, wrapped in one or two blankets which they were able to carry. It is perishingly cold, though some young veterans say that it is no colder than the night winds of Libya in January and December. The bright side of the picture is that rain has evidently bogged the Bulgarian aerodromes. Few German aircraft have been going overhead; on the other hand an. bombers have been going over in waves throughout the whole
a
Libya was like a billiard table compared with the terrifying ranges and yawning ravines. The roads which thread the mountains are narrow and tortuous. ...I set out to visit different sectors of the front early this morning. The going was fairly slow because of the endless line of army traffic on the roads—supply wagons, carriers, and guns moving up between the precipitous walls of the passes. The wind was cruel. It was blowing off the new snowfields formed on the mountain tops by the falls of last night. Truck drivers clung to their steering wheels with numb fingers. Their faces were blue with cold. I saw many groups of Greek soldiers swinging along on foot with their rifles slung over their shoulders. I passed a battery of light guns drawn along by teams of shaggy mountain ponies. .. . I met knots of refugees upon the road... .I found men of an Australian battalion deep in the mountains. They were watering their donkeys at a stone trough fed from a spring.
- The country in which these troops are deployed is too craggy and precipitous for motor transport, and they are hauling up their food, ammunition and other supplies on the backs of donkeys. Some units of the Allied troops are living under very trying conditions on the snowclad ridges. Their only protection against the cold is provided by shelters which they erect in stony hollows with the aid of ground sheets. They have not been worried yet by enemy aircraft. The heavy peak of cloud hanging low over the mountains make bombing
ifficult.
At Vevi, to avoid any repetition of the infiltrations into our line which had proved so effective on the previous night, the commanding officer of the 2/8th Australian Battalion had given orders that between 9.30 p.m. and 5 a.m. all troops would remain in their rifle pits and fire at any movement observed or heard. His message read:
You may be tired. You may be uncomfortable. But you are doing a job important to the rest of our forces. Therefore you will continue to do that job unless otherwise ordered.
THE WESTERN FLANK 55
The morning of the 12th dawned with further falls of snow which had ceased by 8.30 a.m. when German infantry came forward to deliver another attack upon the Vevi position. The corps commander had at first favoured a double envelopment, but perhaps doubting the ability of his troops to carry this out over the difficult country on either flank he eventually agreed to allow the SS Division a further chance to force the position by frontal assault. This division was now supported by the whole of its own artillery and by a battalion of corps heavy artillery. The balance in fire-power had therefore swung over to the enemy since the previous day.
General Mackay had given precise orders for our withdrawal. The Australian battalions on the flanks were to thin out gradually and be in their trucks ready to depart by 8 p.m., the Rangers, astride the road through the pass, would act as rearguard and not retire until the early hours of next morning. The bulk of the Ist Armoured Brigade, in its capacity as left flank guard to our whole force, was to occupy two positions by nightfall of the 12th: one through Sotir, facing north-west, and one further back at Proastion about three miles south of Ptolemais. -
Supported not only by artillery but by mortar and machine-gun fire the Germans came on steadily through the Vevi pass, the main thrust being east of the road and at the junction—weakly held because we were so few in numbers—between the Rangers and the 2/8th Australians. Our artillery was able to inflict considerable loss upon the attackers but before 11 a.m. the platoon of the 2/8th on the extreme left of that battalion was overrun. To the Rangers it seemed that the Australians had withdrawn, though such was not the case. They were themselves so hard pressed that by noon they were forced to give ground and reorganize in the neighbourhood of the railway station. Casualties were mounting, some groups being cut off and lost, and it soon appeared to be a question of breaking off the action without further delay if complete disaster were to be avoided. The Bren gunners were organized as a rearguard while the remainder of the Rangers was collected and ferried back in the available transport to Amyntaion.
The 2/8th Australian Battalion hung on grimly all the afternoon, being able to bring some enfilade fire to bear upon the German tank and infantry advance; and one local counter-attack regained some ground. By 5 p.m., however, the Greeks (Dodecanese Regiment) on the right of the 2/8th had nearly all gone, touch had long since been lost with the Rangers on the other flank, and the Australians were in grave danger of being cut off altogether. They had to get out quickly as best they could and the only way of retreat was south-eastward
56 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
and then down the road to Sotir. In this direction the survivors made their escape, most of them too exhausted to carry anything, so equip- ment and even arms had to be discarded. By 9 a.m. about 200 officers and men had reached Sotir, a large proportion bearing no weapons of any kind. During the night they were taken south by lorry to Servia.
On the left flank the 2/4th Australian Battalion was ordered to withdraw in the middle of the afternoon but, with a shortage of tele- phone wire and breakages to cable caused by hostile shell-fire, orders to the companies and platoons were difficult to transmit. When runners had to carry messages across the snow-covered hillsides one could not be sure when they would arrive or if they would arrive at all. Eventually the battalion came back piece-meal in the dark when the German infantry were almost among them. Small wonder that most of one of the rifle companies was cut off and captured: it was a great achievement to bring away what could still be reckoned a fighting force fit for further action.
Much credit must go to the artillery, the 2nd R.H.A., the 2/3rd Australian Field Regiment, the 64th Medium Regiment and such Australian anti-tank guns as had not been overwhelmed in the German advance. Until darkness fell our gunners maintained an effective fire, although in some cases no infantry remained in front of them. The R.H.A. withdrew with the utmost coolness under small- arms fire at 400 yards range.
One may say that we were hustled out of the Vevi position as soon as the Germans were able to develop their full strength. But our troops had done all that was possible, bearing in mind the lack of numbers which condemned them to hold a far too extended position with little chance for mutual support, and no reserves. The bitter weather had probably borne more hardly upon our own men than on their antagonists. Considerable loss had been inflicted upon the Germans but only at a cost that we could ill afford, for all three infantry battalions had suffered severely and had lost arms and equipment. The Australian field regiment lost two guns which became hopelessly ditched during the withdrawal and had to be destroyed; the 64th Medium Regiment lost one gun and a tractor in the same fashion. The Ist Australian Anti-Tank Regiment lost 16 guns, ten of them when a whole battery was cut off by a premature road demolition and captured. A troop of the Northumberland Hussars, with the Greeks, had to abandon three of its anti-tank guns, also cut off by a demolition, but the gunners brought away the breech-blocks. In the 3rd R. Tank Regiment one squadron was now reduced to six cruisers and another to only four, repairs being impossible owing to the lack of track plates and pins, and engine
THE WESTERN FLANK 57
spare parts. Patrols of the regiment had covered the withdrawal of some of the infantry to the Sotir position.
Here a certain amount of work had been done on the defences, Sotir being the responsibility of the Ist Armoured Brigade under Brigadier Charrington. At Amyntaion a demolition squadron under the command of Major Peter Fleming, the well-known explorer, had destroyed 20 locomotives and about 100 railway coaches, which must otherwise have fallen into German hands. Mackay Force had ceased to exist as such, its 19th Australian Brigade and other Austra- lian troops being under orders to rejoin General Blamey’s command which from this day forth was known as the Anzac Corps, thus reviving the old memories of a quarter of a century ago.
[3 la The Actions of Sotir and Proastion
At Sotir Brigadier Charrington had at his disposal the reserve com- pany of the Rangers and, being so short of infantry, he obtained permission to retain the two rifle companies which remained of the 2 4th Australian Battalion. His other troops comprised an anti-tank battery of the Northumberland Hussars, the 3rd Royal Tank Regi- ment (less one squadron), a platoon of the New Zealand machine- gunners, and a detachment of the 3rd (Cheshire) Field Squadron R.E. for demolition and minefield work. The 2nd R.H.A. came in during the night. Its task was to cover the whole front.
Back at the Proastion position were assembling the remainder of the Ist Armoured Brigade, the Rangers and New Zealand machine- gunners from Vevi being expected to arrive during the early hours of the morning. The 64th Medium Regiment arrived at Perdhika during the evening of the 12th, and at 7.30 p.m. was sent off to a village south of Servia to come under the Anzac Corps.
The Germans were not slow in following up our retreat, for some of their motor-cyclists were seen on the road in front of the Sotir position before nightfall on April 12th. They advanced to the assault next morning—Easter Sunday in the Western Calendar—with the weather turning fine and warm. The British position, which extended for some five miles along a ridge between Lake Vegorritis and a swamp south-west of Sotir, was partly protected from tank assault by a stream running diagonally across the front.
Driving forward in their trucks until they were well within field- gun range, the hostile infantry alighted near Amyntaion in full view c
58 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
of our forward troops and came on in short rushes despite the fire of the R.H.A. and of the Bren guns of the Rangers. They crossed the stream and tried to close but their threat to the right of the Rangers’ company was warded off by our tanks firing from hull-down posi- tions; and one squadron came into action on the forward slope, opening with all its weapons on German infantry and vehicles. This bold performance appears to have deceived the enemy as to our intentions. Some German reports describe the British tanks as moving forward with infantry clinging to them and running beside them, implying that a counter-attack was delivered; the German divisional commander is stated to have been consumed with anxiety, and to have ordered his anti-tank guns forward with the utmost speed, while the infantry prepared to defend themselves in fox-holes with hand-grenades and blocks of T.N.T. against an armoured attack.
Later, the German artillery began to come into action with air observation, sending over an aircraft which took the opportunity of opening machine-gun fire on the tanks in their exposed position. By this time the withdrawal had begun. First to go was the 2/4th Australian Battalion which travelled in trucks to join its own brigade. The Rangers followed about 10 a.m., the infantry retirement being well covered by the R.H.A. who, in their turn, came out of action while tanks and anti-tank guns maintained their fire. The whole movement was nicely judged—one battery of the R.H.A. pulled out just as howitzer shells began to fall about its position—and executed, but the troubles of the Ist Armoured Brigade were by no means over for the day. The brigade had received orders to hold off the German pursuit as long as possible, so that the Greek 12th and 20th Divisions might have more time to reach their new positions and reorganize. Most of the Sotir force was sent back to Mavrodendri, six miles beyond the next rearguard position at Proastion where the three companies of Rangers had arrived at 6.30 a.m.
At Proastion the road to Kozani passes through a mile-wide gorge which, while providing a natural defensive position, allowed suffi- cient room under cover for transport vehicles to be parked well forward, an obvious advantage when a rearguard action is to be fought. As at Sotir a stream served the purpose of an anti-tank ditch: it ran across the front some 300 yards in advance of our forward posts. The Rangers had two companies astride the road and one in reserve, with carriers well ahead to watch the line of the stream.
The Germans lost no time in covering the dozen miles from Sotir, and when they appeared it was seen that tanks and armoured troop carriers were now leading the way, with engineer detachments at
THE WESTERN FLANK 59
hand. These were not our familiar opponents of the Adolf Hitler Division, but troops of the 9th Panzer Division which had been passed through to lend fresh impetus to the advance. German air- craft were already overhead, for after a week of bad weather the skies had cleared and the Luftwaffe was quick to take advantage of favourable conditions to exert its superior strength. Henceforth enemy air attacks were a real and constant hazard to be undergone alike by fighting troops and transport, communications, bases and ports.
A dive-bombing attack on our infantry and battery positions soon compelled the withdrawal of some of our forward guns to less con- spicuous positions. The R.H.A., however, scored a hit on the leading vehicle of a motor column emerging from Ptolemais and the traffic jam which resulted seemed to hinder the development of the frontal attack. German tanks and infantry then started an out-flanking movement on our right where the Rangers were hard pressed but held on with the support of our tank and anti-tank guns. Next, the left forward company of the Rangers, under heavy fire from artillery and mortars, and machine-gunned repeatedly from the air, was pressed back so that the anti-tank guns of the Northumberland Hussars were left in action without infantry protection and the New Zealand machine-gunners seemed liable to be cut off. Yet our artillery fire held the Germans at bay and continued to do so until after darkness fell.
Meanwhile a column of enemy tanks and carrier-borne infantry had taken the Ardhassa track which leads westward, and then made for the left rear of our position. In the gathering dusk about thirty light and medium tanks, followed by infantry, approached Mavropiyi, not much more than a mile from the main road and Ist Armoured Brigade Headquarters at Komanos. The movement had not gone undetected: part of the 4th Hussars and a troop of anti-tank guns had been hurried across from our front positions and were there to meet them. A spirited combat ensued. The light tank of the 4th Hussars was no match for the heavier German type, but the troop of Northumberland Hussars anti-tank guns under Lieutenant A. W. Trippier was so swiftly and ably handled that the first crisis safely passed. Driven boldy in to effective range these anti-tank two- pounders, firing from their portées, took the enemy by surprise. A number of his tanks were mancuvred into a ravine north-west of Mavropiyi and six were knocked out. As the fight continued two more were destroyed.
But the Germans were pressing on towards the main road. There, a squadron of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment arrived and came into
60 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
action at 800 yards range, hull-down behind a ridge above brigade headquarters. The fire of these tanks—there were only four of them— enabled the Northumberland Hussars to disengage and accounted for at least two more of the enemy tanks. The men of brigade head- quarters were in action with rifles and Bren guns and some of the New Zealand machine-gunners withdrawing from Proastion assisted to shoot it out in the after-glow of the sunset.
The Germans drew off into the gathering darkness. From their own reports it seems that almost all their surviving tanks were out of ammunition and many were down to their last litre of fuel. They betray a rueful appreciation of the skill and courage of our anti-tank gunners, and pay the troops who fought at Komanos the compliment of describing them as a ‘British tank division’.
The firing had hardly died away when the Rangers drove down the road past Komanos, withdrawing from the Proastion position on their way to Kozani. Our troops at Proastion sustained by admirable artillery support, had been able to break contact at their own time ; and their actual withdrawal, under a smoke-screen laid down by the guns of the 4th Hussars and 3rd R. Tank Regiment, was carried out unperceived by the enemy who continued to shell the empty positions for half an hour or more.
Brigadier Charrington was withdrawing down the main road as far as Kozani and thence by a secondary road which leads south- westward to Grevena beyond the upper Aliakmon. From Kozani his way passed through the position of the Greek 20th Division around Siatista, but those of our Allies who were encountered seemed bent only upon retreat. Three of our cruiser tanks halted at Kozani until the whole column was through the town and, as the march proceeded, companies of the Rangers were dropped to hold delaying positions in case the pursuit should be pressed. At Mavrodendri German motor-cyclists and troop carriers made contact with the Rangers detachment and then withdrew: it seemed that the lst Armoured Brigade had hit the enemy so hard that no trouble was to be expected from him at the moment.
Near the village of Siatista at the Metamorfosis Pass the column passed through the remaining battery of the 102nd (Northumberland Hussars) Anti-Tank Regiment which had followed the unit to Greece, and was in action for the first time. The pass was one of the positions which the Greek 12th Division was expected to hold, but the Greek divisional headquarters, established at Siatista, could provide no Greek infantry to supplement the anti-tank defence. However, two good machine-gun detachments were sent and, later, a horsed battery of Greek artillery arrived.
THE WESTERN FLANK 61
The Ist Armoured Brigade, very tired but still in good heart, reached Grevena in the early hours of April 14th but the brigade was now a brigade in name only and its chief losses were in armour. The 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, organized as one squadron, had only 13 cruisers left, most of the casualties being from broken tracks and other defects, not from enemy action. The 4th Hussars was reduced to 40 tanks fit for service and the Northumberland Hussars had lost six anti-tanks guns: in the affray near Komanos, however, Lieutenant Trippier’s troop had lost only one gun, one portée and one truck. The Ist Rangers could now muster about half its original fighting strength, and was short of weapons and equipment. The 2nd R.H.A., after three days’ fighting, reported two men wounded, an expenditure of 3,100 rounds of ammunition, and four vehicles and one motor- cycle abandoned in the retreat. Observers had spoken with admira- tion of the splendid order in which the regiment came out of action after the most gruelling time.
It will be remembered that the 64th Medium Regiment R.A. had been sent to Servia to support the Australian division. Directed to the Portas Pass, south of Servia, the regiment found nearly all the available positions occupied by the 7th Medium Regiment, com- paratively late arrivals in Greece who had only reached the forward area on April 11th. At first only two troops of the 64th could come into action, but reconnaissance for other positions began without delay.
As we knew the 4th New Zealand Brigade was established at Servia and the 19th Australian Brigade, whose two battalions had lost so heavily at Vevi, was taking up positions opposite Servia on the western side of the Aliakmon. Since there was no bridge in their rear to enable them to be supplied and reinforced or, if necessary, withdrawn, across the river, they began to construct two light bridges. Servia and the road junction about three miles beyond were of vital importance, for penetration here would place the enemy in rear of the whole Olympus position on the main road to the plain of Thessaly and Larissa. General Blamey therefore strengthened the defence by bringing across the 26th New Zealand Battalion from the coastal sector to take up a position on the right of the 19th Australian Brigade west of the river. Here the New Zealanders were in visual contact with their own 4th Brigade on the opposite bank.
In the mountains between the 4th New Zealand Brigade above Servia and the 5th at Olympus was the 16th Australian Brigade which had arrived from Verria. Its position seemed immune from attack except by the hardjest of mountaineers but the problem of supply was a difficult one: no motor transport could be used and only a few mules and donkeys were to be obtained.
62 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
On the morning of April 13th a German mountain division was reported to be arriving at Verria, and the enemy’s advance towards the lower Aliakmon was now developing. The road bridge and the railway bridge between Guida and the sea had been blown, and the New Zealand cavalry (armoured cars, carriers and motor-cycles) watched the crossings. They had the close support of a troop of the Sth New Zealand Field Regiment. During the afternoon of April 12th some German motor-cyclists who approached this road bridge were scattered by the fire of Bren guns ; a column of vehicles further in rear was engaged by the New Zealand gunners at dusk. Next morning the enemy came on in some strength. The fire of the New Zealand cavalry was concentrated upon infantry near the road, and the admirable, well-controlled shooting of the 25-pounders checked German pro- gress for a time. The river was 100 yards wide and the infantry found it difficult to make the passage in rubber boats, but, after becoming exposed to the fire of tanks and artillery, our thin cavalry screen was withdrawn early in the afternoon. At night the New Zealanders were in position behind a tank-ditch ten miles south of the river crossings.
m4 le Retreat in Albania; Our Need to Withdraw
On April 13th the Greek retreat from Albania had begun in earnest and Koritsa, the first great prize of the autumn victories, was evacuated. This movement was carried out without the slightest inter- ference from the Italians who were actually unaware of the departure of the Greeks until twenty-four hours later. But, as had been feared, the beginning of the withdrawal from these gloriously won positions was fatal to the staying power of the Greek armies. They had shown that they could resist and overcome an enemy offensive and maintain with spirit and enterprise an offensive of their own. They could cope with bitter weather and some of the most uninviting terrain in Europe. But to retreat from an enemy they had beaten, along a single road packed with transport vehicles of every kind and swarms of refugees, constantly dive-bombed and machine-gunned from the air, and to maintain their cohesion and fighting spirit through it all was not to be expected.
The breakdown of the armies retreating from Albania undoubtedly affected the morale of the Central Macedonian Army as the Greek 12th and 20th Divisions were termed. As we know, these divisions had never been much more than brigades in strength, and had always
THE WESTERN FLANK 63
lacked supporting arms and adequate transport. Their new position was on the left of the 1st Armoured Brigade, linking up with the armies now drawing back across the Albanian frontier, but whether they were capable of holding it was another matter. If the Germans could thrust down through Kastoria they might outflank the Ist Armoured Brigade at Grevena, but this danger does not seem to have been imminent. However, General Wilson believed that the western portion of the Anglo-Greek front extending from Mount Olympus to the Albanian frontier was unlikely to hold in face of a serious attack, even if it were not already on the point of dissolving. He con- ferred with General Blamey on the evening of the 13th, and then decided to withdraw to the Thermopylae position, a distance of over one hundred miles.
Looking south at central Greece from the direction of Macedonia, all roads appear to converge upon Larissa which stands in the centre of the plain of Thessaly. If the Germans could once push their armoured forces—superior both in quantity and quality—through the crust of mountains into the ‘soft’ country beyond, before General Wilson’s forces had made good their withdrawal from the Olympus line, the whole Anglo-Greek army would be in danger of destruction. The supreme achievement in war, the achievement which makes Cannae, Tannenberg and Tunis classic masterpieces of battle, is the defeat and annihilation of the enemy where he stands. On the morn- ing of April 14th the possibility of such a victory may well have occurred to the German Command.
Of the roads which lead down from the north to Larissa that from Kozani crosses the Aliakmon river near Servia and reaches Elasson by way of the Portas pass. This is the only one which can be dignified by the name of a modern road. The route from the Aliakmon mouth and Katerini over the Olympus pass to Elasson is very inferior. And, east of the mountain, the coastal route which follows the railway and turns inland through the vale of Tempe tq reach Larissa from the north-east is no better. Each of these routes passes through, on the mountain barrier, a natural defensive position against which there would be difficulty in deploying large numbers, whether of troops or armoured vehicles. The attacker could count upon no swift penetration.
But there was the fourth possibility which General Wilson had in mind. A road reaches Larissa from the west by Trikkala, which is linked with Kalabaka, on the fringe of the plain; and Kalabaka is connected by an indifferent but possible road with Grevena, thirty miles to the north. Von List might well decide upon an advance through and beyond Grevena where resistance might be expected to
64 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
be of no great strength. Such an advance, although it would set a considerable administrative problem, possessed further advantages for the Germans. By coming south down the road from Kastoria to Grevena their forces would soon be in rear of the Greek front in Albania. Clearly a concentrated effort west of the Olympus mountain passes offered the prospect of big results.
CHAPTER VI
The Olympus Position
om [1]
Left Flank Guard
IN the course of the morning of April 14th, columns of enemy transport were observed moving westward from Amyntaion and Ptolemais towards Klisoura which was in German hands before noon. In the better weather R.A.F. Blenheims and Hurricanes were em- ployed to bomb and machine-gun these columns and certainly helped to delay their progress. Three Greek battalions were relied upon to hold Argos, south of Lake Kastoria, which was likely to be the next German objective. Meanwhile we despatched as many lorries as could be spared to Yanina to help in the evacuation of the ten Greek divi- sions still in southern Albania.
The Ist Armoured Brigade harboured at Grevena on the 14th, the only troops north of the Aliakmon being the battery of Northumber- land Hussars who held the Metamorfosis Pass with their anti-tank guns. The battery was attacked in the afternoon, German infantry advancing with the support of mortar fire, but the Hussars, ably assisted by the Greek machine-gunners and field battery, held their own. At nightfall, however, the Germans began to occupy an un- finished anti-tank ditch near the mouth of the pass. The defenders then pulled out and retreated to Grevena, the rickety bridge over the Aliakmon being blown by the 3rd (Cheshire) Field Squadron as soon as they had crossed.
During the day the Ist Armoured Brigade in the Grevena region had been heavily attacked from the air. The transport, closely con- centrated in a gorge a little way to the south, presented, as was said by one who was present, ‘the best bombing target the Germans can have enjoyed since France’. Our only defence was provided by the 155th Light A.A. Battery, and it is therefore not surprising that
c® 65
66 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
considerable damage was done by the bombs and machine-guns of the Luftwaffe.
The 1st Armoured Brigade was not well placed at Grevena to fight a rearguard action and its powers of resistance were so diminished that General Wilson was obliged to take further measures to safe- guard his left flank. Brigadier Charrington received orders to with- draw to the line of the Venetikos river—a tributary of the Aliakmon —about five miles further south, the movement to begin at midnight. The 17th Australian Brigade, which had now arrived in Greece, was to concentrate in the Kalabaka area in a reserve position. The brigade was commanded by Brigadier S. G. Savige and consisted of the 2/5th, 2/6th and 2/7th Battalions: to it would be attached a battery of the 64th Medium Regiment R.A., some anti-tank guns, seven cruisers of the 3rd R. Tank Regiment, and an Australian machine-gun com- pany. As it happened, transport difficulties had delayed the arrival of the troops at Larissa. Owing to break-down on the railway from Athens, neither the 2/6th nor 2/7th Battalions arrived until April 16th, and by that time they were urgently required elsewhere. So the 2/11th Battalion from the 19th Australian Brigade was added to make up, in part, for this deficiency. When Brigadier Savige arrived at Kalabaka at 11.30 p.m. on April 14th most of ‘Savige Force’, as finally con- stituted, was present.
» [2 ]« At the Passes
AT the Servia position the 4th New Zealand Brigade was dug in on a line from the village of Kastania to Rimnion, part of the front pre- senting an almost clear view of Servia village, the Aliakmon crossings, and the road from Kozani along which the German armour must come. Behind the New Zealanders the road, turning south-east through the Portas Pass, ran for nearly eight miles between rocky walls nearly 4,000 feet high.
On the left beyond the Aliakmon the 19th Australian Brigade had in position the 2/4th and 2/8th Battalions, both very weak in numbers and the 26th New Zealand Battalion. Its 2/11th Battalion had been taken for Savige Force. In the mountains to the right of the New Zealanders was the 16th Australian Brigade.
The Servia area was heavily bombed from the air at intervals during the 14th, but the damage inflicted was slight. In the morning the 9th Panzer Division entered Kozani and moved south-eastward to- wards the Aliakmon crossing at Servia. The distance from Kozani to
THE OLYMPUS POSITION 67
the river was little more than ten miles, but the German advance proved to be unexpectedly slow—a tribute, perhaps, to the effective- ness of our demolitions. Towards evening the head of the column approached the river where the bridge had been blown by the New Zealand engineers, and came to a halt. The hostile artillery had opened in reply to ours, but the firing died down as darkness fell.
Further to the east the 5th New Zealand Brigade which held the Olympus passes was also in contact with the enemy. The New Zealand cavalry regiment, retiring before a force of all arms, came in during the afternoon, having lost two troopers killed, one motor- cycle destroyed, and one carrier abandoned through a mechanical defect. German aircraft had made little attempt to interfere with the movements of the regiment.
The demolitions at the entrance to the main Olympus pass which carries the Katerini-Elasson road were blown as soon as the New Zealand cavalry had passed through. Two hours later, about 5 p.m., forward posts of the 22nd New Zealand Battalion saw the head of a German column which was not fired on and soon disappeared from view. A number of enemy aircraft flew over to reconnoitre before darkness fell. Then, about 11 p.m., some motor-cyclists rode boldly up the road and, when they had almost reached the edge of the demoli- tions, the New Zealanders opened fire. Next morning five wrecked motor-cycles were found in front of the position—but no Germans. The remainder of the night was enlivened by bursts of machine-gun fire to which the defenders did not reply.
On the seaward side of Mount Olympus runs the road which is the shortest way to Larissa : the classic avenue of approach for invad- ing armies. Here the railway passes through the Platamon tunnel. Demolitions had been prepared in order to wreck both road and rail- way though it was not to be expected that the enemy would be checked for long by these measures. Unfortunately the work of destruction had to be confided to an Army Troops company of New Zealand sappers which was short of its proper equipment. For mak- ing an impression in solid rock a pickaxe is a sorry substitute for a pneumatic drill. Before nightfall the 21st New Zealand Battalion which was defending the pass reported the advance of some 80 tanks and 150 other vehicles along the coastal road. Thereupon the demoli- tions were blown. A series of explosions blew away the face of the ravine and completely blocked the road, but the attempts upon the tunnel were not so successful. The first brought down the brick lining but did little damage to the rock and the second produced better but not very effective results. Throughout the night the heavy rumble of battle traffic could be heard in the New Zealand posts, and it seemed
y. Z —
THE OLYMPUS POSITION 69
almost certain that with the coming of daylight a heavy attack would be delivered along the coast.
On the evening of this day General Papagos issued a directive which defined a new defensive position running from sea to sea: Mount Olympus passes—Servia—southern bank of the Venetikos river—Mount Smolikas—Greco-Albanian frontier—sea south of Santi Quaranta. It is difficult to understand the purpose of the Greek Commander-in-Chief who at this time was not credited by us with so optimistic a view of the Allied situation. At British Headquarters where, so far as was known, Greek resistance south of Kastoria was crumbling away, there were no illusions regarding the state of the Greek armies. No one believed that the Allies could stand upon the line described above. General Wilson, as we know, had already decided that a retreat to the Thermopylae position was the only course, and, as a preliminary measure, the Royal Air Force was instructed to evacuate its airfields around Larissa and to move back to the southern fringe of the Thessalian plain. It was accepted that the base at Larissa could not be cleared of heavy stores and equip- ment, since all available transport would be needed for the movement of the troops.
It was on this day, too, that the Joint Planning Staff in Cairo began to prepare a scheme for the evacuation of General Wilson’s force from Greece, although evacuation had not yet been mentioned to General Wilson, either by the Greeks or by Middle East Command.
As though it had read the minds of the Allied Commanders the German propaganda machine seized upon the probability of a British evacuation, and on April 15th proceeded to capitalize it with some skill. Following an early morning report on the Swiss radio to the effect that the evacuation of General Wilson’s force was begin- ning, Dr. Goebbels’s chorus got to work. The theme was developed on the lines that the British had, as usual, stirred up a small people to fight their battles for them ; and now, after sending an insignificant force to Greece, they were preparing to run away, leaving the Greek troops to protect them from the righteous wrath of the German Army. The attitude towards the Greeks was one more of sorrow than of anger, and it was generally implied that if they saw fit to speed, or at any rate dissociate themselves from, the parting guest all might yet be forgiven and forgotten. But for the British retribution would be swift and sure.
70 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE »([3 ]«
Attack from the Air
On this day, April 15th, communications from the front began to fail, and little news was received from the localities where our forces were in contact with the Germans. Even less was known of the situa- tion of the Greeks on the western flank. Actually we held our own at the passes, but the day was an unfortunate one owing to the crippling losses suffered by the R.A.F.
During the bad weather which had accompanied the first week of the German offensive R.A.F. aircraft had been repeatedly in action, on several days having the skies to themselves and flying in weather in which the Luftwaffe did not attempt to take the air. The first day’s action, when twelve Hurricanes were reported to have shot down five ME 109’s out of a flight of twenty without loss to themselves, was most encouraging, and on the following days our bombers repeatedly attacked the main line of the German advance, first of all in the Strumitsa pass and later along the Prilep-Monastir road in southern Yugoslavia. But the second week opened with clear skies. On Easter Sunday, April 13th, when the Armoured Brigade fought its tank action at Proastion, a formation of six Blenheims of No. 211 Squadron, which had carried out the first raid of the war in the Middle East ten months earlier, set out with the task of holding up the German advance by a bombing attack on the road through the. Monastir gap. None of them returned. As they emerged from dense cloud on the way to their target a number of ME 109’s attacked them and destroyed every one. It was a tragic foretaste of what was in store.
The disaster of April 15th was of a different nature. Our advanced airfields had been distributed over the broad Thessalian plain, now drying after the winter rains. At dawn the German aircraft swept out of the northern sky. The observer system which had been arranged in liaison with the Greeks had now broken down and our aircraft were caught on the ground. They were insufficiently camouflaged and too closely concentrated, and the A.A. defence was quite inadequate.
Every one of the 16 Blenheims at the Niamata satellite airfield was destroyed on the ground, as were 14 Hurricanes at Larissa aerodrome. It was a grievous loss. Air Vice-Marshal D’Albiac, who was at Larissa at the time, promptly ordered all R.A.F. units back to the airfields in the neighbourhood of Athens—a decision which, in any case, could not have been postponed more than a few hours in view of the imminence of the retreat of our ground forces. And, as a
THE OLYMPUS POSITION 71
consequence, it was no longer practicable for the air force to provide any assistance to the army except some measure of fighter defence in the back areas. A second unfortunate result of the withdrawal would be the concentration of our remaining aircraft upon the two or three airfields available, thereby offering some tempting targets to the German attackers.
Throughout the day enemy aircraft, freed for the time being from all fear of interruption by our fighters, continued remorselessly to bomb Larissa, whence the railway workers fled. The wretched town, already wrecked by an earthquake in March, was suffering now from its unfortunate position as a nodal point of numerous roads along which the British must retreat. The more the Germans could crater the streets and block them with rubble, the greater would be the delay that they might expect to impose upon our wheeled traffic and therefore the brighter their prospect of throwing our forces into a state of chaos and destroying them before ever they made good their withdrawal to the Thermopylae position.
On our western flank the Ist Armoured Brigade had left the area of Grevena at midnight, April 14th/15th, to gain the line of the Venetikos river. This withdrawal was not molested by the German ground forces and the distance to be covered did not amount to more than six or seven miles ; yet it took the column sixteen hours to reach its new position. The road was appalling. South of Grevena a narrow gorge could only take one line of traffic, and the whole route was encumbered by Greek and Yugoslav transport and marching men, dead horses, broken wagons and debris of all kinds, for the Luftwaffe had already been busy here, and our own vehicles had suffered equally with those of our Allies. As day broke and the long column emerged from the gorge on to high exposed ground the German dive- bombers came again. Fortunately they were attracted chiefly by the bridge over the Venetikos and had departed by the time the brigade made the winding descent to the river and crossed to the southern bank. Few casualties and little damage had been sustained, though the sorely over-worked 155th was the only anti-aircraft battery in action.
The position on the Venetikos was held by the Rangers with two companies and one in reserve, supported by the New Zealand machine-gunners, the 2nd R.H.A., and the Northumberland Hussars with their anti-tank guns. The 4th Hussars, which had been acting as rearguard, came back through the rain at nightfall to report that the Germans had not yet approached Grevena.
It was now evident that the Central Macedonian Army was in- capable of organized resistance and Brigadier Charrington reported
72 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
as much to G.H.Q. But his own brigade was officially described as having ‘ceased to exist as an aggressive fighting formation’. Cer- tainly, as an armoured force it could hardly be said to exist, for it was shedding broken-down tanks with every movement it made. The attached artillery was in much better case for the 102nd Anti-Tank Regiment (Northumberland Hussars) had lost only six guns, and the R.H.A. was said to be ‘as good as ever’.
Savige Force was now moving into position near Kalabaka, and
for the moment, at least, there appeared to be an easement of the pressure against Wilson’s western flank. As will presently be seen, the chief danger was to come from the east. ’ In the morning was issued the formal order for withdrawal to the Thermopylae position which would be conducted by General Blamey, commanding the Anzac Corps, leaving General Wilson free to confer upon questions of policy with the Greek Commander-in-Chief and the Greek Government. The first phase was to begin that same evening—the evening of April 15th—when the 19th Australian Brigade and the 6th New Zealand Brigade, the reserve to its own New Zealand Division, were to move back to covering positions.
This Australian brigade, which comprised only two weak batta- lions, with the 26th New Zealand Battalion attached, was not in contact with the Germans during the day although, from its position on the high ground beyond the Aliakmon on the left of the New Zealand Division, it had seen some enemy movement. It came back at night over the improvised bridges which had been constructed in its rear, but there was no suitable bridge for the passage of the eleven guns of the Ist Australian Anti-Tank Regiment, which had fought with the brigade at Vevi. These weapons had to be destroyed on the spot.
The ultimate destination of the 19th Australian Brigade was Dhomokos, on the southern edge of the Thessalian plain, where a strong rearguard was to be assembled under the command of Brigadier J. E. Lee. This force would include the 2/4th and 2/8th Battalions (19th Australian Brigade); the newly arrived 2/6th and 2/7th Battalions belonging to Savige’s 17th Australian Brigade; and the 2/1st Australian Field Regiment which had not yet been in action. It was April 17th before all these troops arrived.
The New Zealand divisional cavalry was already guarding the Elasson—Dhiskata road against enemy movement eastward from Grevena. Enemy aircraft bombed and machine-gunned the area without much effect. The 6th New Zealand Brigade went back to the Elasson area to come into position covering the two roads south of the town,
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THE OLYMPUS POSITION 73 om [ 4 +e
The Fighting at the Passes
AT the Servia Pass the 4th New Zealand Brigade was engaged with the 9th Panzer Division whose infantry had crossed the Aliakmon river during the night, presumably in readily portable assault boats. Before dawn of the 15th a party of Germans came up the road in loose | formation after the manner of Greek soldiery for whom they were at first mistaken. Some got by the New Zealand advanced posts before the 19th Battalion opened fire and, with the support of its own mortars and the Australian machine-guns, settled the affair. Repeated attacks by dive-bombers followed and the German artillery pounded away, but all with no avail. At noon and again at 5.45 p.m. infantry assaults were repulsed, some of the enemy choosing to wave white flags from their positions on the rocky hill-sides rather than to with- draw under fire. Thus the New Zealanders were able to collect about two hundred prisoners, some of them wounded, and the,German total losses were reckoned at four hundred. Two New Zealanders were killed and six wounded.
As close support for the infantry attacks the German bombers had failed completely, and the German artillery had made little impres- sion. On the other hand, the accurate and well-controlled fire of the New Zealand field guns and British medium batteries had hampered the enemy’s artillery and prevented the bridging of the Aliakmon. All that the Germans gained by their efforts on this day was posses- sion of the village of Servia which, although on our side of the river, was well outside our defences.
Next on the right, among the mountains between the Servia Pass and the Olympus Pass, the 16th Australian Brigade was not engaged. It had orders to move to Zarkhon where it would cover the line of retreat of the Ist Armoured Brigade and Savige Force which were expected to move back through Kalabaka and Trikkala as the withdrawal proceeded.
At the centre, or main, pass of the Olympus mountain, the fighting started soon after dawn with artillery registration by the New Zealand gunners and then quick bursts of fire on enemy vehicles and infantry assembling in front of the 22nd New Zealand Battalion which was astride the road. German tanks then sought a covered approach to the position by turning up a track which brought them under the fire of mortars and machine-guns supporting the 28th (Maori) Battalion holding the mountain slopes further to the left. Later in the morning other vehicles were seen to leave the main road and disperse, but no
74 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
serious attack developed against the 5th New Zealand Brigade. The German guns which opened at about 4.30 p.m. killed two men of the 22nd Battalion but otherwise produced little effect.
At the Platamon tunnel the 21st (Auckland) Battalion was sub- jected to something of an ordeal, for the Germans had been preparing throughout the night for an attack on the morning of April 15th. In the open plain which lay in front of the New Zealand position fresh _ enemy forces continued to assemble, and our outposts could see the flash of moving lights (the enemy could afford to ignore the possibili- ties of air attack) and even in some cases hear the guttural shouting of orders. The situation of the defenders was by no means satisfac- tory.Although they had done everything that was possible the tunnel was not seriously damaged, and the enemy appeared to be mustering in great strength for the assault against one solitary battalion. How- ever, the New Zealanders enjoyed the advantage of excellent observa- tion posts and of ground which would limit the number of armoured vehicles which could be deployed against them.
Daybreak brought the opening of a German artillery bombard- ment, to which the New Zealand guns replied. Then tanks and infantry began to move forward. It was estimated that as many as 150 tanks were seen in the course of the day, but despite this weight of armour the German attacks met with practically no success. There is little doubt that on this occasion the enemy was over-encumbered with armoured fighting vehicles, which could not be deployed on a broad front ; and, when they were knocked out or broke down, they hampered the movements and limited the area of manceuvre of the columns which followed.
So the New Zealanders were able to hold all attacks, with few casualties to themselves. Only on the left did the Germans succeed in gaining some ground, infiltrating in small bodies up into the foothills of Olympus and temporarily occupying a village which was within our defences. A counter-attack expelled them before darkness set in, but the night promised to be another anxious one.
To avert disaster it was essential that our forces should make good their retreat through Larissa and cross the open plain with as little delay as possible to Lamia. This was the main route to the Thermo- pylae position. General Blamey, however, hoped that some of his forces would be able to by-pass Larissa by making use of two secon- dary roads, one on the west which led south-eastwards from Trikkala by Kharditsa to Pharsala ; and one on the eastern flank, by Volos and then down the coast. Every effort was to be made to keep all routes clear of Greek troops, since congestion was likely to be bad enough
THE OLYMPUS POSITION 75
in any case; and it was, of course, understood that the Thermopylae position would be held by our forces alone.
The dispositions for safeguarding the left flank were as complete as they could be; but the two brigades of the New Zealand Division holding the Olympus passes would be obliged to accept battle on the morrow and the day after. Then, on the night of April 17th/18th they must break contact with the enemy and come away with all speed. They were expected to retire through Larissa and thence by the road to Volos and so down the coast, but a reconnaissance by a New Zealand staff officer subsequently revealed that this road was not good enough for the ‘shuttle service’ of trucks required to get the two brigades away. So, plans had to be redrafted hurriedly. There was nothing for it but that the New Zealanders must be committed to the main Lamia road, to swell the stream of battle traffic in retreat. On this afternoon German aircraft carried out a heavy raid on Volos and did much damage.
On April 16th the only heavy fighting occurred at the Platamon tunnel where, perhaps, we had over-estimated the strength of our position and under-estimated the fighting quality of the German mountain troops. Certainly a single battalion could not be expected to hold this gap indefinitely, although it was reckoned that no more troops could be spared for the task..
The left flank of the 21st New Zealand Battalion had been heavily engaged by a strong German patrol during the night, and shortly after dawn the enemy attacked in this quarter with a battalion of infantry supported by mortar and artillery fire. After holding on for three hours the left company of the New Zealanders was forced to give ground, which resulted in the withdrawal of the centre and right companies to a reserve position south of the tunnel. Even so it became more and more difficult to prevent parts of the thin line from being over-run or cut off. All movement was harassed by artillery fire and by the attacks of tanks which were driven boldly up the steep hillsides. Soon after 10 a.m. Lieut-Colonel N. L. Macky, the batta- lion commander, signalled to the Corps that his position was un- tenable, and, in reply, was told to fall back towards the river Pinios, demolishing the road as he went.
The intention was to occupy for a time a ridge about a mile south of the tunnel, but the German pressure was too great. While the carriers kept the enemy infantry at bay with Bren gun fire the retreat was continued until the battalion was beyond the range of the German artillery. The four guns of the 27th New Zealand Field Battery came safely out of action. At length Macky’s command reached the gorge where the Pinios river emerges from the mountains
76 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
to flow into the sea.! Here a bridge had been destroyed, but a ferry was in use—a flat-bottomed barge pulled to and fro by hand- ropes. The banks of the river were between twenty and thirty feet high, so light vehicles and guns could only be embarked and landed with great difficulty. The artillery tractors and limbers were driven over the undecked railway bridge after sleepers had been closely placed side by side across the rails. When all had crossed, extensive demolitions were carried out on road and railway. The ferry was sunk, ‘but not before a large flock of sheep and goats and their two shepherdesses had been ferried across’.
Despite the enemy’s efforts to smash his way through, the New Zealanders had got back in comparatively good order from Plata- mon. Although much equipment had been abandoned the little force had brought away all its guns and had lost only one officer and thirty-five men
During the passage of the river, Brigadier C. A. Clowes, command- ing the Corps artillery, had arrived. He was sent by General Blamey to see what could be done to protect our coastal flank where a German penetration would jeopardize the whole plan of withdrawal. Already reinforcements had been bespoken. They were to come from the 16th Australian Brigade, which had begun to withdraw from the mountains between Olympus and Servia, its destination the western flank. When the leading battalion, the 2/2nd, reached Elasson it was diverted eastward to the Pinios gorge. Other units were to follow, for, whatever else happened, the western end of the gorge must be held.
In darkness and drizzling rain the 21st New Zealand Battalion moved up the gorge which is known as the Vale of Tempe. It is about five miles in length with steep banks rising on either side, the Pinios river, deep and flowing swiftly, being about thirty-five yards wide. Battalion headquarters was established at the village of Tempe. One company covered the road three miles forward in the gorge.
At the Olympus pass the men in the forward posts of the 22nd New Zealand Battalion, which was astride the main road, heard Germans calling out in English during the night. It was thought that by this means the enemy hoped to draw fire, so no action was taken ; but next morning came the discovery that the shouts were a ruse to distract attention from the cutting of wire and the lifting of mines. The 22nd was attacked soon after dawn, but when our mortars, and the guns of the 5th New Zealand Field Regiment opened fire the enemy with- drew. Tanks and other vehicles were then seen to be advancing, the demonstration—it was hardly more than that—covering the forward movement of mortars and infantry guns. These weapons, cleverly
1See Map 4.
THE OLYMPUS POSITION 77
sited, soon became troublesome. Their fire appeared to herald the launching of another infantry attack up the rocky hillsides. Far back towards Katerini, the road was thickly crowded with battle traffic, and German tanks turned off right and left wherever the ground seemed favourable for movement. There were many targets for our guns on the fronts of the 22nd and of the 28th (Maori) Battalion which held the left of the brigade position, and about a dozen German vehicles were hit. Tanks which opened upon one of our infantry posts at a range of 400 yards were driven back by the fire of our artillery and mortars.
By eleven o’clock rain shrouded the hillsides and half an hour later a luminous mist had reduced visibility to 300 yards. This by no means favoured the defence, for the enemy infantry took advantage of the obscurity to work their way forward along the whole front. About 3 p.m. the mist lifted for a while on the left, and the Maoris saw parties of Germans entering the Mavroneri ravine with the intention of moving along it round the left of the brigade line. Bren gun fire at 1,200 yards produced little effect. On the right the 23rd Battalion lost a post near a small village, but another thrust was not successful and cost the Germans twenty killed. On the extreme right in very broken country they worked round the flank almost unseen; and although a counter-attack succeeded, the New Zealanders found that their opponents were not shaken off.
Orders had been received for the brigade to withdraw to the top of the pass at night, for such a movement, while giving little away to the Germans, would greatly facilitate the main withdrawal when the time came. The Maoris began to carry back part of their impedimenta late in the afternoon. Their left company, in mist and falling rain, could see little of the scrub-covered hillsides below them, but managed to check by fire the advance of German mountain troops who had thrust forward in some strength. Covered by machine-gun and mortar fire the enemy attacked and overran one section post, but the Maori counter-attack was successful. Owing to these exchanges the with- drawal of the battalion, over a difficult route, was somewhat delayed and a number of men did not get back. The Maoris lost four killed and eighteen missing on this day but inflicted many casualties on the Germans.
The other two battalions had less difficulty in breaking contact except on the extreme right flank where the Germans were so close. Coming back over the shoulder of Mount Olympus the 23rd had to climb to 2,000 feet over narrow tracks slippery with mud and slush. Nine anti-tank 2-pdr. guns had to be tipped over the cliff; also ten of the battalion carriers and twenty trucks could not be brought
78 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
away. The men of the brigade struggled on for most of the night, only discarding equipment when they could carry it no longer; but arms and ammunition were retained and the tracks and roads behind them were blown in. It had been an anxious day with artillery and tanks playing a diminishing part as the weather closed down, while the well- trained German infantry sought to exploit conditions which favoured an unseen advance. Yet the Sth New Zealand Brigade still held the pass.
CHAPTER VII
Retreat to Thermopylae
om[ 1 lo The First Two Days
AT the Servia pass the battalions of the 4th New Zealand Brigade made some alterations in their dispositions. An artillery duel con- tinued throughout April 16th across the Aliakmon, but only a single German patrol made any attempt to approach the New Zealand posts. Late in the day the battery of the 64th Medium Regiment pulled out of action : owing to the rain and the mud and the difficult exits from the gun positions this business occupied nearly eight hours.
In case his New Zealanders in the Olympus positions should be pressed hard by armoured forces when their retreat began, General Freyberg gave orders for a covering detachment to occupy a position at Elevtherokhori where the main road from Olympus meets that from Servia. At this important junction were assembled in the eve- ning three platoons of New Zealand carriers, some anti-tank guns and some machine-guns under the command of Lieut.-Colonel C. S. J. Duff of the 7th New Zealand Anti-Tank Regiment.
As for the western flank, Brigadier Savige had made his disposi- tions near Kalabaka where he waited for the Ist Armoured Brigade to come through. His chief trouble arose from the stream of Greek soldiery, mostly unarmed and in no sort of order, which filled the roads and caused a certain amount of disturbance in Kalabaka where some looting occurred. Yet it is said that these Greeks were, on the whole, ‘a good humoured lot’.
At daybreak the Ist Armoured Brigade had started off on its march from the Venetikos to Kalabaka. It proved to be a slow and difficult journey. The road, optimistically described on the ordnance map as ‘motor, under construction’, proved to be little more than a mud track winding through mountain country. Under any circumstances
79
80 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
it would have proved almost impassable to a mechanized force; and the cratering caused by the previous day’s bombing, in addition to the burned-out wrecks of Greek lorries and our own second-echelon transport, helped further to slow down progress. From the Venetikos to Kalabaka is only thirty miles, perhaps a good day’s march for a fully motorized column. Yet by midnight, after something like eighteen hours on the road the head of the brigade had only advanced twelve miles, the rear only five miles. Progress would naturally be faster once the column got its head out of the mountains on to the straighter, clearer and better surfaced road across the plain; but the time lost in the course of the day might prove a serious matter if the New Zealand defence at the passes were to cave in against over- whelming attack.
Yet to the men engaged in the retreat it was a blissful day, for it poured with rain the whole time with very low clouds, which pre- vented any road ‘straffing’ on the part of the Luftwaffe. The German aircraft were, in fact, able to get into the air, but had to content them- selves with bombing known targets such as Larissa.
After his original check at the Olympus passes von List seems to have decided to exploit the western route to the Thessalian plain by way of Kalabaka and Trikkala, advancing on the heels of the Ist Armoured Brigade. But this decision could not at once be put into effect. The 9th Panzer Division after its losses at Proastion was in no condition to undertake an energetic pursuit, so the Sth Panzer Division, which had taken part in the original breakthrough into Yugoslavia, was moved south to carry out the operation. This im- posed a delay which destroyed all prospect of cutting off any part of the British force. It was not until April 15th that the bulk of the division began to move down the road to the south. Not until April 16th, when the British were moving towards Kalabaka, did the Germans reach Grevena more than thirty miles to the north. And south of Grevena the going appeared so bad, after British demoli- tions and the bombing of the Luftwaffe had reinforced the work of nature, that German military engineers were in some doubt as to whether the passage could be attempted at all.
Enemy accounts take considerable credit for the march that followed. The road was no doubt in much worse condition than when our Ist Armoured Brigade passed over it a day or two earlier, and the German reports described it as the worst that the Sth Panzer Division had encountered. The engineers managed to throw up bridges of a sort, and every man who could be spared from the wheel of a vehicle aided in widening and otherwise improving the surface of the road. Tanks and tractors were used to pull the lorries over the
RETREAT TO THERMOPYLAE 81
worst spots, and the whole operation was carried out with charac- teristic German thoroughness and vigour. But it took the German division three nights and two days to cover something under forty miles from the Grevena district to Kalabaka. And from the point of view of its effect upon the campaign the whole effort was a useless expenditure of energy and ingenuity, for by the time that the head of the German column emerged on the western fringe of the plain of Thessaly the British force was well on its way to Thermopylae more than a hundred miles distant.
Any satisfaction that might have derived from the successful defen- sive fighting at Olympus and the freedom from interference by the German air and ground forces of our troops in retreat was more than counter-balanced by the dismal developments on the Greek front to the west. The Greeks and the British were now hopelessly split asunder and retreating along divergent lines. The Army of Central Macedonia, like the Army of Thrace, had ceased to exist, and all the Greek divisions north of Grevena had disintegrated and were scatter- ing through the mountains. There remained only the Army of Epirus under General Tsolakoglou, and that was in very low water. Its ammunition was running short. Its commander had little heart left for the fight. There was only one route of supply for the troops and that was the road from the south through Yanina; and once the British withdrawal to Thermopylae was completed that too would be at the mercy of the Germans. That influential figure in Greck politics, the Bishop of Yanina, was pressing the Prime Minister to abandon the hopeless struggle.
On the morning of April 16th General Wilson had met General Papagos in conference at Lamia. The Greek Commander-in-Chief had nothing good to report, and at the end of the meeting suggested that the time had come when, in order to avoid the devastation of the country, the evacuation of the British Commonwealth forces from Greece might be considered. Naturally, General Wilson lost no time in reporting this suggestion to General Wavell in Cairo.
The rain and the mist which had preserved our troops from air attack during the withdrawal on the previous day again came to our assistance on the morning of Thursday, April 17th. Later in the day, however, the skies cleared in some localities, and the Luftwaffe were again in evidence, though the damage they did was small.
Not since the first clash at Vevi was there so little fighting on our front, a testimony to the fashion in which our troops had broken contact with the enemy and delayed his advance. For the retreat was now in full swing, at the moment not greatly menaced by the German ground forces except on the eastern flank where it seemed that the
82 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
enemy was about to make his attempt to break out from the Vale of Tempe and advance in force down the road to Larissa.
The Vale of Tempe, a shady cleft parting the giants Olympus and Ossa, is the Arcadia of northern Greece. In a land of treeless, sun- dried hills Tempe is a veritable paradise of abundant foliage and cool flowing water. It caught the imagination of antiquity and to the classical Greeks it was the ‘happy valley’ of pastoral tranquillity and innocence, where the Gods themselves sported carelessly and it was always the Golden Age.
The description of Pliny, translated into the gracious Elizabethan language of Philemon Holland, will not easily be matched:
. the most famous river Peneus, which arising near Gomphi, runneth for five hundred stadia i in a woodie dale between Ossa and Olympus, and halfe that way is navigable. In this course of his are the places called Tempe, five miles in length, and almost an acre and a half [sic] broad, where on both hands the hills arise by a gentle ascent above the reach of man’s sight. Within-forth glideth Peneus by, in a fresh green grove, clear as crystal glasse over the gravelly stones; pleasant to behold for the grasse upon the bankes, and resounding again with the melodious concert of the birds.
Yet this pastoral scene has often witnessed the tramp of armed forces, and it was here that the Greeks under Leonidas had planned to make their first stand against the Persian hordes of Xerxes: planned but failed to execute, for the position could be turned by a force coming over the Olympus Pass, where the Germans came and the New Zealanders stood in 1941.
During the night of the 16th/17th the whole of the 16th Australian Brigade was moving down from the mountains. The 2/2nd Battalion arrived at the Vale of Tempe before dawn, but the 2/3rd, which was following, did not reach the gorge until the afternoon of the 17th. The 2/1st was too far in rear to be collected in time, although Allen, the brigade commander who was to command at Tempe, spent half the night trying to get in touch with it. He did not receive hls orders until 2 a.m.
The two Australian battalions which did arrive were very tired. They had had a harassing march before they were picked up by their . transport, and their route to Tempe was then by way of poor bombed Larissa where the traffic congestion was considerable and some of the roads were blocked by the rubble of wrecked buildings: Brigadier Allen arrived soon after midday by which time defence positions were already being occupied. Covering the western end of the gorge the New Zealand companies were on the lower slopes of Mount Ossa,
1 See Map 4.
RETREAT TO THERMOPYLAE 83
east of Tempe. One company was responsible for the road. The 2/2nd Australian Battalion protected the road and railway on the left flank against attack across the river from Gonnos, the Australian positions being on the western slopes of Mount Ossa near the village of Evangeliamos. Later, one company was placed on the high ground west of the road ; and when the 2/3rd Battalion came up the position was extended still further to the west, the flank then resting south of Parapotamos. But most of the 2/3rd was kept in reserve. Seven anti- tank guns, Australian and New Zealand, and three troops of New Zealand field artillery were in support of the infantry.
In the afternoon German patrols appeared. Troops and pack animals were seen on the ridge above Gonnos, and in the evening the enemy entered the village. That they had done so was verified by an Australian patrol which crossed the river in a punt after dark: later there was a brush with some Germans at the river passage.
On the New Zealand front a German tank was seen to come along the railway in the gorge until stopped by a blocked tunnel. Towards dusk fire from this tank and from German infantry caused casualties to an Australian patrol. Poor radio reception, due to the mountainous country delayed our gunners in engaging targets, but the 26th New Zealand Battery kept the road and railway demolitions under harassing fire during the night, and expended a number of rounds on Gonnos where the enemy was showing lights. The German artillery was not yet in action.
As the Germans in the Vale of Tempe were in the right rear of the Sth New Zealand Brigade at the head of the Olympus Pass it was judged necessary to withdraw this brigade without further delay. The movement was carried out during the afternoon, the only interference coming from German mountain troops who pressed the 23rd Batta- lion rather hard and had to be held at bay by machine-gun fire while the companies dribbled back. In mist and rain the brigade was con- veyed in trucks to join the general retreat through Larissa and along the Lamia road.
At the Servia pass the German artillery continued to bombard the New Zealand positions, and when the mist lifted aircraft attacked. But our guns were pulled out during daylight, and at 8 p.m. the infantry began to withdraw. Before daylight of the 18th the brigade convoys were well on their road south, a rearguard supplied by the 20th Battalion, with a detachment of New Zealand sappers, being left to complete the demolitions.
On their way back the 5th and then the 4th New Zealand Brigades passed through the New Zealand cavalry posted at Elevtherokhori; but the regiment had left some carriers in the Dhiskata region and
84 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
sent some armoured cars to Allen Force. Duff Force, now no longer needed, was disbanded, while the 6th New Zealand Brigade, south of Elasson, made ready its demolitions and prepared to retreat when orders to do so should be received. This brigade had been joined during the day by detachments of the Sth New Zealand Field Regi- ment from the Olympus pass, and of the 7th Medium Regiment from Servia. The 26th New Zealand Battalion, which had parted company from the 19th Australian Brigade, came through and spent the night in rear of the 6th Brigade.
The retreat of the Ist Armoured Brigade had continued. Kalabaka was reached during the morning, and here some misunderstanding seems to have arisen. According to the orders of the Anzac Corps the Ist Armoured Brigade was to cover Savige’s withdrawal, but Charrington had received orders from G.H.Q. to go into reserve forthwith at Ata Lanti, 170 miles away, behind the Thermopylae position. Leaving a small detachment—Rangers and anti-tank guns —to act as rearguard to Savige Force, the Ist Armoured Brigade proceeded on its way through Trikkala, where it refuelled, and towards Larissa. West of Larissa the premature destruction of a bridge over the Pinios river compelled a detour over a track slippery with mud ; but despite this delay, and another caused by an air-raid, the column passed into the main stream of traffic at Larissa about nightfall. Driving on through the darkness with blazing headlights— it was our experience that the German dive-bombers never operated at night—the head of the brigade reached Pharsala by midnight: Pharsala where Caesar had overthrown Pompey and the forces of the Roman Senate in one of the greatest battles of antiquity. The 4th Hussars still had about thirty light tanks left, but the cruisers of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment had been reduced to four as the result of more losses through broken tracks.
Savige Force was left nearest to the enemy on the western flank after the Ist Armoured Brigade had passed through Kalabaka. As we know, the Germans were still some distance away, and, on receipt of fresh orders, Brigadier Savige made preparations to withdraw during the night. It seemed that his chief problem would be a traffic problem.
As the British and Greek armies continued to withdraw along diverging routes with an hourly widening gap between them, no further co-operation was possible between the two Allies. The diffi- culties of command were manifest. General Wilson was, in theory, under the orders of the Greek Commander-in-Chief, but he had a right of appeal to Middle East Command and a certain indefinable responsibility regarding the use to which he committed the Australian
RETREAT TO THERMOPYLAE 85
and New Zealand troops in his force. It is probable too, that General Papagos exercised a rather looser control, and hesitated to express his views with quite the emphasis which he would have used in addressing a commander of his own nation. Difficult as it is to ensure the smooth working of such a command when all is going well, the task is immeasurably more difficult when that command has been hastily improvised to fight a delaying action against desperate odds on the territory of one of the participants.
It was on this day that the remnants of the Yugoslav armies surrendered at Sarajevo, depressing news for British and Greek alike. But if the Greek morale was beginning to waver, it was not among the fighting troops nor yet among the common people of city and countryside that there was any sign of weakening.
The present writer, who passed the whole of this period in Athens and its neighbourhood, had some opportunity of seeing the subtle corrosive of defeatism at work. Athens, which remains as dis- tinguished for the mercurial effervescence of its population now as in the days of Saint Paul or Pericles, had begun to buzz with rumours early in the week. The Ministry of Press and Propaganda, while restraining all Press comment on the military situation, proved singularly unsuccessful in discouraging the stories that were being disseminated from day to day to the effect that the German forces had shattered the Olympus position, that the British were already making plans for a speedy withdrawal of all their forces, and that they had requested the Greeks to cover their evacuation with their army and fleet.
Wednesday, April 16th, and Thursday, April 17th, were among the worst days in respect of defeatist rumours. It was said that the British line had been fatally broken on the Olympus front, that the Australian Division had been cut to pieces and that the Germans were swarming over the Larissa plain. So far was this from the truth that at this time no German troops had yet broken through to the plain, the withdrawal was being conducted in good order and only one of the three Australian brigades had suffered at all severely.
Athens was badly rattled during these days. One symptom of the spirit now abroad was the tearing down of anti-German posters. On the first day of the German attack a number of these had appeared, the most effective being one which depicted Hitler as a butcher lead- ing to slaughter a number of fat pigs—Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Rumania and Bulgaria, and calling out for more blood. Between nightfall on April 17th and dawn on April 18th every one of these had disappeared from walls and
86 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
hoardings. It was never discovered who was responsible for this significant gesture.
The tension in the capital was much heightened during these last days by the appearance of slow-marching armed police who patrolled, in groups of half a dozen as a rule, up and down the Athens streets. This certainly did nothing to calm the general anxiety. Their somewhat sinister presence suggested that the Government feared an impending Germanophile coup d’état. There were actually rumours of some such stroke on the Thursday and the names of the leading members of the Government that was to seize power were bandied about.
In truth, there was now an urge, both in the Government and in the Army Command to prepare for the inevitable, acting without sanction of King or Premier, the former a loyal friend of Britain, the latter a sick and disheartened man.
Papademas, Minister of War, was responsible on April 17th for the issue of an order declaring further resistance impossible and giving a free hand to the Generals to behave as they saw fit. The same day an Army Order was published, releasing for a period of two months’ leave all those classes which were just about to be called up for mili- tary service. This latter order was the first to become known, and nothing did more to convince the nation that the Government con- sidered that the game was up. Still more reprehensible was the con- duct of Oeconomou, Minister of Communications, who took it upon himself to issue instructions that, to prevent unnecessary loss of life, the remaining Greek aircraft should be grounded and the petrol dumps at Tatoi and Elevsis destroyed. The British Military Mission fortunately received early news of this intention and was quick to inform the King, who promptly secured the revocation of the order, and British ground staff at the aerodromes succeeded in preventing the intended sabotage ; but Oeconomou’s proposal is an indication of the lengths to which some defeatists were prepared to go in order to - bring the struggle in Greece to an abrupt end. The surrender of Bakopoulos in eastern Macedonia at a time when his troops were still fighting bravely in the frontier forts may be regarded either as prema- ture, or as displaying a realistic view of the fate of Greece. There were known to be other commanders who felt that a sufficient gesture had been made in the face of the overwhelming strength of the invaders, and that the Army should accept the situation and make the best terms it could.
RETREAT TO THERMOPYLAE 87 om [2 ]«
The Rearguard Actions: Tempe—Elasson
FRIDAY, April 18th, a fine sparkling spring day, saw another crisis pass. Our forces, though under constant air attack, were on their way back across the plain of Thessaly, and were beginning to arrive upon the Thermopylae position, their hazardous withdrawal through the bottle-neck of Larissa being made possible by the stout resistance and self-sacrifice of the rearguards.
At the Vale of Tempe the Australians and New Zealanders com- prising Allen Force had orders to hold the German armour at the exits from the gorge until nightfall. The German guns opened as soon as it was light enough to see, shelling the positions of the 21st New Zealand Battalion at the end of the defile and on the hillsides to the east. German mortars opened from the other side of the river and were engaged by the 26th New Zealand Field Battery.
About 7 a.m. German infantry moved down to the river from Gonnos, and about a battalion was seen on the tracks leading west from Gonnos towards the Elasson-Tirnavos road. An enemy advance near Parapotamos came under our artillery fire but the left of the 2/2nd Australian Battalion was threatened, and Australian carriers protecting this flank suffered loss from the German mortars.
Before noon the 21st New Zealand Battalion became heavily engaged, the enemy clearing away the road block in front of the forward company. Tanks came through and knocked out an anti- tank gun ; then supported by infantry they sprayed the forward slopes of the Ossa massif with their fire. Other anti-tank guns claimed two or three tanks before they were over-run as the New Zealand infantry began to lose ground. The battalion began its retirement platoon by platoon in a direction which was mainly eastward, past the village of Ambelakia, the movement being covered by the fire of the field guns which kept the tanks in check for a time. Unfortunately, the New Zealanders found it impossible to reform or reorganize among the maze of gullies on the upper slopes of Ossa, and they were now out of touch with the Australian battalions in the centre and on the left. Comparatively few had succeeded in joining the Australians.
About 3 p.m. the Germans made a fresh effort, after Allen’s head- quarters on the railway had been bombed by about thirty-five air- craft. While tanks advanced down the Larissa road from Tempe, infantry, covered by machine-gun fire, waded the Pinios and crossed it on rafts. Australian mortars and Bren guns checked this movement and killed a fair number of Germans, but the tanks, now followed by
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RETREAT TO THERMOPYLAE 89
infantry, pressed on. Meanwhile the enemy were round the left flank of the 2/2nd Australian Battalion and digging in south of the village of Parapotamos. Covered by the fire from a number of carriers, the left company of the 2/2nd with a company of the 2/3rd in position on its left rear, were able to get back to the village of Makrikhori whence a further withdrawal was made in trucks.
These two companies joined brigade headquarters, another com- pany of the 2/3rd Battalion, some carriers, and some armoured cars of the New Zealand cavalry, at a defile some six miles S.S.W. of Tempe where road and railway crossed.
German tanks and infantry were now fanning out in the valley near Evangeliamos, and the remnants of the 2/2nd Battalion were forced back into the hills to the east. The carriers and armoured cars and the New Zealand field guns engaged the enemy armour till night- fall, covering the withdrawal of the infantry who’were near brigade headquarters and enabling them to gain their trucks. The German advance along the road stopped when darkness fell, though hostile infantry were still in motion in the hills. Away to the east small parties of New Zealanders and Australians were making painful progress across the mountain ridges of Ossa towards the bomb-wrecked port of Volos.
Allen Force—it was only a ‘brigade group’—had done its duty. The German advance, made by the 2nd Panzer Division and the 6th Mountain Division, from the Vale of Tempe down the road to Larissa had been held. Now all that remained of Allen Force, in carriers, trucks and armoured cars, drove back cautiously through the darkness with no lights showing towards Larissa. Less than three miles north of the town the leading trucks came under fire from the railway-crossing : a detachment of German Alpine troops had moved wide round the western flank of Allen Force during the afternoon and now blocked the road at this point. It seemed to our men, watching the tracer bullets and flares, that Larissa must be in enemy hands, so most of the column turned back. Then in the darkness groups of vehicles made off eastwards over farm tracks and sodden fields in an endeavour to reach the port of Volos.
They arrived at Aiya which was found to be a dead end, a mountain- side village from which only goat-tracks led southwards. Some of the troops returned in the direction of Larissa, others took to the hills and made their way as best they could towards the coast. Helped by Greek peasants and fisher folk, some reached the sea-shore, acquired caiques and fishing smacks, and, sailing down the coast, rejoined their units further south. Others crossed into the island of Euboea and thence back to the mainland. Others, again, after lying hid D
90 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
for days in the hills eventually arrived in Crete long after the evacua- tion of Greece had been completed. But Allen Force which had fought so finely at Tempe against heavy odds of numbers and fire- power had ceased to exist.
The scene now shifts westward to Elevtherokhori, on the main road twenty-five miles north of Larissa where the road from Katerini through the Olympus Pass comes in. This junction was protected by two squadrons of New Zealand cavalry and two troops of New Zealand anti-tank guns.
Out in front, coming back from Servia, was Lieut.-Colonel H. K. Kippenberger and a few Bren carriers of the 20th New Zealand Battalion. As we have seen, this unit had been acting as rearguard of the 4th New Zealand Brigade, but Colonel Kippenberger had been thinning out his force as he retired until only this small detachment remained with him. As he moved towards Elevtherokhori he stopped at each road demolition while the charge was blown, so that he could bring along the sapper parties.
In the early morning the New Zealand cavalry were surprised to hear sounds of traffic on the road coming down from the Olympus Pass: it had been thought that our demolitions would have delayed an enemy advance by this route for some considerable time. Soon the Elevtherokhori rearguard was engaged with German tanks, two of which were hit, and motor-cyclists who also suffered loss. But one of our anti-tank guns became bogged and had to be abandoned as the rearguard, in the face of superior forces, drew back south of the road junction behind the bridge which.was now blown up.
Kippenberger’s party stumbled into this engagement and, being fired on by tanks at close range, could not get through. Sappers and infantry took to the hills whence the colonel led out later one small party on foot. Meanwhile the rearguard took toll of tanks, infantry, armoured cars and lorries before German mortars, opening at short range, settled the issue. The rearguard came back through Elasson which was being bombed from the air and then through Barra- clough’s 6th New Zealand Brigade in position to the south.
The brigade covered the two roads which led, respectively, south- east and almost due south from Elasson and united at Tirnavos. On the former road, which led over the Meneksos Pass, was the 24th New Zealand Battalion; on the latter, traversing easier country, the 25th Battalion was in position, well supported by the 2/3rd Australian Field Regiment and a troop of the 64th Medium Regiment, with two troops of New Zealand field guns further in rear. The 26th Battalion and a number of New Zealand anti-tank guns were in reserve at
RETREAT TO THERMOPYLAE 91
Dhomenikon, and an additional New Zealand field battery was also available if needed. We had no tanks. When battle was joined in this pleasant valley, Australian, New Zealand and British guns opposed German armour.
At first our shell-fire hit several of the tanks and kept them in check, while the German counter-battery work was of little avail. So the enemy attack was delayed until later in the day, although our medium artillery ran out of ammunition early in the afternoon. Brigadier Barraclough took the opportunity to thin out his artillery and infantry, the 26th New Zealand Battalion being taken back in trucks to Larissa to entrain for the south. Then, just before dusk, the Germans put down a heavy bombardment under cover of which they attacked the 24th New Zealand Battalion at the Meneksos Pass. Here the leading tanks hit land-mines, and the Australian guns shelled the remainder of the assault column; but as the German armour pulled back the infantry pressed on over the demolitions which no vehicle could pass. Yet they failed to close and only delayed for a little the withdrawal of the battalion when it sought to break off the action and obey the order to go.
On the other road, where the batteries pulled out troop by troop as the New Zealand infantry retired, the rear parties held on until 11.30 p.m. and then drove hurriedly away, blowing culverts as they came, to reach Larissa about 3 a.m. on the morning of April 19th. From Larissa the 6th New Zealand Brigade—with the exception of the 26th Battalion which had already departed—was directed towards Volos with orders to take up a covering position in that vicinity. The Volos road, after being condemned as unusable, was now considered fit for traffic, thanks to the exertions of the sappers and to the effect of the hot April sun.
Savige had begun his retreat from Kalabaka, according to orders received, during the night of April 17th/18th, protected by a small rearguard of infantry, tanks, artillery and machine-guns. He was not worried by the enemy and the last of his vehicles had passed through Larissa early in the morning. His engineers had blown a large number of the bridges which carry the road across the streams of the Thessa- lian plain.
The Ist Armoured Brigade continued on its way to Ata Lanti, where it would be in reserve behind the Thermopylae position, and its units began to reach their destination before nightfall. The air attacks made upon them while passing through Larissa and crossing the plain had done little damage; but at the northern end of the Lamia pass Lieut.-Colonel R. L. Syer, commanding the 64th Medium
92 THE CAMPAIGN IN GREECE
Regiment R.A. which was under orders for Molos, received a moons from a bomb splinter and died a little later.
Puttick’s 4th New Zealand Brigade began to reach its devination: Molos, by noon. Instead of continuing southwards to Lamia, Hargest’s 5th Brigade turned east to reach Volos by way of Almiros, its operation order having, by mistake, substituted Volos for Molos. In consequence the brigade did not reach its destination before dark.
om [3 ]« Air Attacks Continue
DurRInG the daylight hours, the column of motor transport which crowded the road from Larissa to Lamia and beyond underwent a trying ordeal for, with improved weather conditions, the Luftwaffe was out in force. Our vehicles could never move faster than the modest rate of ten to fifteen miles an hour on account of the conges- tion; and in the absence of any anti-aircraft batteries the German bombers had it all their own way. They would circle overhead, select a target, and then dive. Sirens screaming, they swooped down amid a rattle of ineffectual small-arms fire from the ground. A crash or thud as bomb after bomb burst about the road was followed by the roar of the approaching fighters who swept along the column to machine-gun their all-too-visible targets. Yet the procession crept on by fits and starts: damaged vehicles were pushed aside, blazing wrecks avoided, detours made where the road had been destroyed. Even when no bombs had fallen the surface, broken by the effect of winter rains followed by the unaccustomed traffic which it had been called upon to carry, was now turning to mud in this flat and marshy plain. All day long the Anzac engineers toiled at the tasks of rein- forcement and repair, using any materials which came to hand.
It was fortunate that no direct hits were made upon any of the important bridges during the course of this phase of the retreat, but an ammunition truck was hit quite early in the day just as it was approaching a little bridge north of Pharsala. The consequent explo- sion badly damaged the embankment north of the bridge and the engineers went to work to make a diversion, but the ground was so soft and yielding, after the recent rain, that the job took four hours to complete. And during all this time, while the close-packed vehicles waited, by great good fortune the German bombing was both in- accurate and unintelligent. The pilots might have concentrated on hitting the leading