The Second Volume of the Official ar History of the
A.I.F. entitled nGreece, Crete and Syria" by Mr. Gavin Long
contains much that is of special interest to est Australians .
The 2/11th Battalion and men from this State in the
2/3rd Fie l d Regiment and the 2/7th Field Ambulance played a
distinguished part in the fighting in Greece and Crete; and
the 2/16th Battalion had an important role in the brief
Syri n campaign.
The main story of Greece and Crete makes sorry reading.
So much 1as done and endured for so little result.
Poli.tically, the idea of' supporting Greece .vas sound.
lith a small and ill-equipped force she had already defeated
the Italian armJ ~hich had invaded her territories without any
semblance or justification; and the despatch of an expedition
ary force to help her as a gesture of consid rable value. It
must also be remember d th t hen the decision to send the
force as made, Greece as not at ar ith Germany, and there
were no indications of a German invasion. It was even s id
that, ~hen the first allied troops arrived t Piraeus, the
German ili tary Attache at Athens sat on the wharf and
counted them as they
so.
rched ashore; and it may ell have been
But by the end of' arch, hen the Australian troops
began to take the fie l d, the hole outlook had changed, and a
German invasion 1as imminent.
It was only t enty six years since Gallipoli , nd one
might have expected that someone at ovement Control 1ould
h ve remembered that most of the transports hich ere sent to
Lemnos in arch 1915 had to be returned to Alexandria and
unloaded and re-loaded, because men ere on one ship and their
1eapons and material on another . But app rently the lesson
as never learnt· and in 1J41 troops a~d material ere
despatched from Alexandria to Greece in odd lots - the only
rule being that every ship must be filled to capacity. In
the result, brigade staffs lere sent on one ship, and their
headquarters including signals on another. One half of a
battalion as separated fro the other. And transport vehicles
ere sent separately.
When units ere arriving piecemeal and higgledy-piggledy
in this ay, they should have been sorted out on arrival and
fully equipped before they went into the field. But for
various reasons - time, only one road, only one r il ay, the
distance from Athens to the front, etc. - this could not be
done, and the campaign in Greece started ith formations and
units in a muddle. The casual reader of r. Long's book may
perhaps think that Greece as nothing but a muddle from
beginning to end . But he ill be rong. Admittedly, the
higher eo and as in a flap for most of the time - though
there a s some excuse for this, in that, o ing to difficultie
in communication. it ~as never kno~n ~rom one day to the next
what the Greek ar~ was doing, or going to do. But it would
be a mistake to think th t the staff ork as bad . Even to
the troops isolated at Kalabaka 40 or 50 miles from the rest
of the 6th Australian Division, the rations came regularly
every ~: hen the time came to ithdraw the transport trucks
reported at the right place at the right time; and the
withdra al by stages to Athens all ent very nearly to plan,
except hen, as r. Long mentions, the e ealand Engineers
accidentally demolished the main bridge across the Pen1os
River t enty four hours too soon, and left the column on the
wrong side .
· hatever one may think of the initial dispositions and
the mixing up of units, it is clear from r . Long's narrative
that the extrication of the force and the embarkation of the
greater part of it by the avy as something for hich e ery
credit must be given to those ho did the pl anning and
organisation.
2 .
Hitherto very little has been ritten about the Greek
campaign, and many people must :Yonder what happened and hat
it was all about. The ana ers are all in r. Long's book.
He deals ~ith the political decisions, the strategic plan,
the tactical dispositions, the ork of each unit - and in many
cases individuals; and having done this, he tells the story
from the German side. It is a very able and well written
book, and those who already kno something about the subject
matter will be the first to offer Mr. Long their congratulations
The Greek campaign as quickly over, but those ho
took part in it will always have the pleasantest recollections
of the country and its people - so patient, so courageous, and
so anxious. to help.
The departure from Greece by sea was either full of
thrills or ithout incident, depending on whether one was on
a naval vessel i1hich travelled quickly to its destination, or
on a transpor~ hich as bombed on the way. r .Long tells the
full story in each case. He also tells how parties ot men
managed, ith the help of the Greeks to reach Turkey, and
thence Palestine .
After Greece, the majority of the Australian troops
Mere taken to Egypt . Those who found themselves in Crete
were there for only one reason, namely, that the Navy had to
dump them there. Some Australian units arrived organised and
armed. But there ere unarmed, unorganised, and undiscipl in d
individuals in large numbers 1ho ere only nuisance. Even
the organised units were ithout transport and signal gear,
which made control difficult; and no unit had any cooking
gear.
To add to the confusion, all the senior Australian
Commanders and their staffs - ith the exception of Brigadier
Vasey and the 19th Brigade Headquarters - had been taken t o
Egypt .
r . Long tells ho by miracles of improvisation the
troops were fed, reorganised as f a r a s possible, and deployed;
and he then give s in detail the story ot the defence of the
Island against the airborne invasion of German paratroops, th
evacu tion of all that th Navy could take, and the leaving
behind of the 2/1st, 2/7th and 2/11th Battalions ho ere
ordered to surrender h n the Navy could do no more tor them.
To many the most thrilling part of the book ill be th
stories of individuals ho ignored the order to surrender nd
eventually escaped from Crete to rejoin their units.
r. Long tells of Sandover and a considerable party ot
officers and men from the 2/11th Battalion ho were picked up
by submarines after they had been hidden and ca red for by the
Cretans for many weeks . And of Carroll, ho sailed himself .
back to Egypt single handed in a stolen dingny. And of
Richards, a man ho had hitherto sh n no signs of possessing
qualities of lea dership, ho salvaged a landing craft at
Sfakia and brought back an oddl y assorted party of 50 of all
ranks.
r~ Long also relates how another landing craft
containing a sprinkling of officers - of hom Fitzhardinge of
2/3rd Field Regiment as the leader - set forth fro Ayia
Galini and after travelling some ay was intercepted by an
Italian submarine. The officers were taken off by the
submarine, but the men - though told to go back to Crete -
ere allowed to proceed on to gypt. It ould have been so
easy for the submarine to sink them; and it is comforting to
remember tha t there ere some chivalrous incidents in the
last ar.
The 2/11th Battalion suffered heavier casualties in
Greece and Crete than any other Australian unit. The actual
figures are given by r. Long.
~ith the exception of some ho were manning A.A guns
on the "Slamat" and ere lost hen this ship was bombed and
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sank, all the de d no lie baried in nr cemeteries . Their
epitaph was ritt.n 2,500 years ago by Simonides of Ceos-
"If' the greatest part of virtue is to die ell, then are we of
all men the most fortunate; f'or having fought to set Hellas
free, e no\1 lie here honoured for all time".
The invasion of Syria in June 1941 ~as quite a different
affair. Th defenders were Vichy French; the attackers, a
mixed force comprising English, Indian and Free French troops
plus Australian units of the 7th Division hich had not yet
been into action. There . as Air support available, and the
Army had a well equipped base, ith good communi cations forward
to the Syrian border.
Churchill, encouraged in this vie by General de Gaulle,
had formed the idea that the Vichy French ould lay down their
arms and sing the " arseillaise" at the first sight of allied
troops adv ncing across the border. But that las not what
ha~9ened, and ~here as strenuous fighting for five eeks
before the Vichy French capitulated.
It tas not the sort of campaign that anyone likes, and
as little as possible as said about it at the time. Allied
soldiers ere fighting regular French troops, ho might just
as easily have been fighting beside them if they had not
received orders to resist any invasion of Syria, 1hich th y
ere loyally carrying out.
The 2/16th Battalion - in the doings of hich est
Australian readers will perhaps be most interested - started
at the head of the Jordan Valley and took a prominent part in
the fighting that followed . r . Long gives graphic accounts
of the crossing of the L1tani River, the capture of Sidon, and
the battle at Da our. Like the 2/11th Battalion in both Greece
and Crete, it suffered greater casualties than any other
Australian unit; but in doing so, it fully lived up to the
reputation of its parent unit in the first orld ar, and that
is saying a lot .
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, It is perhaps too much to expect that a book or this
description ill be "best seller", but it is beautitull7
printed and illustrated; and those ho read it, and even those
ho merely bro se through it, ill be richly re arded.
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