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.

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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 .

5.

, 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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