Larrikins in Khaki

by Tim Bowden

  The troops came down the mountains and across some flats and began climbing yet another mountain. Only half of the battalion could be seen, as the leading companies had vanished into the clouds.

  We came across an unloaded donkey, caught him and loaded him. We put a little of our own gear on him and then a little more, and a little more, and with that the donkey collapsed. We unloaded him and loaded ourselves up once again. With that the donkey kicked his heels in the air, haw hawed a couple of times and then proceeded to copulate with the other exhausted animals coming down the track.

  They reached the top of the mountain and were coming down the other side when darkness overtook. The Germans were in the vicinity and the Greek army was in full retreat and streaming down the mountain in disorder. They were nervous and trigger-happy and would fire first and ask questions in Greek later. After being challenged and shot at several times it was judged too dangerous to continue, and the Australians made camp by the side of the track. Sleep was impossible in the cold, wet, miserable conditions. ‘At first light we moved down to the Aliakmon River after thieving a Greek army mule on the way. Sergeant Snowy McBain and his battalion of Pioneers could see us coming down and he stopped the engineers from blowing up the ferry till we came across.’

  That night they all slept in the schoolhouse at Velvendos and were warm enough as there were twelve of them and the mule all packed into one small room. ‘We didn’t get much sleep however for the foggy night air was thick and the mule farted and stamped his feet all night. We had no food next morning and we scouted round the village without success. On returning to the schoolhouse we found our luck was really out, for the thieving Greek soldiers were missing and so was our mule.’

  The shepherds around the village were a picturesque lot with their ‘Allah-catcher pants’ and long wooden crooks, driving their long-tailed black sheep. They were terrified, as were all the villagers, not so much of the Germans but of the Bulgarians. They had good reason to be, as an SS Division—reportedly almost all Bulgarians—was in the process of crossing the border.

  On the way out of Velvendos, Snowy went to a house and offered to buy food for the Australians. The Greek householder had been in the United States in his youth and spoke some broken English. He explained that many soldiers had marched through the village and there was hardly any food left. But he did give Snowy some boiled eggs and some loaves of flat black bread. Meanwhile, Jimmy Hyland and Holt ‘liberated’ a donkey they saw in a shed in the backyard. They loaded it up, whistled for Snowy, and took off up the mountain track with their new beast of burden.

  We had only gone 100 yards or so when we heard a great commotion behind us. It was our erstwhile friend and his wife followed by what looked like the whole village. The wife rushed to the donkey, pulled up in front of it, put her arms around its neck and started to wail like a banshee. The American-speaking Greek stood in front of the donkey alongside his wife. He tore his shirt open and bellowed—‘We have no food. I give you all the food we have and this is how you repay me. You are bandits and brigands. Shoot me, kill me, but please no steal-a the donk.’

  While this tirade was going on the old sheila was still screaming and when the villagers started up in sympathy with her, it was just too much. Our collective conscience wasn’t all that clear so we pulled our gear off the donkey. The old girl rushed around kissing us as did her husband and we were pleased to take off up the track to the cheers of the local populous.

  Holt’s unit rejoined their battalion just in time to see Servia being bombed and burning. Before climbing into the waiting battalion transport, they released the donkeys that had been carrying their gear. ‘Then to our eternal discredit we smashed the pack saddles to save them from falling into the hands of the Germans, who probably needed pack saddles like they needed a hole in the head. Some of the saddles were works of art and for the impoverished Greek owners to have them smashed must have been a bitter pill to swallow.’

  They travelled through the mountains and over the narrow winding roads. There was a lot of bombing on the roads and somehow their platoon was separated from the rest of the battalion. Lieutenant Gibbons must have known the battalion’s destination, for they went straight to Pineos Gorge outside Larisa. They were told to patrol the river and moved up at dusk.

  We patrolled all night along the river and could hear the Germans talking on the other side and throwing rocks into the water. Just before daylight we moved back half a mile and stood to. At first light we saw some of our own troops a little further back so we joined them. There were some men from the 2/2nd Battalion and some from the Guard Battalion. These were older men, quite a few with service in the First AIF who were usually used to guard divisional headquarters and so on. They were affectionately known as the ‘Old and Bold’, ‘Ruthless and Toothless’ and indeed ‘Rugged and Buggered’.

  The German planes were over their positions from first light and continually harassed them, though they apparently didn’t know the Australians’ exact location. They were lined up under trees along the road, and when the German infantry tried to cross the river as they did on numerous occasions, ‘we gave them some hurry up’.

  The Germans came on in a very strange fashion. One moment the open area on the other side of the river would be clear, the next black with great masses of men heading to the river. The Australians opened up with rifles and light machine guns and would be joined by the Vickers guns of the 21st New Zealand Battalion, who were positioned in the hills behind. The masses of German infantry would disintegrate and then disappear back into cover, only to attempt the same procedure about an hour later.

  At about 3 pm German tanks crossed over further up the river and the Australians pulled out in a hurry. They had gone only a few hundred yards when they saw a line of Bren gun carriers dispersed on both sides of the road. Lieutenant Gibbons pulled up in a truck and Holt and his companions climbed out to support the carriers. However, they had stopped only to cover the withdrawal and when the German tanks appeared and the carriers saw there were no more Australian infantry coming, they pulled out.

  The leading German tank was belting along the rough track firing both cannon and machine guns. The first cannon shot landed to the left of our truck and the second to the right. I was sure the next one would put our truck out of business and us with it, but the rough track must have put the gunner off as our truck wasn’t hit, nor were any of the platoon as we clambered back on board. I received two holes in my pants leg and a burn across my thigh from bullets as I dived across the back of the truck.

  They out-paced the tanks and left the gorge in a hurry, eventually sighting their battalion, which was taking up a position between two hills. As they joined them, a pot-gutted officer came waddling over, waving his pistol. Holt thought he probably didn’t know where they’d been or what his platoon had been doing all day and could have thought they were avoiding combat. ‘I’ll shoot any man who doesn’t get out of this truck immediately,’ he said. This was ludicrous, but Lieutenant Gibbons was ropeable and told this overweight officer exactly what he thought of him.

  Holt and his platoon learned that the battalion had been heavily bombed on the road, and a good mate of his, ‘Plonky’ Dean, had been one of those killed.

  The battalion held two hills on the roadway that ran through the centre of the position. Holt was on top of the hill on the right, behind a stone cairn that gave him a bird’s-eye view of the whole scene. About a dozen German tanks were moving forward, slowly followed by lines of infantry. There were several New Zealand guns beside the road, shooting as fast as they could load. They were firing continuously at the tanks and getting more than their share in return. Their dead and wounded lay around in profusion. Eventually they did not have enough men left to work the guns. They then loaded their casualties and got out quickly.

  Holt’s platoon had been under heavy machine-gun fire for quite a while and were receiving casualties, and when they saw the New Zealand gunners pulling out, ‘some clown at t
he bottom of the hill called out to retire’. They took off down the hill till their company commander, McGregor, roared and bellowed and wanted to know what the bloody hell was going on. Holt recalled:

  They were getting quite a lot of action at the bottom of the hill. I saw Dickie Dowd get the best wound I’ve ever seen. A spent bullet hit him on the wrist. He caught the end of the bullet in his teeth and pulled it out. However the bullet must’ve hit a nerve or something, for he had a lot of bother with his wrist and was eventually discharged with a withered arm.

  Our battalion medical officer Captain JAF Flashman and his overworked orderlies were attending to the wounded who are lying around the Regimental Aid Post. The doc was up to his elbows in gore when he noticed Troubles Black sitting amongst the team awaiting attention. He asked Troubles, ‘Where were you hit, lad?’ ‘I’m not wounded, Captain, but I’m having trouble with my flat feet.’ The doc blew up and roared at Troubles: ‘Get to buggery and don’t waste my time you cowardly, yellow-gutted bastard.’ (Sadly Captain Flashman was killed in the early hours of the following morning at a German roadblock.)

  Holt’s unit rushed back to the top of the hill and returned the heavy German fire. The tanks were coming on faster now that the New Zealand gunners had withdrawn and they and the following infantry were moving steadily forward. Again the words came through to retire, and this time it was ‘fair dinkum’. The unit came down the hill and climbed into their trucks under fire.

  The battalion formed single lines on either side of the road and the companies became mixed up. There were no separate units at that stage, just the AIF. Holt did not think that any of them really expected to come out of this chaos, but would not have swapped places with any man on earth.

  On this day I was proud to be part of the 2/3rd Australian Infantry Battalion. Three or four Bren gun carriers came down the road through us. It was coming on nightfall by then, and we heard a rumbling as a partly disabled carrier came up. It was making heavy going of it and every so often would burst into flame. It eventually passed through and shortly afterwards we heard another heavy engine rumbling towards us. We thought it was another disabled carrier, but out of the murk came this tank with a cross emblazoned on its side. It had its lid open and a bloody great Fritz was standing with his body halfway out of the hatch. I believe every man in the battalion let go with his weapon on this fellow, who must’ve disintegrated. The rifle and machine gun fire was terrific. There were streams of tracer flying about and our fellows were charging around shooting. The tank crew must have wondered what it had run into. It was firing all its weapons and spun to the right. It caused quite a few casualties and ran over several of our fellows, squashing them into the mud before taking off at high speed.

  Things quietened down almost immediately and they received orders to get into their trucks and retire.

  I went over to the position on the left of the road and amongst the wounded was a Gallipoli veteran, Wally Webb, who was badly wounded in the stomach. Clarrie Burke and I got Wally into the last truck. The German tanks followed us for quite a while shooting off flares, but eventually gave up.

  The Germans had blocked the main road to Larisa and we took one of the side tracks. At one stage there was a long hold up and I went along to see the reason. There had been a lot of talk about Fifth Columnists [civilian spies] and the Greek civilian who said he knew the area had got himself lost, and us with him. The Greek could hardly explain himself as he knew no English and the soldiers had no Greek. The Greek was punched silly and left by the side of the track.

  They stopped and started all night with trucks following different tracks. At first light the whole of the transport column that Holt was with got bogged in a swamp. He overheard Brigadier ‘Tubby’ Allen say that ‘it was now a case of every man for himself ’.

  The 2/2nd and 2/3rd Battalions bore the brunt of the action around Larisa against an overwhelming German attack, in the Tempe and Pineos Gorges area in the mountains of northern Greece, ably supported by the New Zealand brigade. It is ironic that the commander of the Australian and Commonwealth forces in Greece, General Thomas Blamey, was the same man who delayed, for three weeks, giving his warnings to the Australian War Cabinet that he considered the Allied involvement in Greece in 1941 dangerous and ill-advised—by which time Australia had committed its troops to Greece. The Germans attacked Greece from Yugoslavia on 6 April, and by the end of that month Hitler’s army had driven all the Commonwealth troops from Greece. On 11 April, Blamey renamed the Commonwealth troops the ANZAC Corps.

  In mid-April General Blamey ordered Brigadier Arthur ‘Tubby’ Allen and his two available battalions of the 16th Brigade to the Pineos Gorge, where the German thrust threatened to reach the main road where it bottle-necked through Larisa and cut off practically the entire British force. There would have to be an Allied withdrawal, but the invading Germans needed to be held back to allow that.

  Ken Clift was attached to the 2/2nd Battalion in the thick of the fighting which, in these desperate critical hours, even used former 1st AIF veterans, the ‘Old and Bold’, in combat. ‘Our only ack-ack in the whole formation was a set of Vickers guns mounted on a tripod and manned by these redoubtables at an impromptu brigade headquarters with other Old and Bolds gallantly ready to fire with rifles only, at Stukas, Heinkels, Dorniers and even at Hitler himself should he appear from the sky.’

  Clift was doubtful whether they could get transport out of this desperate situation and all spare vehicles other than those needed to repel the invader were put out of action by draining the sumps and letting the motors run until they seized. This was achieved while the action and counteraction continued along the front, which was now the Pineos River. The German build-up was getting stronger by the hour but at least they were denying them use of any transport and equipment they might capture ‘even if we were gone coons’.

  They ran signal lines to the two battalions, but the 2/2nd seemed to be in the hottest spot as both mortar and shellfire continually put the lines out of action. Clift’s mates Butta and Tubby were stationed at intervals along them to do quick repairs in order to keep their commander, Brigadier Allen, in constant touch with the action. The brigadier was grim and dejected, as well he might be. For all he knew, it would only be a matter of time before the enemy brought sufficient force to bear to make their positions completely untenable—‘cut off like the proverbial shag on a rock’.

  Clift was stationed with Lieutenant John Dunlop at 2/2nd Battalion headquarters and, like all that battalion’s positions, it was a very hot spot indeed.

  John Dunlop was a fine, cool soldier. He detailed Corporal Arthur Hiddens with a Bren gun, and me with a rifle, to crawl down behind the sangars [earth barriers] fronting the river in order to stir up the enemy if they attempted to cross. At this juncture the 2/2nd infantry companies were heavily engaged right along the river to our right and they had repulsed several assaults and, by counter-attacking, had actually driven superior forces back. Corporal Hiddens and I crawled down unobserved—we hoped—to within about fifteen yards of the river and waited for the ‘sitting ducks’ to start wading. At last, they started into the river, deployed in sections and in staggered formation—with Arthur licking his chops and muttering, ‘Come a bit closer, you bastards.’

  They were about 25 or 30 yards distant when Hiddens let go and Clift went rapid fire with his rifle. He was delighted that although Hiddens was a signals corporal, not an infantryman, ‘he could play a very pretty tune on a Bren and for a few minutes, he wrought havoc with “Herr Hitler’s crack Mountain Regiment”’. What troops were left of the attempted crossing retreated back to the cover of the opposite bank with bullets flying up their backsides. ‘The sanger in which we were and others around us were immediately subjected to a barrage of very large fat German mortars. Oh boy! Did we keep our heads and bottoms down.’

  The Germans eventually did cross the river further upstream and even got tanks across, flushing Hiddens and Clift out ‘like a couple of
quail’. They scurried up the hill under cover of fire from the 2/2nd Battalion headquarters. The tanks fired tracers at them as they ran away but they made it back to headquarters and comparative safety ‘in a manner that would not have disgraced an Olympic sprint champion’.

  But the German tanks did not have it all their own way. Some were destroyed by a couple of extremely courageous New Zealand gun crews who engaged them over open sights while deployed to the rear and left flank of the 2/2nd Battalion, and this gave everyone concerned a short but welcome break—especially as the German aircraft gave them no respite, ranging up and down the line of the river at will.

  The afternoon became a shambles despite the infantry. During the afternoon Sergeant ‘Sykes’ Evans killed many Germans at great personal risk. To gain longer range, he used double charges. He was one of the extraordinary characters during the withdrawal. He was awarded the Military Medal, as was Arthur Hiddens. Clift remarked, ‘Everyone knew they deserved greater honour but unfortunately retreats are a difficult set-up and never carry the glories of a victory.’

  At dusk tracers criss-crossed the whole valley. The immediate orders were to collect all wounded, incapacitated and personnel not capable of making the grade, then leave them in the charge of volunteer regimental aid post (RAP) orderlies.

  These RAP fellows have guts and fortitude and their spirit had to be seen to be believed. The rest of us were to split into small groups and taken on a certain route by waiting trucks and shank’s pony, until we reached our own lines some hundred miles away to the south at Lamia—a grim prospect even for super optimists, especially as the Germans had flares going up at intervals, and these seem to straddle the road in a huge semicircle to the south. After the flush of exultation because of our desert victory in North Africa, our rage, frustration, disappointment or just plain disgust—call it what you will—was beyond description. We had now tasted the ashes of defeat and we didn’t like it. We had even sneered at the Tommies at Dunkirk, but the chickens were now coming home to roost.