Greece Crete Stalag
Dachau
by Jack Elworthy
Published by Awa Press
RRP $40.00
I leapt at the opportunity to read this book and could
hardly wait to begin. It didn't
disappoint. Of course, I am perhaps an
ideal reader, because like Jack Elworthy, my father was also in the 5th Field
Regiment and part of the 22nd Battalion who sailed out of Wellington on the Aquitania. But, although I've written about my own
father in essays and travel stories, I really knew very little about the day to
day detail of his experience on Crete and later on in Poland as a POW.
Jack Elworthy writes eloquently,
but not extravagantly. His writing is
very matter of fact and under-stated. It's
quite an extraordinary story. He's a
fairly ordinary bloke and like many at that time, he set off to the war with an
eager sense of adventure. He puts it
like this "I got married, built a house and was about to become a father.
Then war was declared in September 1939 and everything changed." Most of
us abhor this idea, of war being an adventure, but in context it sounds
reasonable. I never got around to asking
my own father, but I imagine that in the late 1930's in small town New Zealand,
many young men signed up for the war, imagining exotic places and
adventure. Of course they were wrong and
Elworthy's story most eloquently describes how wrong they were.
From the moment the Aquitania
sets sail from Wellington, I was hooked.
Indeed, I was fascinated with the journey of this troop ship, having
previously not known the details of their journey. I was riveted by each and
every detail, hungry for information, because mostly Elworthy's journey is also
my fathers. But too, I was surprised.
For example, the historic defeat of Crete, when the German elite dropped from
gliders in their parachutes. I was racing to this event, to hear and feel it
through the immediacy of someone actually there. But war is more ordinary and mundane, even
when it is horrific. Elworthy was in the 7th General hospital on the morning of
May 20 when the paratroopers began arriving. Irritated by a fellow patient who
was frightened, he went outside and watched the airborne invasion
commence..."It was a fine sunny morning and a marvellous sight to
watch". Whereas I recall my own Dad
speaking of the young men falling from the sky and some of them screaming for
their mutters. The strength of
Elworthy's writing lies in these factual recollections, unembellished, not
making himself either more heroic, nor minimising his own misfortunes.
The
Fifth Field Regiment defended the airport at Maleme, so when the airport fell
to the Germans and many New Zealanders were taken POW, they were then forced to
assist the Germans to clear the runways and try and rebuild the airport. Again,
I was utterly gripped having never known any of the details of what happened
after my father was taken POW . Elworthy describes a shocking incident when the
Greek POW's are taunted by a German guard who removes the pin from a hand
grenade to frighten them and then tries to put the pin back... the result being
he is blown to pieces and the Cretans are left with those pieces and how to
explain to the German guards. It seems they fretted about it most of the day
and decided to tell the truth and were believed. This incident is used to highlight the idea
of both the good and the bad side of the German occupiers - humanity at its
best and worst whatever the uniform.
Fortunately,
Elworthy kept a diary, and so he is able to recollect quite vividly the often
mundane aspects of war along with the horrific and heroic. It's interesting to
read an account that is so finely balanced and doesn't appear to glorify either
the author or the war. I'm always amazed
at the odd morality of war. The fact that Elworthy was in hospital when the
paratroopers were landing and that there is an expectation that hospitals are
sacrosanct and shouldn't be bombed (although the hospital was). Over and over,
the 'rules' of war are inexplicable to me. Meanwhile, on the battlefield, in
the olive groves, New Zealand soldiers and the Cretans are firing at young men
falling from the sky in parachutes, unable to return fire (perhaps covered by
Stukas)... I recall reading somewhere once
that the Germans had expected to be able to land and then commence the battle
and they hadn't expected the ferocity of the local Cretan population who were
not officially an army and therefore did not intend abiding by the 'rules' of
warfare.
Too,
it surprised and even slightly amused me to read early on when the troops were
in England preparing for the war and their motor transport was made up of a
'former Snow White Laundry van... a butcher's van... and a cumbersome and
underpowered Morris horse float."
It is these odd extraneous details that make Elworthy's story such an
interesting read. Somehow the very
ordinariness makes it extraordinary.
The
journey by the New Zealand POW's in the cattle trains to Poland was something I
really wanted to read about and I was fascinated to learn that they used their
socks and helmets to defecate and urinate into and took turns at passing the
socks and helmets along the carriage to a small opening where they could
dispose of the foul contents. My father never spoke about these things in
detail - or perhaps we never bothered to ask him - we just knew about them in a
vague and insubstantial way, so it was truly interesting to have a first-hand
account of this awful journey. My father used his soldier's book to record
doggerel and poetry written by fellow POW's and one of these which as kids, we
loved to sneak and read, was 'Brown Thursday'. Now I'm beginning to think this
bawdy poem about diarrhoea may well have been an account of the train journey
to Poland.
Disappointingly,
Elworthy almost skips over the four years as a POW in Stalag VIIIB which is
also where my Dad was. I've visited this site, known as Lamsdorf, but now
called Lambinowice. Indeed, I stayed overnight and wrote about my pilgrimage
for the Listener. But it seems that
Elworthy was embarrassed about being a POW as if it was somehow shameful and
indeed this idea prevails even when he returns to New Zealand. He describes
himself as being isolated from other war veterans who hadn't been captured.
My
thoughts kept returning to the author's wife.
She was expecting their first child when he left on his 'adventure' and
was away for seven years. If he had been
like most of the war veterans, he would have been home within the five years,
but Jack Elworthy somehow seemed to think he owed something to the war effort
having spent so much time as a POW and somewhat amazingly, "he talked his
way into the US Army's 45th (Thunderbird) Division as it made its way to Munich
- birthplace of the Nazi Party - and the liberation of Dachau concentration
camp." My Dad was part of the now infamous six hundred mile march out of
the camps and across Europe in the snow - I was eager to hear first-hand about
this march from a New Zealand soldier.
But Jack had a higher ranking than my Dad and had been moved to a
different camp before the march.
Who would I recommend this book
to? I recognise I am the ideal reader, so I'm assuming anyone with family who
were involved in the Greek campaign (whether a Kiwi or a German) would find
this interesting. And too, for any reader interested in war history, this is a
'report on experience' from a Kiwi solider on the front-line. I would imagine
that this book provides fresh insights for historians into both the Greek and
Crete campaigns.
Maggie Rainey-Smith is a Wellington based author and regular reviewer of fiction on this blog. - http://www.maggieraineysmith.com/
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