In what was to be our last week or so that we were in Archangel, we were invited to a surprise concert and a dance – ‘English dancing’ it was called. Who would be the partners, we wondered. Anyway, we knew that the concert was likely to be worthwhile and rumour had it that the orchestra was especially flown up from Leningrad. In curiosity and hope, a...
While I walked in these lesser-seen parts of Archangel the infrequent ‘tram’ slid by, curious droshky-like transports which were a kind of open sled of large size and seemed to bring workers from the forests to change shifts, as it were. The occupants, if they saw me, never made any sign of life, but huddled together, sat or lurched as the ‘tram’ heaved...
Lance Corporal Allan Robinson of 6th (NZ) Field Ambulance began his service in Greece in March 1941 before being evacuated to Crete in May. Here he describes a German attack on the 6th Field Ambulance Main Dressing Station and how patients and staff were taken prisoner and then were made to act as human shields between the Germans and the Allied troops,...
The cost of the Battle for Crete was high for both sides. Total casualties among Commonwealth forces were 15,743, of whom 1751 were killed or died of wounds. Of the 7700 New Zealanders involved in the battle, 671 were killed – a fatality rate of nearly 9% – while another 2180 were taken prisoner. In naval operations around Crete the Royal Navy lost...
As dawn broke the Germans discovered, to their delight, that the New Zealanders had withdrawn from the airfield and the vital heights of Point 107. They wasted no time in taking advantage of this. With the airfield still under artillery fire, the first transport planes began lumbering in that afternoon, carrying much needed reinforcements (a battalion...
The Battle for Crete was one of the most dramatic battles of the Second World War. Over 12 days in May 1941 a mixed force of New Zealanders, British, Australian and Greek troops desperately tried to fight off a huge German airborne assault. Despite suffering appalling casualties, the parachutists and glider-borne troops who led the invasion managed to...
The invasion began in Auckland on 12 June 1942 as five transport ships carrying ‘doughboys’ of the US Army sailed into the harbour. Two days later Marines landed in Wellington. They had arrived as a result of the outbreak of war in the Pacific six months before. From the New Zealand perspective the Americans strengthened New Zealand’s defences against...
We had two boiler rooms in operation, we had two engine rooms in operation, and my responsibility was to keep the boiler rooms repaired and ready to go. We had one boiler room, it was out of commission. It was down, it was apart. But nothing was said about getting it ready and we didn’t give it much thought. But 24 hours later from the time that...
My mother, more dutiful than my consort, was up frying bacon and eggs for me, made toast, poured juice and coffee; we had agreed that she would not provide anything so special as waffles or hash. My father had preceded me to the washroom, where I, soon to become EM № 3631-9558, now shaved. It was considered that seeing the soldier off to war was a man's job — said with a smile; the Dad wouldn't...
The weather was bad, the troops in a poor mood. The Army was stuck; one could add brightly: “But the Russians are doing great.” This Front was beginning to look permanent. New things were being added. More and more ammunition and artillery and airplanes arrived so that the enemy was subjected to practically continuous bombardment and dared not move...
The worst campaign of the War — West of Russia, though some even doubt that — proceeded regardless. The soldiers could not believe that it would last so long: they kept expecting a breakthrough on some other part of the Front. The vast fleets of Allied tanks and vehicles could hardly be employed in the mountains and the mud.
