大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Sue Sutton on behalf of Neville Chesterton, the author, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

At the end of the Battle of Crete, we were abandoned by our own officers at Suda Bay and told to get outselves over the mountains to Sphakia. Later, a Black Watch officer, a Lt Gilbey, (of Gilbey's Gin) took us in tow. It was a terrible march over rough mountainsides, in searing heat. Men were crying out for water, and some even drank their own urine. Snipers were shooting at us, and the only well we found was polluted. After all day and all night we got down to a little sandy cove, where we were told the Navy would pick us up. As it turned out, we were too late, as they had lost so many ships coming in to rescue troops that they had had to abandon further attempts.

There was about a hundred of us left on the shore, being strafed and bombed by German planes. One Aussie soldier who stood next to me, took off his shirt, and there was "Death before dishonour" tattooed on his chest, and he shot himself.

We were told by an officer that Crete had surrendered, and he rounded us up into a circle and told us to wait for the Germans. Three Messerschmits came over and strafed us, killing many men, but the officer said if we moved he would shoot us! Then as the planes came round for another go, some Austrian troops rushed down from the cliffs and put out a huge swastika flag and shot up Verey lights, and the planes gave a roll and flew away. The only injury I had was a bullet burn on my hand, but many were killed.

We then had to march all the way back past Suda Bay, with no food or water, and our boots in ribbons, to where we came from. There was the smell of death everywhere, and lots of dead lying about. Under one tree three men were sitting, all dead.

After six weeks in a barbed wire encampment, where many had typhoid, where I slept in a tent-bag until somebody stole it! We had no food except some rotten soup, and then were put into the hold of a ship, where everybody had dysentery and there was hardly room to move. We eventually got back to Salonica, where the toilets were in the centre of a parade ground, and the Germands were shooting at the POW's using it, just for fun. One even slung a grenade into it. There were dead men hanging off the wires around.

We were made to carry shells, (against the Geneva Convention) but if we had refused we would have been shot. After about four weeks in this lovely holiday centre (which it is now), we were put into cattle trucks and set off for Austria via Yugoslavia to Stalag 18A. Our only food was some thin soup given by the Yugoslavs. Everyone had dysentery in the trucks, and we were not allowed out as previous prisoners had tried to escape before us.

We were in Stalag 18 until sent out on working parties. Four years of being a prisoner of war awaited me, and I was lucky to be able to live through it.

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