GERMAN INVASION OF CRETE NEARLY FAILED

Chronicle (Levin), 8 May 1946, Page 5

GERMAN INVASION OF CRETE NEARLY FAILED

Press Assn.-

(Special Correspondent.)

BECAUSE 0F NEW ZEALANDERS' EPIC RESISTANCE

By Telegraph

-Copyright

Reeeived Tnesday 11.22 p.m.. £ " LONDON, May 7. ---? Oolonel-Oeneral Kurt Student, oue of jriitler's i'avourite /jenerals, is Ihe first senior ('cr.r.an general to be tried i'or wai' , •rimes allegcd to have been conmiitted while holding a field eomiiuiiid, says the Dailv Mail's-Luneberg4 correspondent. Lieutenant Colonel Warren, prosecutor, told how a British iiiil it a ry hospital, although clearly marked with red crosses, was lioiubed from a low level by (lerman planes and attaeked by Dennan para-troops. Para-troops foreed the patients out of their licds and formed np 200 oi' them — some of them too ill to stahd — luuelher with the medieal staff of the hospital. The groitp, directc(l by a dennan offieer who had l)een tveated in the hospital, was in'ii'ched against the Xew Zealand lines and inany were kihee! h y lisif lice. In spite oi' this. flie attempt to take the Xew Zealand ju.sit iim I'ailed completely and the Xew Zcalandei's recovered all 1 !,■ xwrviving patients and medical staff:. Colonel WaiTen told of a conference held at (foering's head«}n;! i*1 ers in A]>i'il 1941 to deeide whether the first major airborne (ijiM*ation shonld be against Crete or Malta. High ranking dennan Uf-norals, he said. would reveal how the Orete invasion nearly I'ailed ;.s a result of the resista'nce put np by the Xew Zealand troops iii.der (leneral Freyberg. Colonel Warren quoted statements alleged' to have been niade 1 1 v Student in reply to the eharges of makino- pi-isoners unload aiamnnilion and of shooting prisoners. Student, stated Warren, said his troops were "angrv and nervous about horrible beslialilit> and atroeities" alleged to have been conmiitted by the Xew Xcabmders. .student pleaded not guiltv to the eharges. Miglit Sergeant Ilarold Wilkinson from Middlesbrough, says 1L 1 paraehutisis treated prisoners well until an offieer arrived and .iviered tliirty or forty prisoners to advance with hands up in I'ront nf dic attaeking paraeliutists. He deseribed how nien on either sido of him were shot down by the Xew Zealand fire as the dermans iirrd between the prisoners and then began lobbing hand grenades at ihe Xew Zealand positions over the lieads of the prisoners.