NARROW ESCAPES

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 20, 19 October 1942, Page 4

NARROW ESCAPES

Front-Line Driver’s Experiences Driver F. Walker, of Te Aroha, has returned to New Zealand after over -A years’ hard campaigning in Greece Crete and: the Middle East. He is on of four volunteer brothers, two of whom have been killed on active service overseas, and the other one of whom is missing. He has been the central figure of many hairsdireadth escapes, was wounded four tames, and suffered concussion after bein o a . front-line driver taking men through many dive-bombing attacks. He earned his nickname of “Hurricane” by his fearless driving and remarkable abi ity in handling troop-vehicles under he H7was one of the New drivers assigned to the 30b of takin„ Australian troops up to the attack early in the Egyptian campaign and was wounded in a leg by an Italia* • hand grenade. With the 18th Battalion of the First Echelon, he then went to Greece, where he was sent on a secret mission to obtain mules. O his way back across country by compass bearings, he was present when Messerschmitts swooped down and machinegunned Australian troops try ing to take shelter on both sides of a ditch, which was raked, with fire. He suffered a bullet wound m the hip. Driving extensively in Greece, always under the shadow of enemy planes, he managed, in three trips,_ to extricate his whole company during the retreat, though dive-bombed and strafed all the way. He drove the last New Zealand truck into Larissa, smashed his vehicle under orders to destroy it, and fought with the rearguard: till taken off by barges to the cruiser Ajax. During Bis driving in Greece, he was once almost buried b bomb explosions, only his head anc arms sticking out of the ground; He fought in the rearguard actions too, in Crete, and saw a group of New Zealanders and Australians close from both sides on a German column in a gully and wipe it out completely. He embarked on a destroyer from the beach just as. day was breaking, and was on one of the two ships which survived the inferno of bombing and reached their destination. During the fighting in Crete he had a finger shot off and was wounded in a wrist by a bullet from a .tommy-gun Driver Walker never left his battalion, and after about six weeks was back in the front line again. Ebe onlv truck driver left of his own company, he took part in the December battle In Libya, when an order was <flven by the late colonel to fight and that there was to be no surrender. By the great direction of this officer not a man was lost in one particular engagement Driver Walker succeeded in bringing his truck out against tank opposition. Subsequently, in another attack, he was with a party which was cut off and had to fight its way out without . artillery support against armoured cars, which were held off by heaty rifle fire. He was on another occasion with a party of thirty men who killed 29 Germans, wounded 19. and captured 175. Finally he took part in the epic break-through the enemy lines at El Alamein. Under terrific fire, lie got his truck out, but . nine wounded men on it as well as the spare driver, were killed by a shellburst directly underneath the vehicle.