GENEROUS GREEKS

Evening Star, Issue 24286, 29 August 1942, Page 4

GENEROUS GREEKS

SAVED DUNEDIN MAN'S LIFE

One Dunedin soldier—Private David Catherwood—owes his life only to the great kindness of a Greek and his wife vvho succoured him when ho was dangerously ill and sheltered him from German search parties. That happened after lie escaped from a German prison camp in Crete. But here is part of the story as told by him in a letter which has just been received in Dunedin:

“I was in prison camp for five weeks before I escaped. I managed to get through the wire one night and I wandered in the hills for a while. Then I was ill for four months, for two of which it was touch and go. The Greeks went 25 miles to get a doctor for me, but he gave mo up—gave me an injection one night and another in the morning, then told them he could do nothing. The Greeks were not content and went away to return with an old herbalist. He pulled me through. He came every two or three days on a donkey, covering about 18 miles, and treated me with compresses I had two_ holes in mo and ho cleaned them with wine and put butter in the wounds. Gradually they healed. Then I had another outbreak, but he came with his knife and cut it open, managing to keep it drained, and gradually that got all right.

“ I lived all the time- with a Greek and his wife. He had been a soldier in the Turkish war and his wife a nurse. I owe my life to these people. When Germans were in the village they would get me on to a donkey and take mo to a little cave. The woman would bring mo food and her husband would sleep with me until Jerry went away, when they would take mo back to the village. There were 60 houses, built of stone, comprising the village, and' the people all took turns in feeding me. If or three months or so in the winter there was very little food; the people lived mostly on snails, weeds, and olives, but now that the beans, wheat, etc., are coming in food is not so bad. Jerry, however, is taking a large share, and the Italians, well, they are cleaning up everything. I grew to love these people and their children and I think they loved me. I hope I shall be one of the ones to seo them liberated. “ I joined up with two Australians, a Tommy, and four New Zealanders. We made up our minds to leave the island. We got a small boat and got away at night. After seven days on the water we were picked up by the Navy and landed in Libya. The Navy arc the greatest chaps in the world. We came down by transport then to Cairo, and hero we arc . , ,