BRIEF & STORMY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1941, Page 5

BRIEF & STORMY

CAREER OF NEWSPAPER \ IN CRETE PRODUCED BY NEW ZEALANDERS. IN SPITE OF BOMBING. LONDON, June 1. The Cairo correspondent of the “Daily Mail” says: “This is one of the world’s greatest newspaper stories, and it comes from Crete. The paper was a one-page newssheet called the ‘Crete News.’ It has had only four numbers, but the final edition has made history. “New Zealanders started the paper two .days before the invasion began. Five Anzac soldier journalists in a little back room in Canea wrestled with a primitive press and a collection of type lacking certain letters. The letter ‘l’ was desperately needed, so they turned the ‘t’ upside-down, and they could not use ‘Hs’ in the headlines because they had none. “The first two numbers came out, with a circulation of about 3000. Then the German blitz started, but the paper produced a third number, though the circulation had fallen to 2000. The Germans started to wipe out Canea as the fourth number was being set up. but the work went on with bombs ■zocking the building. “The blitz continued all the afternoon. An officer who was responsible for the paper tried to reach the office, but couldn’t because a blazing house had spilled across the street. It seemed that the ‘Crete News’ had gone out of circulation. But at 1 a.m. on the next day three blackened, dust-caked men staggered to headquarters with 600 copies of the paper. “They said, ‘We couldn’t print any more. The plant has been burnt down.’ Their two companions had been detached for urgent duties, but the three men paused only twice in their work — to rescue civilians from beneath wrecked buildings.”