WOUNDED IN CRETE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 July 1941, Page 6

WOUNDED IN CRETE

GLADSTONE MAORI SOLDIER’S EXPERIENCE. ACTION AGAINST GERMAN PARACHUTISTS. Private T. Kano. Headquarters Company, Maori Battalion, a Wairarapa member of the sick and wounded contingent which arrived in New Zealand recently, had the fingers on his left hand blown off by a shell from a German trench mortar in Crete. He is at present receiving outpatient treatment at the Masterton Hospital. Private Kane enlisted in Masterton for service in the Maori Battalion. He proceeded to England with the Second Echelon, and later went through the campaign in Greece and Crete. In Crete a large force of German parachutists landed near his section and set up a trench mortar. As a result of the German shelling, Private Kane and others in his section were wounded. A major behind him picked him up and told him he had lost all the fingers of his left hand. Private Kane was taken to a field ambulance station to have his wound dressed and after three days’ travelling reached a base hospital. He was evacuated, with others, to a warship in Suda Bay. Following treatment at an Alexandria hospital, Private Kane was sent back to New Zealand on a hospital ship.