IN GREECE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 210, 2 July 1943, Page 11

IN GREECE

CAMPAIGN IN GREECE: THE NEW ZEALAND DIVISION IN ACTION. Army Board, Wellington. Government Printer. HERE is one thing wrong with this survey, and one only, the maps are clumsy and not very clear. They are clear enough (though not quite complete), area by area, but they lack the bird’s-eye clearness that makes all the difference between a map that tells the story and a map that merely helps. The maps here are helpful, but you have to ask yourself at intervals where the land begins and ends, which are man-made

and which natural features, and how the land really lies. In all other respects, it is an admirable record, full enough to be clear, not so loaded with detail as to be confusing. Above all, you feel the story. The narrator could be your own brother, your own son. This is what happened, as he remembers it, and this, therefore, is what you will wish to know. Some day no doubt, events will take different weights and values: the bombing will ease off a little, the roads widen, the noises subside. In relation to the battles that were to come, this was still only the prelude. But it was a pretty desperate struggle in relation to the odds-always two or three, and sometimes eight or 10, to one. In any case, it was the task the Division was given to do, this is how it did it, and this is how it appears in retrospect. It is difficult to imagine how a better job could have been made of a campaign survey prepared for popular consumption.