Cretan Heroes

Observation Post, Volume 1, Issue 3, 5 June 1942, Page 1

Cretan Heroes

The Cretan populace has rightfully, earned for itself a warm place in every New Zealander’s heart. Throughout their ordeal they assisted us with all means at their disposal. With what little striking power they possessed compared with Germany’s iron clad hordes, they hit tooth and nail. The capital, Canea, a small city, was the object ,of the most vicious air attack in tlistory. The Junkers,' Heinkels, Dorniers and. Stukas in hundreds rained bombs, and more bombs, on the hitherto sequestered town. They machine-gunned the streets from less than a hundred feet; they killed women and children, they dropped incendiary bombs and high explosives from morning till Wight - for days on end; the populace fled into the hills. Mothers and children, tired, hungry, destitute, plodded over the mountains away from Canea, now a shambles,: a heap of flaming carnage from end to end.-At night the flames roared through the streets, up the walls of the shattered . buildings, presenting a, hideous red glow against the black horizon. The fire flickered and crackled, consuming the homes of thousands in only a few minutes, until all that remained of this erstwhile happy . peaceful community were the black smoking ruins gaunt and silent against the Mediterranean sunny skyline. .And so, as we looked, many of us 'with tears in our eyes, on this testimony •of Nazi military might I thought i c’est ,la’ guerre.” Over the mangled battered bodies of their wives and children' the men of Crete, young and I old, with ‘‘heads bloody but unbowed fought, back -with’sticks, stones ami 'even their bare fists. '• A wonderful race. The . womenfolk . with haggard sorely tried mein, sometimes came .to 'our trenches to bring us a scrap of stale bread—the best they had, and to

take our socks for washing in the nearby creek.