Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 22, 2013 23:31:23 GMT 12
Here's a great story from the Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 192, 14 August 1943, Page 4, via Papers Past
KELLY FROM THE ISLE OF CRETE
EPIC TALE OF 22 MONTHS' HIDE AND SEEK
Copyright in N.Z. and U.S.A.
ONE day the R.A.F. came back to the island of Crete and for eight hours blew hell out of the aerodrome. Up in the hills a New Zealand soldier exulted. With gloating eyes he saw everything that the Luftwaffe valued go kite high, disintegrating under tons of bombs. Ack-ack guns barked. Flak dropped all around, but the bombardier, who looked like a Greek peasant of the villages, didn't mind.
As he saw nearly two years of thorough, painstaking German work blown to bits, Nazis rushing for dugouts, panic-stricken, and great troop-carrying planes on the ground splintered and ablaze, the thoughts of Bombardier L. J. Kelly, of Otahuhu, were of the long months of tension and suffering which he had undergone since the day of evacuation when he was left to surrender, to the miseries of the prisoner-of-war camp, to the perils of a night of escape, to a hunted existence in the hills, living like the beasts of the fields and the birds of the air.
Now, under his eyes, he saw the first instalment of the retribution so justly due to the Nazi invaders.
A Goat Ate His Diary
For a long time he had kept a diary. Then a goat ate it. One of two goats which, with a sheep, had been his companion on cold nights in a haystack. But the 22 months of Bombardier Kelly's amazing life on Crete are etched indelibly in his memory. A diary would be merely a souvenir. Bombardier Kelly needs no written words to help him to remember. There was the tin in which he used to gather snails. The old Greek women would cook them for him. There was the dandelion grass which all could eat, hunted British troops and Greek peasantry alike. Hunger. Here in New Zealand it is only a word. In Crete well, in Bombardier Kelly's words, "they get odds and ends." Even the German troops were hungry, at first.
There were the bird-traps, which he set in the valleys and on the hills. True, he caught more rats than birds, but there were birds enough to sustain life. He never had to eat the rats. That, at least, was something. There were the karoupia beans. Horse-beans. They grew by the roadsides. Starved, fainting men, plucked them greedily. There were the days when hunger-crazed men who had been your cobbers would jump on your hand savagely to beat you to that crust of dry bread. There were the 22 months of fear, privation, loneliness and subterfuge, living now in a village, now like a rat, under ridges, in clefts of rock, in a hole in the ground.
He Suffered and Endured
Bombardier Kelly was sorry when the goat ate his diary, but he knew he would never forget. To-day he is just one of the men of the furlough contingent home for a holiday, happy with the young wife whom he married when he was on final leave way back in 1940. The young wife who, like his parents, Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Kelly, of Opotiki, never abandoned hope throughout nearly two years of silence. Just one little card from the prisoner of war camp soon after surrender. Then nothing. Other parents, other wives received letters and cards. The Kellys could only hope.
Many a time out on the hillsides of Crete Bombardier Kelly was tempted to surrender. He thought about the folks at home and of what they must be suffering. Had the Germans reported him dead, as they threatened to do? Well, even if they had, it was worth it. Some day, somehow, despite all traps, against all odds, he would find a means to escape. The day came. "And you can put me on record as saying that that was the greatest day of my life."
Bombardier Kelly would never tell how he left Crete. Only a selfish fool would want to know. Maybe there are other men of his courage and perseverance living even now, from hour to hour, from day to day, awaiting the day of their deliverance. They, too, must have their chance.
Greek Villagers Saved His Life
In this story, for the same reason, and for the protection of the wonderful people of Crete who did so much for the hunted British men who came to them, nor came in vain, for food and shelter, no names of places or persons are given. But for the Greek villagers Bombardier Kelly would be dead, or, at best, a prisoner of war. For 22 months they succoured him.
Detection by a Nazi soldier meant either sudden death or a quick return to a prison camp. There was no telling which. Some Nazis would drop you in your tracks, without a qualm. Others would grunt sourly, offer you a cigarette, and march you off to the guard house. The game was not to be detected. To stay alive. To look like a Greek man of the villages. To be clean. To be shaven. To speak like a Cretan. To pass for a Cretan. Not to blanch, nor to shuffle, nor to look uneasy when you passed Nazis on the roads and tracks, or in the streets of the cities.
In the cafes, as you sat at a table next to German soldiers, it was a grim sort of a game that you played, as you ate and drank solemnly, listening to the guttural chatter of these enemy men, who brushed past you, looked at you, never suspecting that you were one of that division of what Hitler, in his folly, once described as "poor, ignorant country lads, whose bones would be left to bleach along the desert ways." Yes, there was a mordant satisfaction in that.
Darting From Danger
And at other times, as when you were awakened at dead of night by an 80 years old woman who had crept through the German lines, to rouse you from your uneasy sleep in the ruins, and to warn you that the Nazis were closing in from all sides, it was not much fun. It was not fun to crawl and run and dart from boulder to boulder, avoiding the searchers, fearful of that sudden burst of tommy-gun fire which would split the darkness of the hillside to wipe you out in a twinkling. Men like Bombardier Kelly have no medal ribbons. Not as yet. They are modest. Bombardier Kelly is proud only of the fact that he stuck it out for all these months. He is fearful of "shooting a line." One had to promise him that he would not be quoted in a boastful way.
But some things are best told in his own words: "The day we had to surrender. There were 7000 of us, Troops and civilians, all mixed up. Food was precious scarce. The Greeks were offering us money for food. But we didn't have enough for ourselves. We had marched 40 miles from the battlefield, to within two miles of the beach, and we were just about all in. In the valley we had to keep order. I was on guard. Then an officer came along. He said the troops in front of us were not our blokes. They had put up a flag. It wasn't ours. We were cut off—surrounded. No show. Only thing now to remove our steel helmets and down arms.
Cruel March to Captivity
"We were hungry. The Aussies had caught and cooked a donkey. They cut it up and cooked it in sections. I was unlucky. There wasn't any over. Soon the Germans were all round us. Tommy-guns right and left. They lined us up and marched us off, back along the odd 40 miles of road, to an improvised prison camp. "Some of our chaps were done. The whole thing was agony. Some fell out by the way, and died. Some were kicked by the German guards, so that they would keep going. I saw one German who was ordered to march in front, instead of behind, so that he shouldn't kick.
"Taken all round, the Germans were pretty decent. They didn't have much to give us. Most of them were hungry during the first days on Crete. You can imagine how we fared. On that cruel march back to Galatos we picked the horse beans, the karoupia beans, from the roadsides. At night we just dumped down where we halted. Most of us had discarded our greatcoats on the long retreat. Now some were lucky and could pick one up. Or perhaps a blanket. The roads were strewn with discarded gear.
"The first day in the prison camp there was a bit of gruel for dinner. Just a mug of coloured water, you know. At night half the camp would get a little something. The other half wouldn't. The Germans didn't have it to give. The camp was crowded, and the wire was pretty poor in parts.
"Chaps react differently. Some wilted under the strain. Nobody sang. Nothing like that. None of that Hollywood stuff. The mental strain was terrific. After a couple of days some of us were put on odd jobs. This gave us a chance to get at some food which we had stowed away on the battlefield before the retreat began. I managed to get two blankets, a tin of bacon, a tin of meat and two veges., and for two days we didn't eat too badly.
Escaped Under the Wire
"We were in that prison camp for six weeks. Things improved a bit. In the third and fourth weeks we began to get enough to exist on. But you could always eat as much as you had just eaten and know that you would still be hungry. My mate, Bob, a boy from Scotland, who had lived 11 years in America and only two months in New Zealand, was with me when I escaped. We picked the right place in the wire, near where a culvert ran under the main road, and we selected a night when the moon rose about 10, so that it would be dark when we got out and light later on when we were finding our way over the hills. We went down on our tummies under the wire and into the culvert.
"German guards decided to have a yap in the roadway, right on top of the culvert. Imagine us lying there in the dark! The Germans moved on, and as soon as a heavy truck came along we scrambled out and up the bank under cover of the noise, and by the aid of the passing light. We did the first 100 yards on our tummies.
"The first thing we were interested in was getting rid of our uniforms. Here we won't be able to tell how that was done, but in the end, with my dark, bronzed complexion, black hair and brown eyes, I looked like a Greek. I had a pair of high jackboot —leather riding boots. A pair of riding breeches. A little grey shirt and a little grey coat. On my head a large coloured 'kerchief. For this transformation, and especially for the jack-boots which saved me over and over again, I had to thank a Greek who was one in a thousand."
Nazis Hunting in Disguise
Bombardier Kelly speaks of those Cretan people with reverence. You can't, he explains, live away up in the hills, keeping alive on scenery and fresh air. You must be reasonably near to villages and places of habitation. At times you can live in a village. At other times you must flee to the hills. Of course, Crete is full of Nazis all the time. Some of them are disguised as Cretans, begging for food and shelter, pretending to be British soldiers. And when the generous, stout-hearted Cretans help those Nazis in disguise Bombardier Kelly thinks it better that one shouldn't write too much about that. Whole villages, or, at least, all the men in those villages, have been shot out of hand. The Gestapo never let up. In the main, the Greeks could usually distinguish between the genuine British soldier seeking aid and the ersatz stranger. At first it was easy enough, once in disguise, to move about as a Cretan. Later, when all the Greek men had been conscripted and put to work on the roads, an odd man wandering around was one to be suspected and questioned. So, then, it was a case of moving by night, lying doggo by day. Old ruins were a favourite place of concealment when near a village. Even then the Nazis had a nasty trick of putting a couple of shots into holes and other likely places, to see what came out.
Language Difficulties
And at first, of course, the bombardier and his Scottish pal knew no Greek. Indeed, the Scot, who had lived so long in the United States, was "inclined to talk like a Yank." That didn't improve matters. But when it is a case of life or death you will, Bombardier Kelly assures one, learn any language. For the first 12 months they seemed scarcely to improve. Then they began to get the hang of it. To-day, Bombardier Kelly can talk a deceiving, sullen, throaty Greek and get along fine. Well enough to deceive German guards.
Bombardier Kelly's first encounter with Germans was in a village street. It was a narrow street, with room for three abreast. Two German engineers passed. They gave him "a beautiful smile" and said "Chereti!" He returned "a beautiful smile" and murmured "Chereti!" That was that. Then, one day, going into a village, he was held up by a German guard. Fortunately, Bombardier Kelly had a pass, which a Greek peasant had lent him. Only a few words passed. The German guard did not ask for a comparative fingerprint. Had he done so, all would have been over Bombardier Kelly went on up the road, simply dying to look back. Was the German playing him? Was he drawing a bead on his back? Would one fall over dead, or would one hear the crack of the rifle first?
One hundred yards. One hundred and fifty yards. Surely, now, it would be safe to take a peep behind. Just a quick peep! Horrors! There was the Nazi guard, with a Greek policeman, following only fifty yards behind! As it turned out, they were only stretching their legs!
During the first 12 months of hide-and-seek British escapees often ran into each other. At such meetings they had to be cautious. There was always the Gestapo in disguise. The Germans got a lot of our men. Others, again, grew tired, and gave themselves up. There were times when the struggle seemed too unequal. Bombardier Kelly met fewer and fewer of the hunted.
One night, Bombardier Kelly and his cobber found themselves in the midst of German troops on manoeuvres. They were hiding under some trees and shrubs. Starshells and Verey lights were going up. The conditions made for jumpiness. "Overs" from the guns began to whistle through the trees. It took a lot of self-control to believe that you were not being used as a human target.
There was a wonderful Greek. "You will eat what I eat," he said. "Sometimes you will go hungry. Sometimes you will go thirsty. But you will not give yourself up!" So they didn't give themselves up. They stuck it out, living one day at a time.
The winter was "quite severe." It rained for nearly five months. Bombardier Kelly says it seems incredible that men could remain at large for 22 months in such conditions. "But, after all, it is a matter of one day at a time."
"Foxes Have Holes"
Ridges, clefts, holes. Cover a hole with two bits of tin. Cover the tin with brush. Cook your food in the covered hole by night. You can conceal flame by night, but you can't hide smoke by day. Smoke gives you away to the enemy. You can always set bird traps. Make them out of stones. Get the birds and pluck them. Tobacco? In his spare time he made little cigarette-pipes—quaint gadgets, which the Greeks had never seen. The Greeks accepted them gratefully, as novelties. Bombardier 'Kelly could make one in a day. He decorated the bowls with little carved emblems hearts, spades, clubs. Little hoo-dickies. Then he took to putting swastikas on them. It amused him to think that the Germans might buy them from the Greeks. For each cigarette-pipe the Greeks would give the resourceful bombardier 100 cigarettes. One day, to his delight, an old Greek told him, "You have achieved your ambition. The German overseer is smoking one of your swastika pipes!"
"It Is Impossible To Escape"
The Germans dropped thousands of pamphlets on Crete. One, distributed far and wide, was worded thus: Soldiers of the British Army, Navy and Air Force! We know that there are many of you hiding in the hills. The following winter will force you down from the hills. If you surrender yourselves to our soldiers you will be treated as honourable prisoners of war. On the other hand, those found in civilian clothing will be treated as spies, and shot. It is impossible to escape. Signed: Commander of Kreta.
"It is impossible to escape!" Bombardier Kelly thought a good deal on those ominous words, but he didn't believe them. Somehow, some day. And, while others walked into traps, or had bad luck, he got along, somehow. He was nearly always clean shaven. Seldom or never was he dirty. By what magic was this contrived? Well, the Germans would always trade with the Greeks. Oranges. Grapes. Wine. So, Bombardier Kelly shaved with a German safety razor, and washed with German soap. When most of the Greek men around were clean and shaven, why look conspicuous by being unkempt?
Sang "God Save The King"
There was a little fun to be had, too. Twice, in "safe" villages, he attended Greek weddings. With his pal, he even sang for his hosts— English songs. "Sing us 'God Save The King,' they pleaded. Bombardier Kelly sang it. Those weddings were occasions to be remembered. The music, the dancing, the laughter, and the wine. Not that one could afford to get drunk. Much too dangerous. Many a British soldier fell into the Germans' hands that way. A relaxation of caution, and the game was up.
There was plenty of olive oil to be had. This helped keep one fit and clean and well. Then, in the season, there were the oranges and the grapes to steal or take.
A Propaganda Photograph
Speaking of German methods, Bombardier Kelly recalled an occasion when he saw the propaganda machine at work. It happened while he was in the prisoner of war camp. A German staff car drove up. An officer alighted, followed by a photographer. The officer was in a spectacular white uniform, and the New Zealanders crowded over to the barbed wire to see what was happening. The German ostentatiously took out a tin of cigarettes, lit one and blew the fragrant smoke towards the prisoners. Poor fellows, they had not enjoyed a smoke for days. Then, with a grin, the officer began to throw handfuls of cigarettes over the wire into the compound. Did the prisoners jump for them? They jumped like Rugby players in a lineout, their arms upstretched. The camera man was busy all the time. With the officer, he drove away, looking very satisfied. He had secured for the Nazi propagandist Press an excellent photograph of New Zealand boys giving the Nazi salute!
Twenty-two months on Crete.
Only a man of rare quality could" emerge from such an ordeal sane and sound. Bombardier Kelly to-day shows no obvious signs of distress. He looks what he is—tough in spirit and fibre. The sheep and goat tracks on Crete are, he says, as familiar to him as the lines on the palms of his hands. The Nazis are beginning to crack. Some day soon after his furlough, there may be an interesting and satisfying job for Bombardier Kelly.
______________________
Here's a photo of Bdr. Kelly from the article
paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=AS19430814.2.18.2&e=01-12-1941--12-1945--10--11-byDA---0rugby+soldiers+front+line--
KELLY FROM THE ISLE OF CRETE
EPIC TALE OF 22 MONTHS' HIDE AND SEEK
Copyright in N.Z. and U.S.A.
ONE day the R.A.F. came back to the island of Crete and for eight hours blew hell out of the aerodrome. Up in the hills a New Zealand soldier exulted. With gloating eyes he saw everything that the Luftwaffe valued go kite high, disintegrating under tons of bombs. Ack-ack guns barked. Flak dropped all around, but the bombardier, who looked like a Greek peasant of the villages, didn't mind.
As he saw nearly two years of thorough, painstaking German work blown to bits, Nazis rushing for dugouts, panic-stricken, and great troop-carrying planes on the ground splintered and ablaze, the thoughts of Bombardier L. J. Kelly, of Otahuhu, were of the long months of tension and suffering which he had undergone since the day of evacuation when he was left to surrender, to the miseries of the prisoner-of-war camp, to the perils of a night of escape, to a hunted existence in the hills, living like the beasts of the fields and the birds of the air.
Now, under his eyes, he saw the first instalment of the retribution so justly due to the Nazi invaders.
A Goat Ate His Diary
For a long time he had kept a diary. Then a goat ate it. One of two goats which, with a sheep, had been his companion on cold nights in a haystack. But the 22 months of Bombardier Kelly's amazing life on Crete are etched indelibly in his memory. A diary would be merely a souvenir. Bombardier Kelly needs no written words to help him to remember. There was the tin in which he used to gather snails. The old Greek women would cook them for him. There was the dandelion grass which all could eat, hunted British troops and Greek peasantry alike. Hunger. Here in New Zealand it is only a word. In Crete well, in Bombardier Kelly's words, "they get odds and ends." Even the German troops were hungry, at first.
There were the bird-traps, which he set in the valleys and on the hills. True, he caught more rats than birds, but there were birds enough to sustain life. He never had to eat the rats. That, at least, was something. There were the karoupia beans. Horse-beans. They grew by the roadsides. Starved, fainting men, plucked them greedily. There were the days when hunger-crazed men who had been your cobbers would jump on your hand savagely to beat you to that crust of dry bread. There were the 22 months of fear, privation, loneliness and subterfuge, living now in a village, now like a rat, under ridges, in clefts of rock, in a hole in the ground.
He Suffered and Endured
Bombardier Kelly was sorry when the goat ate his diary, but he knew he would never forget. To-day he is just one of the men of the furlough contingent home for a holiday, happy with the young wife whom he married when he was on final leave way back in 1940. The young wife who, like his parents, Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Kelly, of Opotiki, never abandoned hope throughout nearly two years of silence. Just one little card from the prisoner of war camp soon after surrender. Then nothing. Other parents, other wives received letters and cards. The Kellys could only hope.
Many a time out on the hillsides of Crete Bombardier Kelly was tempted to surrender. He thought about the folks at home and of what they must be suffering. Had the Germans reported him dead, as they threatened to do? Well, even if they had, it was worth it. Some day, somehow, despite all traps, against all odds, he would find a means to escape. The day came. "And you can put me on record as saying that that was the greatest day of my life."
Bombardier Kelly would never tell how he left Crete. Only a selfish fool would want to know. Maybe there are other men of his courage and perseverance living even now, from hour to hour, from day to day, awaiting the day of their deliverance. They, too, must have their chance.
Greek Villagers Saved His Life
In this story, for the same reason, and for the protection of the wonderful people of Crete who did so much for the hunted British men who came to them, nor came in vain, for food and shelter, no names of places or persons are given. But for the Greek villagers Bombardier Kelly would be dead, or, at best, a prisoner of war. For 22 months they succoured him.
Detection by a Nazi soldier meant either sudden death or a quick return to a prison camp. There was no telling which. Some Nazis would drop you in your tracks, without a qualm. Others would grunt sourly, offer you a cigarette, and march you off to the guard house. The game was not to be detected. To stay alive. To look like a Greek man of the villages. To be clean. To be shaven. To speak like a Cretan. To pass for a Cretan. Not to blanch, nor to shuffle, nor to look uneasy when you passed Nazis on the roads and tracks, or in the streets of the cities.
In the cafes, as you sat at a table next to German soldiers, it was a grim sort of a game that you played, as you ate and drank solemnly, listening to the guttural chatter of these enemy men, who brushed past you, looked at you, never suspecting that you were one of that division of what Hitler, in his folly, once described as "poor, ignorant country lads, whose bones would be left to bleach along the desert ways." Yes, there was a mordant satisfaction in that.
Darting From Danger
And at other times, as when you were awakened at dead of night by an 80 years old woman who had crept through the German lines, to rouse you from your uneasy sleep in the ruins, and to warn you that the Nazis were closing in from all sides, it was not much fun. It was not fun to crawl and run and dart from boulder to boulder, avoiding the searchers, fearful of that sudden burst of tommy-gun fire which would split the darkness of the hillside to wipe you out in a twinkling. Men like Bombardier Kelly have no medal ribbons. Not as yet. They are modest. Bombardier Kelly is proud only of the fact that he stuck it out for all these months. He is fearful of "shooting a line." One had to promise him that he would not be quoted in a boastful way.
But some things are best told in his own words: "The day we had to surrender. There were 7000 of us, Troops and civilians, all mixed up. Food was precious scarce. The Greeks were offering us money for food. But we didn't have enough for ourselves. We had marched 40 miles from the battlefield, to within two miles of the beach, and we were just about all in. In the valley we had to keep order. I was on guard. Then an officer came along. He said the troops in front of us were not our blokes. They had put up a flag. It wasn't ours. We were cut off—surrounded. No show. Only thing now to remove our steel helmets and down arms.
Cruel March to Captivity
"We were hungry. The Aussies had caught and cooked a donkey. They cut it up and cooked it in sections. I was unlucky. There wasn't any over. Soon the Germans were all round us. Tommy-guns right and left. They lined us up and marched us off, back along the odd 40 miles of road, to an improvised prison camp. "Some of our chaps were done. The whole thing was agony. Some fell out by the way, and died. Some were kicked by the German guards, so that they would keep going. I saw one German who was ordered to march in front, instead of behind, so that he shouldn't kick.
"Taken all round, the Germans were pretty decent. They didn't have much to give us. Most of them were hungry during the first days on Crete. You can imagine how we fared. On that cruel march back to Galatos we picked the horse beans, the karoupia beans, from the roadsides. At night we just dumped down where we halted. Most of us had discarded our greatcoats on the long retreat. Now some were lucky and could pick one up. Or perhaps a blanket. The roads were strewn with discarded gear.
"The first day in the prison camp there was a bit of gruel for dinner. Just a mug of coloured water, you know. At night half the camp would get a little something. The other half wouldn't. The Germans didn't have it to give. The camp was crowded, and the wire was pretty poor in parts.
"Chaps react differently. Some wilted under the strain. Nobody sang. Nothing like that. None of that Hollywood stuff. The mental strain was terrific. After a couple of days some of us were put on odd jobs. This gave us a chance to get at some food which we had stowed away on the battlefield before the retreat began. I managed to get two blankets, a tin of bacon, a tin of meat and two veges., and for two days we didn't eat too badly.
Escaped Under the Wire
"We were in that prison camp for six weeks. Things improved a bit. In the third and fourth weeks we began to get enough to exist on. But you could always eat as much as you had just eaten and know that you would still be hungry. My mate, Bob, a boy from Scotland, who had lived 11 years in America and only two months in New Zealand, was with me when I escaped. We picked the right place in the wire, near where a culvert ran under the main road, and we selected a night when the moon rose about 10, so that it would be dark when we got out and light later on when we were finding our way over the hills. We went down on our tummies under the wire and into the culvert.
"German guards decided to have a yap in the roadway, right on top of the culvert. Imagine us lying there in the dark! The Germans moved on, and as soon as a heavy truck came along we scrambled out and up the bank under cover of the noise, and by the aid of the passing light. We did the first 100 yards on our tummies.
"The first thing we were interested in was getting rid of our uniforms. Here we won't be able to tell how that was done, but in the end, with my dark, bronzed complexion, black hair and brown eyes, I looked like a Greek. I had a pair of high jackboot —leather riding boots. A pair of riding breeches. A little grey shirt and a little grey coat. On my head a large coloured 'kerchief. For this transformation, and especially for the jack-boots which saved me over and over again, I had to thank a Greek who was one in a thousand."
Nazis Hunting in Disguise
Bombardier Kelly speaks of those Cretan people with reverence. You can't, he explains, live away up in the hills, keeping alive on scenery and fresh air. You must be reasonably near to villages and places of habitation. At times you can live in a village. At other times you must flee to the hills. Of course, Crete is full of Nazis all the time. Some of them are disguised as Cretans, begging for food and shelter, pretending to be British soldiers. And when the generous, stout-hearted Cretans help those Nazis in disguise Bombardier Kelly thinks it better that one shouldn't write too much about that. Whole villages, or, at least, all the men in those villages, have been shot out of hand. The Gestapo never let up. In the main, the Greeks could usually distinguish between the genuine British soldier seeking aid and the ersatz stranger. At first it was easy enough, once in disguise, to move about as a Cretan. Later, when all the Greek men had been conscripted and put to work on the roads, an odd man wandering around was one to be suspected and questioned. So, then, it was a case of moving by night, lying doggo by day. Old ruins were a favourite place of concealment when near a village. Even then the Nazis had a nasty trick of putting a couple of shots into holes and other likely places, to see what came out.
Language Difficulties
And at first, of course, the bombardier and his Scottish pal knew no Greek. Indeed, the Scot, who had lived so long in the United States, was "inclined to talk like a Yank." That didn't improve matters. But when it is a case of life or death you will, Bombardier Kelly assures one, learn any language. For the first 12 months they seemed scarcely to improve. Then they began to get the hang of it. To-day, Bombardier Kelly can talk a deceiving, sullen, throaty Greek and get along fine. Well enough to deceive German guards.
Bombardier Kelly's first encounter with Germans was in a village street. It was a narrow street, with room for three abreast. Two German engineers passed. They gave him "a beautiful smile" and said "Chereti!" He returned "a beautiful smile" and murmured "Chereti!" That was that. Then, one day, going into a village, he was held up by a German guard. Fortunately, Bombardier Kelly had a pass, which a Greek peasant had lent him. Only a few words passed. The German guard did not ask for a comparative fingerprint. Had he done so, all would have been over Bombardier Kelly went on up the road, simply dying to look back. Was the German playing him? Was he drawing a bead on his back? Would one fall over dead, or would one hear the crack of the rifle first?
One hundred yards. One hundred and fifty yards. Surely, now, it would be safe to take a peep behind. Just a quick peep! Horrors! There was the Nazi guard, with a Greek policeman, following only fifty yards behind! As it turned out, they were only stretching their legs!
During the first 12 months of hide-and-seek British escapees often ran into each other. At such meetings they had to be cautious. There was always the Gestapo in disguise. The Germans got a lot of our men. Others, again, grew tired, and gave themselves up. There were times when the struggle seemed too unequal. Bombardier Kelly met fewer and fewer of the hunted.
One night, Bombardier Kelly and his cobber found themselves in the midst of German troops on manoeuvres. They were hiding under some trees and shrubs. Starshells and Verey lights were going up. The conditions made for jumpiness. "Overs" from the guns began to whistle through the trees. It took a lot of self-control to believe that you were not being used as a human target.
There was a wonderful Greek. "You will eat what I eat," he said. "Sometimes you will go hungry. Sometimes you will go thirsty. But you will not give yourself up!" So they didn't give themselves up. They stuck it out, living one day at a time.
The winter was "quite severe." It rained for nearly five months. Bombardier Kelly says it seems incredible that men could remain at large for 22 months in such conditions. "But, after all, it is a matter of one day at a time."
"Foxes Have Holes"
Ridges, clefts, holes. Cover a hole with two bits of tin. Cover the tin with brush. Cook your food in the covered hole by night. You can conceal flame by night, but you can't hide smoke by day. Smoke gives you away to the enemy. You can always set bird traps. Make them out of stones. Get the birds and pluck them. Tobacco? In his spare time he made little cigarette-pipes—quaint gadgets, which the Greeks had never seen. The Greeks accepted them gratefully, as novelties. Bombardier 'Kelly could make one in a day. He decorated the bowls with little carved emblems hearts, spades, clubs. Little hoo-dickies. Then he took to putting swastikas on them. It amused him to think that the Germans might buy them from the Greeks. For each cigarette-pipe the Greeks would give the resourceful bombardier 100 cigarettes. One day, to his delight, an old Greek told him, "You have achieved your ambition. The German overseer is smoking one of your swastika pipes!"
"It Is Impossible To Escape"
The Germans dropped thousands of pamphlets on Crete. One, distributed far and wide, was worded thus: Soldiers of the British Army, Navy and Air Force! We know that there are many of you hiding in the hills. The following winter will force you down from the hills. If you surrender yourselves to our soldiers you will be treated as honourable prisoners of war. On the other hand, those found in civilian clothing will be treated as spies, and shot. It is impossible to escape. Signed: Commander of Kreta.
"It is impossible to escape!" Bombardier Kelly thought a good deal on those ominous words, but he didn't believe them. Somehow, some day. And, while others walked into traps, or had bad luck, he got along, somehow. He was nearly always clean shaven. Seldom or never was he dirty. By what magic was this contrived? Well, the Germans would always trade with the Greeks. Oranges. Grapes. Wine. So, Bombardier Kelly shaved with a German safety razor, and washed with German soap. When most of the Greek men around were clean and shaven, why look conspicuous by being unkempt?
Sang "God Save The King"
There was a little fun to be had, too. Twice, in "safe" villages, he attended Greek weddings. With his pal, he even sang for his hosts— English songs. "Sing us 'God Save The King,' they pleaded. Bombardier Kelly sang it. Those weddings were occasions to be remembered. The music, the dancing, the laughter, and the wine. Not that one could afford to get drunk. Much too dangerous. Many a British soldier fell into the Germans' hands that way. A relaxation of caution, and the game was up.
There was plenty of olive oil to be had. This helped keep one fit and clean and well. Then, in the season, there were the oranges and the grapes to steal or take.
A Propaganda Photograph
Speaking of German methods, Bombardier Kelly recalled an occasion when he saw the propaganda machine at work. It happened while he was in the prisoner of war camp. A German staff car drove up. An officer alighted, followed by a photographer. The officer was in a spectacular white uniform, and the New Zealanders crowded over to the barbed wire to see what was happening. The German ostentatiously took out a tin of cigarettes, lit one and blew the fragrant smoke towards the prisoners. Poor fellows, they had not enjoyed a smoke for days. Then, with a grin, the officer began to throw handfuls of cigarettes over the wire into the compound. Did the prisoners jump for them? They jumped like Rugby players in a lineout, their arms upstretched. The camera man was busy all the time. With the officer, he drove away, looking very satisfied. He had secured for the Nazi propagandist Press an excellent photograph of New Zealand boys giving the Nazi salute!
Twenty-two months on Crete.
Only a man of rare quality could" emerge from such an ordeal sane and sound. Bombardier Kelly to-day shows no obvious signs of distress. He looks what he is—tough in spirit and fibre. The sheep and goat tracks on Crete are, he says, as familiar to him as the lines on the palms of his hands. The Nazis are beginning to crack. Some day soon after his furlough, there may be an interesting and satisfying job for Bombardier Kelly.
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Here's a photo of Bdr. Kelly from the article
paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=AS19430814.2.18.2&e=01-12-1941--12-1945--10--11-byDA---0rugby+soldiers+front+line--
