The Whole Story

Day-by-day, play-by-play accounts of the campaign in and evacuation from Greece were released last week by the British War Office and Admiralty. They told a story of hurried dispositions, last-minute stopgaps, narrow escapes; and made vividly clear what a liability the much-hailed resistance of Yugoslavia turned out to be. Summary:

April 6. At dawn the Germans attacked northern Greece in five spearheads. Three divisions of Greeks defended that area, and it was intended that they should delay the Germans as much as possible, then retire in order behind Salonika to the main Anglo-Greek force. This plan was disrupted by Yugoslav weakness, which was due to troop dispositions which had been made for political rather than military reasons by the pre-coup, pro-German Government of Dragisha Cvetkovitch.

April 8. When the Yugoslavs let the Germans break through to the Vardar Valley, the three divisions of northern Greeks were cut off from Salonika. But the break-through in Yugoslavia had another, far more serious effect. It allowed the Germans to rush at full speed for the Monastir Gap--approximately at the juncture of Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece, and at dead center of the whole Anglo-Greek defenses. Monastir Gap was not only a geological phenomenon: it was also a gap in the Anglo-Greek defense, left because the Allies thought the Yugoslavs would hold the Germans a few days at least. The main Greek forces were concentrated against the Italians in Albania on the Allied left, the main British Empire forces against the Germans in Greece on the right. Between the two lay a mountainous country pierced by Monastir Gap and manned only by a handful of Greeks.

April 9. In the nick of time Australian Major General Iven Gifford Mackay rushed an artillery and an anti-tank regiment and five Australian battalions--altogether less than one division--into the breach. The Germans appeared in vastly superior force, and although the defenders inflicted heavy casualties for two bloody days, it was obvious that the weight was too much to bear indefinitely.

April 11-14. A withdrawal was ordered --to a line hinged close to Olympus on the coast. The Imperial forces were on the right, two divisions of Greeks on the left of this front. After valiant fighting against overwhelming odds, the underarmed Greeks suffered dreadful decimation and almost ceased to exist as a fighting force. For the rest of the campaign the Imperial force had to stand virtually alone, since the main force of the Greeks was facing the Italians far across the Pindus Mountains to the west. The flank and rear of the Imperial force was therefore threatened again, and a withdrawal to Thermopylae was ordered.

April 14-20. Under fearful bombing, shielded by a gallant Anzac rear guard, the British withdrew to Thermopylae, where the New Zealanders held the right to the sea, the Australians held passes to the left. Here it was that Imperial artillery fire was spectacularly effective, holding the enemy for four days and drawing German testimonies to the good marksmanship.

April 21. On this day, having fought a whole week without any Greek help, the British received a note from the Greek Government: "After having conducted for more than six months a victorious struggle against strongly superior forces, the Greek Army has now reached a state of exhaustion. . . . This state of things makes it impossible for the Greeks to continue the struggle with any chance of success and deprives them of all hope of being able to lend some assistance to their valiant allies. . . . The Royal Government is obliged to state that further sacrifice of the British Expeditionary Force would be in vain and that its withdrawal in time seems to be rendered necessary. . . ."

The Greek capitulation in Albania and Epirus this same day released large German forces to turn on the British flank.

April 22-24. A New Zealand brigade therefore faced the west to delay the Germans while the final retreat and evacuation were undertaken.

April 24-26. German command of the air, the mess Germans had made of the available ports, and the configuration of the Greek coast gave the Navy--which took up the heaviest chores from here on --a nasty assignment. It was to be beach work: "the same sort of work the Navy did when the Anzacs' fathers left Gallipoli and when their cousins left Dunkirk." On the first two nights 19,000 troops were evacuated from Megara, west of Athens on the isthmus of Corinth, and from beaches on the jagged south shore of the Peloponnesos. One transport ran aground and two were sunk by bombing, but before they had taken on any men.

April 26-27. On the third night 16,000 were evacuated. In the port of Nauplia a transport loaded with troops was bombed and set afire. The destroyer Diamond went to the rescue in a hail of dived bombs. The transport's boats were lowered and plied between the sinking ship and the destroyer while the Nazis bombed and machine-gunned the survivors. Later the escort vessel Wryneck joined the rescue and altogether 700 men were picked up. But next morning German bombers found and sank both destroyer and escort vessel, with heavy casualties. That night warships alone got 4,200 men off near Athens.

April 28-29. It was hoped to evacuate the last 8,000 men from the extreme south of the Peloponnesos, but when British warships arrived they found the Germans were already in possession of the area. Nevertheless, destroyers sent their boats to nearby beaches and rescued 500 men; and the same process was repeated on the two following nights, netting 225 more.

May 1. Many of the men had apparently been taken to Crete, so that ships could go back for second loads. But on the morning after the final night of sneaking, a convoy heading for Egypt was attacked in Caso Strait--northeast of Crete in the fringe of the Dodecanese Islands--by a flotilla of motor-torpedo boats. The attack was beaten off without loss to either convoy or escort. This was the final brush; the nightmare was over. Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham signaled his fleet: "Throughout these operations, under conditions of considerable danger and difficulty, there was no faltering. . . ."

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