The German Lady

In last week's blog we looked at some of the work deployments of the Klagenfurt POWs and how, through their interaction with the locals the men picked of the German language. Kevin was raised on a farm near Wangarata, 182 km (113 miles) north-east of Melbourne. 

In 2005, about the time of his 87th birthday, Kevin, who was widowed in 2006 and living in Melbourne, was spending a few days with us in Geelong. He and I went to a local bakery to buy meat pies for lunch. There was a queue so we patiently waited to be served.

A tall lady, taller than Kevin who was a shade under six foot, turned to him and spoke in heavily accented English. 

"You know, I like this bakery. You can see the bakers working and it’s always very clean."

Kevin picked up on her accent and without missing a beat, he  responded in German. 

I was a little taken back though not completely surprised. It had been years since I’d heard him speak German. Even then, I thought that his German language skills were limited to the pleasantries.

The German lady, however, was unimpressed. She took offence at my father's approach. She braced her shoulders and stood even taller. Her bosoms inflated, rising over my head. 

"I have been in this country for thirty-seven years. You can speak to me in English!"

I took a step back but Dad held his ground. He continued to speak to her in German. He spoke politely, in a soft voice. That he spoke fluently left me wide-eyed.

Just when I thought the German lady was about to king-hit my Dad, she suddenly went quiet. As she calmed down and she resumed her normal height. She too switched to speaking German. 

They chatted for a minute or so but then she abruptly stopped mid-sentence.

"Wait a minute," she said. "You are Dutch! Yes? No. Wait. I think you are from Switzerland."

"Nah," said Dad. "Wangaratta."

The first of four Christmases

A6 Block. Christmas 1941. 

Back: Ralph Chapman, Ian Lipsett, James Windsor, W Jones, Tom Collyer, Charles Endacott. 

Front: Clyde McLachlan, John Dowrick, Herb Adcock, Bob Smith, Wilfred Bailey, Charles Brown, Ron McGlashen

Profiles 

John Dowrick

John Dowrick, Jack, was a fitter at the Railway Workshops in Mildura when he enlisted in the Army in 1940 aged 35. He was born in St Arnaud, Victoria, in 1905. Jack was an Infantry soldier with the 2/8th Battalion. He sailed to the Middle East in April 1940 and fought at Tobruk.

The 2/8th fought a fierce battle with German troops at Vevi in the north of Greece on 11 and 12 April but, overstretched and assailed by a vastly superior force, was forced to withdraw. Jack was captured near the Corinth Canal. At Klagenfurt he was known as ‘Pop.’ Post-war, Jack returned to the railways, working in the Ballarat workshop. Jack married his girlfriend on his return. They had two children. He died 2 Feb 1972 aged about 67.

Jack and a friend photographed in Tel-Aviv. I found the photo on Ancestry and included it as I thought it so quintisentially 'Australian.'

Arthur Anderson

Private Arthur 'Andy' Anderson was a member of the 17th's Brigade's 2/6 Battalion, He was captured near Corinth, April 1941. From the AWM website:

For the 2/6th, the Greek campaign was essentially one long withdrawal through a series of rearguard positions, beginning on 16 April. In the last days of the campaign its companies were dispersed by higher command; some were subsequently evacuated by sea between 26 and 29 April, but approximately a quarter of the battalion was left behind and taken prisoner. Some of the evacuees were landed on Crete and, after fighting with the 17th Brigade Composite Battalion, many of these men were also captured.

Private Arthur Anderson [photo supplied by his daughter, Carol Mules]

Arthur was born in Melbourne on 20 Aug 1918. Post-war he was a farmer at Glenthompson. He died on 8 Feb 1967 in Heidelberg, Victoria. He was 48. Arthur was in the theatre group. He is shown in this photo taken from one of the skits. He is first on the left.

Kevin Byrne's Memoir, Part 2

16 Feb 1941 

We departed Port Melbourne on the converted passenger liner, the Mauretania. At Balcombe that morning, reveille sounded at 4AM. We were entrained at Mornington for the one-hour trip to Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station. Our exact departure date was supposed to be a secret – we weren’t even allowed to phone our families yet it seemed that all of Melbourne new about it. The Comforts Fund ladies were on the platform at Flinders Street ready to dish out hot meat pies and cups of tea. And my aunt, Tress Rourke, a nun at the Port Melbourne convent, knew because the children in her class told her. Many of the kid’s fathers were wharfies they all knew that a ship was arriving during the night to pick up troops.

Tress and another six nuns walked down to Station Pier to see me off. I wasn’t expecting her but in the sea of khaki it wasn’t too hard to pick out a group of seven nuns. Each one gave me a medal depicting their favourite saint. When they returned to the convent, which had an uninterrupted view of Station Pier, they hung a white sheet from the upper balcony and waved me farewell as the ship sailed. I was very touched by this gesture. 

Post Card of the Mauretania. The ship was painted grey for its troop ship role.

We sailed through Port Phillip Heads at 6AM and then down the west coast of Tasmania. At 4PM we joined three other ships, the Niew Amsterdam which had sailed from New Zealand and the Aquitania and Queen Mary which sailed from Sydney. HMAS Sydney joined the convoy as the escort ship. We arrived in Fremantle on February 10th and were given a day’s leave. The Queen Mary was too big to enter Fremantle Harbour so unfortunately the troops on that ship were denied leave. She had 8th Division troops on board and was heading to Singapore so any troops from that Division who were on the other ships like Aspro had to switch and were taken out to the Queen Mary on Lighters. Aspro and I said farewell and wished each other good luck.

We departed Fremantle on February 13th. Our escort now included HMAS Perth. After four days sailing in convoy, the Queen Mary and the Sydney set sail for Singapore while we continued north to the Middle East. The navy escorts, with their bands playing on the ships’ bow, used their fire hoses to create huge water fountains and sprayed the troops as each ship passed by.

Eleven days after leaving Fremantle we sailed into safe harbour in Bombay and were ferried ashore in Lighters where we were allowed to take a few days leave. Some of the men took the opportunity to ‘play up,’ repeating the episodes of the WW1 troops when they too were bound for the Middle East in 1915.

I was eventually transferred to a Dutch troop ship, the Westphalia. After a hot, slow voyage (we dropped anchor for a couple of days en route) we sailed through the Arabian and the Red Sea. On March 17, we arrived at Port Tewfik, Suez. We were ferried off in lighters and put on a train. We travelled by rail alongside the Suez Canal. By this time German aircraft flying out of Syria had dropped magnetic mines in the Canal and all shipping traffic had been suspended.

In due course we arrived at El Kantara where we crossed the Canal. Then we boarded another train and crossed the Sinai desert to the Beit Jirja Camp in Palestine. Along the way, a fellow soldier who was a student of bible history told us that Moses had frequented the nearby mountains and that the land we were now in was then known as Caanan, the land of milk and honey promised to the Israelites. We all agreed they did not get much of a deal. At Beit Jirja we did daily route marches to recover the conditioning that we lost on the voyage. Then we were on the train again, back to El Kantara, through Cairo, and eventually we arrived at our destination, El Amyria, some 12 miles from Alexandria where we were given another day’s leave. By now I was taken on strength by the 17th Brigade’s Head Quarter Company.

Word was getting about that we were destined for Greece. We had heard that the Germans began invading Greece on April 6th. On April 9th we boarded another Dutch transport ship, the Pennland, a sister ship of the Westphalia, and set sail for Athens the following morning. We were in convoy with two other ships and were escorted by two cruisers and three destroyers. A bomb raid by high-flying Italian aircraft caused no damage but it gave us quite a scare.

ATHENS 

13 Apr 1941 

We arrived in the Athens port of Piraeus and disembarked on Easter Sunday morning. This was exactly two months after leaving Fremantle. Allied forces had already been fighting in Greece for a month. My Brigade, the 17th, was under the command of Brigadier Parrington, a British officer. Its three infantry battalions were the Australian 5th, 6th and 7th. Its support units were a mix of Australian, New Zealand and British troops. We were in the last convoy to arrive in Greece.

Upon arrive, the infantry battalions were sent by rail to a destination north of Larissa where they were assigned to defend the mountain passes in that area. Our group now called a ‘composite company’ were taken to a camp at Mount Hymettus on the outskirts of Athens. Our first job was to dig slit trenches for shelter in the event of an air raid. The ground was hard and stony and enthusiasm was lacking – at first. The arrival of a bullet riddled staff car and a chat to the driver caused us to have a re-think. The following day we experienced out first air raid. Needless to say we hugged the bottom of our trenches when some bombs fell close by. 

This photo was taken by a street photographer. Kevin had to pay ‘up front’ and call back in the afternoon to collect the print. He never really expected to see the photographer again and was pleasantly surprised when he emerged from a crowd of people with the photo in his hand.

15 Apr 1941 

I enjoyed six hours leave in Athens with several others and managed to visit most of the famous Greek tourist icons including the Acropolis and the Parthenon. We fraternised with the locals who were very friendly.

17 Apr 1941 

A strong rumour circulated that our group of about 60 was about to be sent to the Athens aerodrome to defend it from an attack by German parachutists. This did not sound very appealing to me so when an officer visited our camp seeking 14 drivers, I was one of the volunteers. We were taken to a motor pool and I picked up a one-ton Morris truck. We collected ‘walking wounded’ from a casualty clearing station and took them to a hospital ship at Port Piraeus, about 12 miles from Athens. After lunch a Captain, a Lieutenant and I took a load of food out to one of the aerodromes. On the way back I had my first taste of coming under fire. A German aircraft strafed and bombed us. A piece of flying debris cut the back of my hand. I began to review my decision to volunteer for this job.

18 Apr 1941 

I was given general driving duties which included setting up supply dumps of fuel, food and ammunition for the retreating infantry. This continued for about a week. At times we back-loaded lightly wounded soldiers to various casualty clearing stations. We slept in our trucks at our base in suburban Athens and initially survived on bully beef and biscuits. We then we approached our civilian neighbours to cook for us. They agreed and the food was served in generous quantities. It was the best tucker I’d had since leaving Australia.

26 Apr 1941 

The rate of the German advance had stepped up a notch and was closing in on Athens. Lacking resources such as air cover, artillery, and naval support, the brass decided to evacuate all Allied troops to Crete, embarking from the city of Kalamata. We joined a large convoy of trucks and drove south. My vehicle was full of soldiers I’d collected late in the afternoon. They had become separated from their units in the prevailing confusion. After travelling on narrow unsealed roads and through mountainous terrain, our only guide was the dark shape of the truck ahead. It was a bit scary at times. 

The approximate route taken from Athens to Kalamata - approx 250 km

KALAMATA 

We eventually arrived in the port town of Kalamata on the Peloponnese Peninsula. We saw units of the 17th Brigade moving towards the beach but were unable to join them. Instead we were told to destroy our trucks and wait until tomorrow night when the boats would be here again.