The battle for Greece & Crete.pdf - Army Museum of South Australia

To prevent this from happening Hitler ordered the preparation of the plans for “Operation Marita”which was a plan to invade and occupy Northern Greece commencing on the 26 March 1941.“Operation Marita”This invasion was to be undertaken by the German 12 th Army which consisted of 14 Divisionscommanded by Field Marshal von List these troops were currently engaged in nearby Yugoslavia.The build up by the alliesOn the 1 st March 1941 Bulgaria agreed to allow the Germans to occupy their country. It was duringMarch that the allies began to move troops into Greece. Between the 4 th and 18 th March, 58,000 troopsarrived in Greece and thereafter continued to arrive on a regular basis. Over 68,000 troops were to betransferred to Greece without loss.The Italian Navy consisting of a Battleship, eight cruisers and thirteen destroyers under the commandof Admiral Angelo Iachino attempted to disrupt the landing of the allied troops and on the 27 th and 28 thMarch the Italian fleet was engaged by the British and Australian Navies in the Battle of Cape Malapanwith the Italians being soundly defeated.The AustraliansThe first contingent of troops of “Lustre Force” to arrive in Greece numbered 756 included 89 men ofthe 3 rd Australian Casualty Clearing Station (ACCS). These troops had left Alexandria (Egypt) onHMAS Perth and arrived at the port of Piraeus on the 8 th March 1941. Australian troops continued toarrive regularly and were initially camped in the village of Dafni (the camps were named Daphne 1 andDaphne 2) which is between Piraeus and Athens before they moved north.Australia’s first casualty of the campaign occurred on the 1 st April 1941 when Sgt. Alec Moodie of the2/6 th Infantry Battalion, whilst carrying out Anti Aircraft (AA) duty aboard the MV Delos was killedduring a German Air attack.The Anzac TraditionOn the 12 th April General Blamey reformed the Anzac Corps with the troops of the 1 st Australian Corpsand the New Zealand Division becoming known as the Anzac Corps thus reigniting the spirit of 1915.VolunteersWhen they arrived in Greece the Australians were greeted by the local population in a very unusualmanner, who had lined the roadside or leant out of their windows of their homes to wave to the Aussiesand they also gave them the ‘thumbs up’ which had been adopted by them after seeing the RAF use itto indicate “V for Victory”. The Greeks readily adopted this gesture and apparently it is now acceptedas part of a normal greeting in Athens. Of course the Australians had a rather different meaning for thisgesture. However, the ‘Diggers’ quickly realised that the Greeks saw the gesture as a sign ofwelcome and support. It would appear that this was another example of the easy going nature andlarrikinism of Australians, as we were able to change what was considered to be an insult into acompliment.The Greeks were quite surprised to find that both the Australian and New Zealand troops were all‘volunteers’, because they had a difficulty in understanding the concept of ‘volunteerism’ in respect tothe military they believed that the Australians and the New Zealanders had volunteered to fight forGreece – they considered them as ‘their soldiers’ and treated them as such.- 4 -