In the first parachute drop of World War II, the Germans invaded Crete on 20 May, 1941. Australian, New Zealand and British troops, alongside Greek soldiers and the people of Crete, formed a crucial bond as they defended the tiny island. A story that appeals to teens: prisoners of war,...
Commemorates the 69th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe when 8900 Anzac prisoners of war captured in Greece and Crete were released from captivity. In 2011 it will be exactly 70 years since the 2nd AIF arrived in the Middle East to begin their extraordinary adventures...
This compelling book combines details of the campaigns with an account of the response of Greeks and Cretans to the Allied forces on their soil. It reveals the personal relations that developed between Australian soldiers and Greek civilians and soldiers; these were sometimes hostile but in other cases developed into...
Every school child in Australia & New Zealand is bought up on the legend of the Anzacs. This, though, is the largely unknown story of another Anzac force which fought not at Gallipoli, but in Greece a generation later. On 12 April 1941, General Thomas Blamey, commander of the Australian...
Author Brian Taaffe has lived and worked in Australia for over 20 years. Taking a keen interest in the intertwined history of both his adopted country and his country of birth, New Zealand, he travelled to Greece and Crete to follow in the footsteps of the ANZACs during the Second...
The battle at Galatas during World War II is the story of ordinary New Zealanders achieving extraordinary things : first in defending the small Greek village against overwhelming German military might ; and second, when the territory was lost to the enemy, fighting a bloody, bayonet-style engagement in what has been...
Charlie Jager was a romantic who read Homer and carried a revolver, Ben Travers a teenage larrikin who played cards and rolled his own. They were mates whose friendship had been forged in the North African battlefields, and were now pitted against Hitler’s crack paratroops in the Battle of Crete....
It is 1941 and Vic Stockton has missed the evacuation from Crete. Behind him lie the bodies of his dead comrades. Ahead lie days hiding from the Germans and a search for safety. Hungry and exhausted, he eventually stumbles upon a monastery whose abbot offers him shelter in an abandoned...
Military strategy during wartime always involves an element of risk. One great risk was the committing of Australian troops to Greece in 1941. In hindsight was this the right decision ? The allied leaders of the day had no such doubts for they saw the need to strategically support Greece,...
This enthralling account of the Resistance in Crete, from the German invasion to the liberation, is by one of its most active Cretan participants. His duties as guide and runner were exhausting and dangerous. They entailed immense journeys on foot, usually at full speed over some of the most precipitous country...