Lieutenant Colonel Sir George Kennard, Bt.
About twelve miles from Kalamata, the port of ’embarkation’ we stopped at the side of the road whilst Clem went forward to find out what on earth the powers that be, if any, wanted to do with us. By now the chaps were out on their feet. On either side of the road, they dropped to sleep, some 30 men, one armed with a Boy’s Anti Tank Rifle. But not for long …
I was awakened by a very loud burst of machine-gun fire, and hysterical German yells. John* was standing beside me, and Trooper Small was lying beside us with his Boy’s Rifle. A few hundred yards down the road was a German armoured car. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes John exhorted Trooper Small to shoot. Trooper Small did his best, but his fantastic weapon wouldn’t work, “The bloody bolt’ s jammed, Sir” …
In desperation, I ran to a kind of garden shed in the olive grove where most of the men had gone to sleep. Nobody had a weapon so I told them to beat it southwards quick. I very badly wanted to go with them and would have done so had it not been for Trooper Small and John. Dragging up from somewhere the only self-control I have ever found in my life, I walked back towards John. The firing had greatly increased, so had the hysterical yelling of orders in German, but no, I wasn’t going to crawl, I was going to walk back, bolt upright.
It was only across one field, and when I got to John he was frantically kicking the gun. It didn’t do the bolt any good, and suddenly John spun around on his feet. “The sods shot me …” and so they had. Into his neck, there was a neat hole, and nothing out. It didn’t seem to worry John much except to produce a volley of oaths that nearly drowned the increasing screaming of Teutonic orders.
I was trying to get a small handkerchief around his neck when a very polite voice came up the path: “For you, gentlemen, the war is over …” And there standing very well dressed, with a pistol pointing at the ground was a German officer.
I remember saying “Thank God for that, hurry up, this chap’s been shot in the neck.” The German officer obligingly put his pistol away and pulled a bandage out of his pocket. I stopped looking at John and looked at the German officer. “Good God, Otto, wie geht’s? … How nice to see you …” In front of an infuriated John, we shook hands warmly. So often he had come to Drosedow for weekends of peace, being Otto Hertzog, a cousin of the Mitzlaffs.
In the meantime, the German infantry attacking had rounded up those who had not bolted from the garden shed and were marching them on to the road. Lying thereon were three of our men, killed in the initial burst of machine-gun fire, utterly wasted, hopeless, futile loss of lives.
We were shepherded together onto the road whilst Otto gave his orders for the reorganisation of his command. I introduced John to Otto who, though polite rather spoilt the effect by removing his race glasses from his neck and throwing them onto the road to break them, muttering “Don’t talk to that bloody German.” Since all the captives were looking at me as if I might be a fifth columnist I got off the subject of Drosedow and asked Otto what the hell was going to happen to us. “You will have to travel in a truck with us to Kalamata till we can send you to a prison camp. There you will be well treated, and I shall take you out to dinner when I get some leave. Your friend will be taken into hospital at Kalamata.”
This was welcome news. Kalamata was still full of British troops and it would presumably be easy to make a break when we arrived there. We were all put into an open truck and followed along in the German convoy. I told our chaps what was happening and asked them to sing “Roll out the Barrel” at the top of their voices as we came into the outskirts of the town. This seemed to annoy the German infantry travelling just behind us but was happily tolerated by Otto in his armoured car just in front. John’s neck couldn’t have been bad since he sang as loud as the rest of us.
I don’t think the Germans had a clue how many British troops there were in Kalamata. They just drove happily on in the gathering dusk. In the outskirts of the town, we met the new enemy, our side. This started a repeat performance of hysterical German commands, and in the resulting chaos, we were bundled out under armed guard into a cellar. Otto was too busy for me to remonstrate against this procedure, for judging by the shouting and explosions he was otherwise occupied.
I told John and the chaps that I was going to make a break for it. Whilst I was trying to pluck up the courage to bolt down the streets I heard the orders shouted out for the dispositions of the Germans, including the emplacement of their big gun which was happily trundling along to the quayside to lob shells into the length and breadth of beaches full of unarmed men asleep.
Unfortunately en route to the town our numbers had been increased by the Germans picking up an elderly naval gentleman of ours who had the codes for our evacuation that night. He was not too keen on making a bolt for it, and indeed by virtue of his age would have been unfit to do so. I am not sure I would have done so either, had it not been for the fortunate demise of our sentry outside who suddenly dropped dead on the road from a bullet from one side or other.
Encouraged by this fortuitous event I hopped it quick. There was some very inaccurate shooting by the Germans, but a great deal more, happily equally erratic, from the New Zealanders. It wasn’t lack of training, but the fact that it was now dark, a darkness however that did not stop the big gun scoring bodies every time it shot onto the beaches. In this dark I found a New Zealand Major. He seemed to be organising a scrap attacking force. I told him I had just escaped, and knew the German dispositions, including the big gun.
Standing beside him was a New Zealand Sgt. “Jump into this truck Sir, we’ll rush the gun” … Sgt Hinton had only a revolver. The truck was a normal 15 cwt. I hadn’t the courage to say “Not bloody likely”, … but muttered something about having to make a report. “Come on Taffy then”, shouted Sgt Hinton. Taffy was an Australian. Taffy was a better man than me. And Taffy with a Bren jumped into the back of the truck. They shot off down the straight quay road straight at the gun. It wasn’t only the gun. It was supported by some dozen German machine gunners lying next to it. There was a vast commotion—then silence. The gun had stopped.
There didn’t seem to be anybody to report to, and the gun position by now sounded safe — so I walked on down the quay. There was the gun lying on its side, there the 15 cwt, upside down. The German crew were dead, as were the machine gunners. Sgt Hinton seemed oblivious that he was shot in the stomach, and Taffy was away in the darkness pursuing more Germans.
Later I was to sign a statement for Sgt Hinton’s VC later given him with a knightly ceremony by the Germans in a POW Camp. None could have been better deserved, but for all I know, Taffy, whose name I never discovered, got nothing. When Hinton was taken away I was alone amongst the dead Germans. The fighting continued in the town. As it would have been impossible to have found the survivors of my Regiment on the beaches amongst the many thousands of rather disorganised Australians and base troops—including Mobile Bath Units, I thought I would next go back to the cellar for John and the others.
On the way I found a very nice looking German Officer lying on his back near his gun. There was no visible sign of a wound, and by my match-light, he looked very well. I bent down to give him a lighted cigarette and commiserate with him. He asked for nothing, made no complaint, so I left him my packet of cigarettes and the box of matches, telling him I would get help as soon as I could.
The next day, on the surrender, I passed him. He was dead. Beside him were four cigarette stubs.
I went on to find the cellar. There was nobody there, only the sentry’s corpse outside. But two or three houses down a dozen or so German prisoners were being led out of the house with their hands up. Someone shouted to me to help take them back. And in the dark once more I recognised Otto.
I am afraid that I was much too frightened taking them back to be as courteous as he had previously been to me, and anyhow I think he suspected that I had shot his sentry. He was in a very nervous state and really believed that he was going to be shot. I told him that if the Navy came in he would be taken to Egypt as a prisoner of war and that when I was on leave I would take him out to dinner. But using the dark as an excuse I did tell him to continue to keep his hands behind his neck.
We hadn’t gone far when some New Zealanders took them all from me back up the beaches. Still lost from my Regiment — the survivors were in fact having an orderly parade at the far end of the beaches. I went back in the futile attempt to find John and Co.
In the deserted town square, I found a New Zealander carrying a Bren. We had just introduced ourselves when we heard the ludicrous pop pop pop of a German two-stroke motorcycle coming into the square. We rushed with the Bren into the second floor of a house. Almost under our window came the sidecar motorcycle with two Germans and stopped. Taffy quietly raised the Bren.
To this day I don’t know why . . . but I grabbed it from him. Other ridiculously pop pop pops were coming, it was too good a chance to miss. They too stopped, got off, and started adjusting their hideous steel helmets and straps, standing and talking to each other. They were sitting ducks.
So, it had come to this … All day and every day, as they had wanted it. Bomb after bomb. Frustration after frustration. Hunger, no sleep, no Regiment, no apparent evacuation. Billy muttered, so many others killed fairly. Cecilia is about to have a baby … And here one Bren, in the right place. A good gun — the Bren. I knew it from Hythe. Gun firing alright. Gun stops. Immediate action, etc ., etc.
I even waited a little longer, in case there were more pop pop pops to join them. There weren’t. So as they stood in a huddle in the square I pulled one finger. The gun didn’t stop. There was no immediate action. It only took one magazine. And then we left the good gun on the floor. The New Zealander went to look. I didn’t go with him, I could see how much nicer they looked without their steel helmets, which had mostly fallen off.
We went back towards the beaches, and neither of us talked. There seemed to be very little fighting now, but the Navy had heard it at its worst and decided they would only evacuate the sick and wounded, believing the Germans still to be in the town. There were none left in the town, except in the improvised POW cage upon the beach, amongst them my friend Otto. I went to talk to him. He had calmed down and we were once more able to talk of happy pasts.
Somebody shouted in the dark, “Would the British officer talking German go to Headquarters. ” This I was only too pleased to do if there was such an organisation, and excusing myself from Otto I was taken to the Brigadier who was standing on the beach with his staff.
Brigadier Paddington was in charge of the evacuation. He was dead tired but utterly calm. He had heard of the refusal of the Navy to come in. The 10,000 men on the beaches were to be surrendered at dawn. I was to take my German officer friend and find the German Headquarters to give them this information. At all costs, we were to affect our mission in time to stop the bombing of the troops in daylight.
I had no reaction at all to these orders other than to think of the relief this would give to Otto at this sudden reversal of his fortune. He took it very ‘correctly’, and before setting off with me addressed his fellow captives. They naturally let out a tremendous Teutonic cheer, which quickly stopped under the equally natural threats from the infuriated Australians.
So off Otto and I set out once more. Neither of our respective Army training manuals covered this situation, so we agreed that in our side of the town I would go first shouting “I am a British Officer with a German; don’t shoot.” We reckoned that the halfway house was the town square, and from there Otto would lead shouting “Hier ist Oberleutnant Hertzog mit Parlementar. Nicht schiessen!”
We got to the square with no incidents.
Otto looked at the dead motorcyclists. I tried to pass on, but it was from here he was to take the lead and he was not sure in which direction to go. There was the most filthy, sickly, sugary smell. The smell of death. I told him I had done this. He would find the Bren gun on the floor of that house. He said what a pity, they had been good men. One of them had just won the Eiserne Kreuz, Erster Klasse. I said “F him” under my breath.
Otto couldn’t find the German Headquarters and by now I was going very lame from a poisonous thorn in my foot. My only wound.
“Hier ist Oberleutnant Hertzog, mit Parlamentar”, and suddenly on the northern outskirts we were greeted with a burst of fire. We had found the very nervous Headquarters. Otto asked me to stay outside their building, whilst he went in and made his report. The sentry outside gave me a packet of German cigarettes.
After about half an hour 1 was invited in. It was a replica of a stage scene. Seated around a candlelit table were about half a dozen German officers.
They stood up, saluted, and gave me some Schnaps and food, I merely said our forces would surrender at dawn — they had no food and no water and it was imperative to stop the bombers before daylight. They were very polite, very kind and very sad at having lost 75 % of their force in an action ‘which did neither side any good’ . . .
Otto and I then snatched an hour’s sleep on a mattress. Dead tired I took off my belt with my revolver. Tired out as he too was his last words that night were “George, tomorrow you will have to give me your weapon.” Only after I motored at dawn with the German commandant to Brigadier Paddington did they, Oh so correctly, request me to hand over this weapon, for which I had never had any ammunition.
Oberleutnant Hertzog’s original detachment came from the crack Waffen SS Division which had been opposing us through the length of Greece. Over the entire fighting they had been brave, chivalrous and towards the end they would go out of their way, at considerable risk to themselves, to take prisoners rather than take lives.
Hertzog’s particular command of armoured cars, infantry carriers, and the gun had shipped across the Corinth Canal after the blowing of the bridge and were in fact the only German troops to have succeeded in doing so.
In Kalamata they had suffered 75 % casualties. Thus did 100,000 Commonwealth troops go into captivity of a few hundred surviving Germans. Nor, under the circumstances, could they have done otherwise.
A natural first reaction of any prisoner is to blame somebody else for his captivity, to excuse his feeling of disgrace. A great many chose the Brigadier. But not as many as those who are alive today — thanks to his brave decision.
In 1965, by the same post, I had two letters. One from the Brigadier, one from a naval admiral. The latter had written a book on the Greek Campaign and therein had cast unacceptable criticism against the Brigadier. The latter wrote asking for my opinion, as he wished to have the relative passages omitted from the Admiral’s book. The admiral wrote asking me to confirm his passages.
It was very plain to me that the failure of the evacuation was the correct nervousness of the Navy to evacuate a town they believed to be part occupied by the Germans.
I was, and still am, a friend of Otto Hertzog. Yet, within twenty-four hours of the capitulation, the special editions of the German press proclaimed the striking of a special Kalamata Medal for the brilliant victory of their troops, and the award of the highest German decoration to Oberleutant Hertzog, who, as a prisoner, frightened the British Command into surrender.
For my part, and Hertzog had warned us that this would probably happen, I was later to meet some very unpleasant Germans. Yet in retrospect, I bitterly regret pulling that trigger.
* The late Capt John de Moraville, M.C.
