until two in the morning. He and his troop of anti-tank guns were waiting for part of the Australian Division to pull back through their positions. They discovered at dawn that the unit in question had left long before, and they were in danger of being cut off. British officers in Greece had a low opinion of this particular Australian formation: one remarked that Their great battle-cry in Greece was "We're getting out!" ' Others observed that they had suffered most from the cold in the mountains, and added that even if they pulled out suddenly, they were just as likely to turn back again and fight.
Air attacks became frequent after the first week, once Luftwaffe air groups began to operate from advanced fields near Salonika. Few British fighters were seen opposing them. New Zealanders began to say that the initials RAF stood for Rare As Fairies. (Only 80 of their 152 aircraft were serviceable when the Germans attacked.) General Wilson noted that his men were becoming 'bomb-happy' and would abandon their vehicles at the appearance of any sort of aircraft in the distance. Yet strafing and bombing attacks on convoys were, in the eyes of British officers, astonishingly light, considering the targets presented during the often agonizingly slow withdrawal. 'Well,' said Brigadier Rollie Charrington, observing the ten-mile-long military traffic jam from a mountain pass, 'if the Boche starts bombing, that's the end of our brigade.' But most of the 1st Armoured Brigade's cruiser tanks succumbed instead to mechanical failure and were abandoned on the way.
Disengagements, when possible, were made by driving through the night. Tiredness, with drivers frequently falling asleep at the wheel during night moves, produced its own form of casualties to both men and vehicles. When the convoy came to a halt, the drivers would fall asleep so soundly that officers behind could only wake them up by firing a revolver past the cab window. Even those who stayed awake might wonder if they were dreaming, so strange were some of the sights during the retreat. A Belgrade playboy in co-respondent shoes accompanied by his mistress in an open Buick two-seater incongruously appeared in the military traffic jam. And one night, an officer of the British Military Mission saw by moonlight a squadron of Serbian lancers in long cloaks pass like ghosts of the defeated in wars long past.
Routes became clogged by broken-down vehicles, carts, horse-drawn artillery and the weary, trudging remnants of the Greek army from Macedonia. Bomb craters had to be filled in and obstructions pushed or winched off the side of the road. For one unit, a stretch of twenty-three miles took nine hours.
General Wilson realized that, with the bulk of the Greek army cut off in Albania — due to what he called 'the fetishistic doctrine that not a yard of ground should be yielded to the Italians' — all hope of holding the Germans north of Larissa had gone. Signals intelligence warned of the threat of encirclement from the west. Wilson therefore gave orders to fall all the way back to the Thermopylae line. Larissa itself was a dangerous bottleneck: already ruined by an earthquake at the beginning of the winter, it had been crushed anew by the Luftwaffe. Disengagement was difficult, particularly with the German threat to the left flank, but the real danger came on the right near Mount Olympus. The 5th New Zealand Brigade managed to hold the Vale of Tempe, the River Pinios gorge which led to Larissa, for three days against heavy attacks by the 2nd Panzer Division and the 6th Mountain Division.
Commanded by General Blarney, who was greatly liked by British officers, the newly named Anzac Corps — the 6th Australian Division and the 2nd New Zealand Division — pulled back to the line at Thermopylae. Through a disastrous oversight, a large supply dump at Larissa fell intact into the hands of the German mountain troops, giving the enemy the means to continue the advance without
Air attacks became frequent after the first week, once Luftwaffe air groups began to operate from advanced fields near Salonika. Few British fighters were seen opposing them. New Zealanders began to say that the initials RAF stood for Rare As Fairies. (Only 80 of their 152 aircraft were serviceable when the Germans attacked.) General Wilson noted that his men were becoming 'bomb-happy' and would abandon their vehicles at the appearance of any sort of aircraft in the distance. Yet strafing and bombing attacks on convoys were, in the eyes of British officers, astonishingly light, considering the targets presented during the often agonizingly slow withdrawal. 'Well,' said Brigadier Rollie Charrington, observing the ten-mile-long military traffic jam from a mountain pass, 'if the Boche starts bombing, that's the end of our brigade.' But most of the 1st Armoured Brigade's cruiser tanks succumbed instead to mechanical failure and were abandoned on the way.
Disengagements, when possible, were made by driving through the night. Tiredness, with drivers frequently falling asleep at the wheel during night moves, produced its own form of casualties to both men and vehicles. When the convoy came to a halt, the drivers would fall asleep so soundly that officers behind could only wake them up by firing a revolver past the cab window. Even those who stayed awake might wonder if they were dreaming, so strange were some of the sights during the retreat. A Belgrade playboy in co-respondent shoes accompanied by his mistress in an open Buick two-seater incongruously appeared in the military traffic jam. And one night, an officer of the British Military Mission saw by moonlight a squadron of Serbian lancers in long cloaks pass like ghosts of the defeated in wars long past.
Routes became clogged by broken-down vehicles, carts, horse-drawn artillery and the weary, trudging remnants of the Greek army from Macedonia. Bomb craters had to be filled in and obstructions pushed or winched off the side of the road. For one unit, a stretch of twenty-three miles took nine hours.
General Wilson realized that, with the bulk of the Greek army cut off in Albania — due to what he called 'the fetishistic doctrine that not a yard of ground should be yielded to the Italians' — all hope of holding the Germans north of Larissa had gone. Signals intelligence warned of the threat of encirclement from the west. Wilson therefore gave orders to fall all the way back to the Thermopylae line. Larissa itself was a dangerous bottleneck: already ruined by an earthquake at the beginning of the winter, it had been crushed anew by the Luftwaffe. Disengagement was difficult, particularly with the German threat to the left flank, but the real danger came on the right near Mount Olympus. The 5th New Zealand Brigade managed to hold the Vale of Tempe, the River Pinios gorge which led to Larissa, for three days against heavy attacks by the 2nd Panzer Division and the 6th Mountain Division.
Commanded by General Blarney, who was greatly liked by British officers, the newly named Anzac Corps — the 6th Australian Division and the 2nd New Zealand Division — pulled back to the line at Thermopylae. Through a disastrous oversight, a large supply dump at Larissa fell intact into the hands of the German mountain troops, giving the enemy the means to continue the advance without
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