Latest NBN NewsNewcastle News

NEWCASTLE WAR VETERAN REMEMBERS

At 95 years of age, this World War Two veteran has vivid memories of his time on the front line.

Newcastle’s Alf Carpenter enlisted in the Army in 1934 and was called to service when World War Two broke out in 1939.

After training in Sydney, the 2/4th Battalion was deployed to Greece, where they faced the full force of Germany’s modern warfare.

” It was up there…that we first met the onslaught of the German motorised infantry and their tanks. Actually it was hard to get the tanks through the alps and it was the guarding of the main road that we did mostly. Eventually, at another pass further to our East, the Germans managed to break through and they came in, and instead of fighting them on one front we were fighting them from the rear. We fought our way out of that and down to another line on the Aliakmon river.”

To escape the German onslaught Australian engineers built a swing bridge and, in a single line, the battalion crossed the bridge.

Allied forces withdrew from Greece, and the battalion was taken to Crete to guard the British, Commonwealth and Greek garrison.

The Battle of Crete was one of Germany’s biggest airborne operations and allied troops faced paratroops on a scale never before experienced.

It was an ill-fated mission for the Allied forces, but it was during this battle that Mr Carpenter experienced first hand the ANZAC spirit.

” For once during World War 2 the ANZAC Corp were together.”

On the 20th May 1941 the German paratroopers landed, securing the Heraklion airfield.

“They managed to take over the aerodrome there and started landing their big troop carriers there on the aerodrome. So it looked like we were going to be overrun and they decided to evacuate us. We were taken out and when we were looking out to sea we could hear this humming noise coming from the sea and after awhile it became a real drone.”

That drone turned out to be dozens of German troop carriers.

“They went up high enough so they could drop their paratroopers off and then before we knew it there was hundreds of paratroopers landing on top of our positions.”

“As they were coming down we looked up in awe and wonder because we were used to handling the troops on the ground level, it was the first time we managed the troops coming down on us, but we didn’t do much about it until they started firing at us with their parabellum – little hand held guns and we thought if they are going to fire on us we are going to fire on them.”

They weren’t able to hold their position and several days later were evacuated from Crete by British Destroyers.

But they were still in enemy waters and the Germans continued their assault on the battalion.

“As soon as we took off at full speed to Egypt again the dive bombers started coming at us.”

Mr Carptenter said the Captain was watching the bombs with binoculars, giving commands to the ‘wheelsman’ to doge the bombs.

“They managed to miss most of them and then they got one near miss, opened up the plates on the destroyer and when they had a look at the damage, told the skipper they we wouldn’t last much longer with the water coming in.”

Another ship was called to rescue the troops from the sinking Destroyer.

Troops were forced to jump from one ship to the other in the Mediterranean Sea – some didn’t make the leap.

Germany’s invasion of the island was successful.

” Of the 1100 that went into Greece there were only 400 of them that got out of Crete.”

He was one of the lucky ones. Mr Carpenter continued to serve in Darwin and Papua New Guinea before discharging in 1946.

Since then he has been working hard to keep the memory of his comrades and the spirit of Anzac Day alive.

He says Anzac Day means “that we remember all the comrades that paid the supreme sacrifice”

“It is most important and I believe that ANZAC day has really gone ahead as far as the younger generation is concerned. I give quite a few ANZAC addresses at different times at schools and also at different organisations. ”

“It’s up to each of everyone of us to try and do something about it to make sure that the sacrifices paid by our fallen brethren are not made in vain.”

text will be replaced

Related Articles

Back to top button