When you walk through the renovated NSW Anzac Memorial and enter the new Hall of Service you come across an Oculus where beneath lies soil collected from 100 battle sites.

Four of those soils are from Vevi Pass, Tempe Gorge, Cape Spada and Retimo and were key battles that Anzac soldiers fought during the Battle of Crete and the Greek Campaign during World War Two.

Vevi Pass 
Vevi is situated 16 kilometres south of what was then the Yugoslav border in northern Greece. On April 9, 1941 it saw the first engagement between Anzac and German troops in the Greek campaign.

Alf Carpenter was a Sergeant Major in 2/4th Battalion and he was part of the first landing of the Anzac second core.

“We had the Greek Battalion on our right flank and the 2nd/8th Battalion got taken,” he told Neos Kosmos. “Instead of fighting the enemy on one flank, we’re fighting them on the rear flank too. So, we fought the enemy out and then we made a fighting withdrawal and we formed down there on the Aliakmon River. We had to hold the Germans up for eight days while they put this bridge across for us and when we got out on to our transport, we went down to Brallos Pass.”

Tempe Gorge 
Located on the eastern coast of Greece, Tempe Gorge is formed where the Pinios River cuts through the coastal mountain range, on its way to the sea and to the south-east of Mount Olympus.

It is the site of a rear-guard action fought by Anzac troops against German soldiers on April 18, 1941.

“Tempe is the most famous, most mythical and beautiful valley of Greece,” said Nick Andriotakis of the Joint Committee for the Commemoration of the Battle of Crete and the Greek Campaign.

“The Anzac Commonwealth forces, including English, Indian and Cypriots are engaging with German forces. Unfortunately, they lost everything as they are badly supplied but what they achieved was holding the German forces back for an orderly retreat.”

Cape Spada 
“Off the shore of Cape Spada in north western Crete the HMAS Sydney is engaged in a dog fight battle with the Italian ship Bartolomeo Collenoi and the Australians sink it as well as other Italian ships,” said Andriotakis.

“Because of that sea battle and others, the allies managed to take supremacy over the Mediterranean. Later when the Battle of Greece and Crete was lost the allies were able to get the remaining forces off to safety because they controlled the sea lanes.”

Retimo
Rethymno (Retimo) is a town east of Hania in Crete. Beginning on May 20, 1941 Greeks and about half of the 6th Division were deployed in defence of three airfields at Malame, Rethymno and Heraklion.

“We took our positions at the aerodrome at Heraklion and it was our job to stop the Germans from landing at the aerodrome,” Australian WW2 soldier Alf Carpenter said.

“We were there when the paratroopers landed on 20 May 1941. To see people coming at us from the sky was another thing all together. When we got picked up at Heraklion on the Imperial, a British Navy ship, she got a near miss just getting out of Crete. Then we had to get to another destroyer to come alongside us and we jumped from one ship to the other. We just got a way before the Germans fired a torpedo into the Imperial.”