My brother David Sheppard carries the middle name Alexander, named after his Uncle Alexander Sheppard, a man he had never met but who he had heard vague family stories about having a connection with Greece during the war. David married his beautiful, first-generation Greek bride Betty – daughter of Katerina and John Kostoulias – and several years later when their son John was born, they gave him the middle name of Alexander. Until recently our family knew nothing of the deep personal and emotional connection that John’s Great Uncle Alexander had to Greece, and that he was widely known as “The Man Who Loved Greece”.
Growing up I knew very little about my father’s older brother Alex, so what I’ve learned about him I gleaned by trawling through hundreds of letters, diaries, photos and newspaper clippings and seven hours of taped interviews held in the archives of the National Library in Canberra. Additionally, a biography written by Wendy and Allan Scarfe titled “No taste for Carnage – Alex Sheppard: a portrait, 1913-1997” was a rich source of information.
One of seven children and born into poverty in Collingwood in 1913, Alexander Sheppard came from nowhere and finished up a Colonel in the Australian army who distinguished himself by being decorated with the Military Cross for his courage and bravery in Greece. After the war he played a major part in the humanitarian relief and post-war reconstruction in Greece and boldly spoke out against injustices and corruption, losing his position with the British Foreign Office by interfering in the execution of a Greek school girl. Through speaking engagements around the world and publishing countless articles, Alexander Sheppard fought tenaciously for 40 years to make the world aware of the injustices in Greece.
As a youth Alex was friendly with his local Greek greengrocer who stirred in him an interest in Greece and the Greek language. He sought out books on Greek history which was an unusual pastime for a young boy from the slums of Melbourne. When war was declared and Alex found himself on board a ship headed for Greece, he eagerly sought out Greek crewman to practice his Greek conversation with them. Alex loved the Greek language which came easily to him.
Many years later when asked about his flawless Greek with apparently no trace of an accent, he said “you have to really love the people if you want to speak their language”.
A first taste of Athens
When Alex’s ship reached Athens, he records that in the streets the Athenians greeted them with wild enthusiasm. To Alex these were a people whose ancestors had created the ‘glory of democracy’ and this ‘birthplace of western civilization’ must be saved from German fascism at all costs. No sacrifice was too great as ‘it was more than a matter of military strategy for me, it was a matter of honour!’
Two brigades of Australian troops were taking up positions from Veroia to Kozani. The Greek Army held the rest of the line and the Yugoslavs were to hold the line from the west, however after two days the Yugoslavs withdrew to defend their homeland. The 6th Australian Division was to prevent German troops from entering Greece through the Monastir Gap or the Veroia Pass where the Australians were to relieve the embattled Greek 12th Division.
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Being part of the British Empire, Australian troops were part of an Imperial army, so it was the British army who ordered equipment, ammunition and food from Britain. Unfortunately, some supplies were dropped inside enemy lines. Because Alex could speak Greek, he was ordered to collect and move the supplies into allied territory. The only way to transport the supplies was by donkeys.
Walking into a small village Alex came across the village priest, Pappa Psarras who gave him shelter for the night and provided him with some of his parishioners to help with the task of procuring donkeys. In total 170 donkeys were collected and their owners remained with their beasts and were happy to became part of the operation. Alex writes that he was “…humbled by their courage and ready willingness to put themselves in danger to support the task of getting the supplies to the troops in the thick of the battle”.
The first trip was successful but unfortunately the second convoy was dive-bombed and machine gunned where many men were killed and only 26 donkeys survived the attack. Alex again took refuge with Pappa Psarras who persuaded him to disguise himself so that he should look more like a local. The following day a group of Germans arrived in the village and ordered everyone to line up outside their homes. It was essential that Alex be part of the line-up for if the Germans had searched and found him hidden, there would have been disastrous reprisals for the villagers. Alex recounts that the officer looked ‘searchingly’ at him until Pappa Psarras hurriedly introduced Alex as the local schoolmaster. Alex briefly confirmed this in German, grateful for his ability to speak the language fluently. After the Priest had assured the German officer that there were no soldiers hiding in the village the Germans thankfully left and Alex and his helpers went back to loading the hidden stores on the few surviving donkeys.
Alex was later to be formally acknowledged for this act of bravery in retrieving the supplies behind enemy lines by being awarded the Military Cross, but always insisted that he shared this honour with the brave Greek men and their donkeys who made it possible.
When it was time for the Australians to leave Greece Alex was charged with overseeing the safe embarkation of troops, and as his final act, and with the Nazi flag flying above the Acropolis, he drove through Athens to check that no troops had been left behind.
Return to Australia
After the war Alex was delighted to be offered a position back in his beloved Greece heading a team from the Australian Red Cross. His role was to help the thousands of refugees return to their countries and also to organise the much-needed distribution of food and clothing amongst the Greek community. When he arrived in Athens, Alex became deeply distraught by what he saw and heard. People told him how they were still struggling to get over the nightmare of mass hangings, shootings, cruelty and torture by the Gestapo. As he walked around, he saw bodies dead from starvation still lying on Athens streets, he was “…filled with a deep sadness’ so he vowed that he would give everything he had to in order to alleviate any further suffering to these ‘beautiful people’.”
An absolute personal priority for Alex on his return to Greece was to try to locate friends he had made during the war to thank them for everything they had done, not just for him but for other Australian troops. His foremost companion in the field was Ypsilantes, a teacher who had volunteered to manage the donkeys for him, but to his dismay he discovered he was missing. He did however find the village Priest Pappa Psarras, but regrettably he found that whilst this beautiful man was still involved in supporting the resistance army, he was very frail and malnourished.
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After 18 months Alex was becoming completely disillusioned with the corruption he saw within the government who were withholding much needed food and clothing from needy citizens, so he took a position with the British Foreign Office as the Head of the Economic Mission in northern Greece. In his communications to the British Foreign Office Alex reported what he believed to be cruelty meted out by the Greek Government and was successful through his representation in having the Government stop the practice of beheading civilians and placing their heads in their villages. The be-heading continued but at least the heads were no longer allowed to be on display. He abhorred what he saw. He says that “while village people walked around bare-footed and with no overcoats whilst the Government bureaucrats were importing expensive cars, and other luxury items such as swiss watches, French perfumes and silks”. At every government level he saw corruption and misuse of government funds which appalled him.
Not surprisingly it was his tenacious defence of human rights that finally bought about Alex’s downfall! He learnt that a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl named Euphraxia Nicolaides was charged with giving food to the rebels in the hills. Evidence was presented that she had been captured taking food to her father, a leading ‘rebel’. The Court condemned her to death by execution.
Finding out the details of her execution, Alex was determined to protest in person and on the day of the execution, driving his official car and in full uniform made his way to the rifle range where the execution was to take place.
He watched the girl being marched out to the target area “with her hands bound behind her back. She made no attempt to run or to plead for her life. She stood impassively in front of the firing squad”. Alex raced forward and told the Lieutenant that the order to shoot Euphraxia was illegal under the terms of the Geneva Convention because she was a civilian and had not been caught carrying arms. The Lieutenant responded that he had to carry out the orders of his Commanding Officer. Alex then argued that the Nuremburg trials had established that it is not sufficient to plead that he was only carrying out orders. Alex suggested to the Lieutenant to go back to his commanding Officer and tell him that the matter should be referred to the Government’s legal, not its military advisors. The execution was postponed and the soldiers and Euphraxia departed.
The Greek military lodged a complaint over the halting of the execution and Alex was severely reprimanded by the British Foreign Office for ‘exceeding authority’ and ‘interfering in the affairs of a friendly nation’. But this was not the end of the incident for Alex. He tried interceding on the girl’s behalf with everyone in authority that he could think of and finally he went to the Commanding Officer who said that he may be able to spare the girl’s life if he ‘received something in return’. With no authority whatsoever to do so, and fully aware that he was bribing an official, Alex agreed to giving fifty-thousand gallons of petrol (which was the property of the British Economic Mission) in return for Euphraxia’s life. Alex had little choice but to trust that the Commanding Officer would keep his promise that her life would be saved. Two days later Alex received a notice of the termination of his employment and he was not offered another position.
Now unemployed, the outraged Alex wanted to tell the world what was really happening in Greece so he embarked on a Lecture tour around the world to speak on behalf of The Committee for Democracy in Greece. Returning to Australia in 1949 he formed the League for Democracy in Greece and urged audiences at their frequent meetings to demand the Athens government free political prisoners, cease court martials, executions and head severing and allow dissident political parties to exist.
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Alex never gave up his support of the Greek people and felt enormous relief when in 1975 democracy was finally restored. He became a free-lance journalist and publisher and successfully challenged and overturned the draconian censorship laws in Australia. Alex died in Sydney in 1997 – a man driven to speak out against inequality and exploitation who had more in common with the peasant resistance fighters in Greece than with his officer-class colleagues in the army. Asked how, as an army officer how he could take the stand that he did, Alex replied, “I don’t believe any decent human being could see the things I saw in Greece and not want to spend the rest of his life doing something about it.”
Although born an Australian, Alex was often heard to say…”My heart will always belong to Greece.”
