Just days before he died, 101-year-old Battle of Crete veteran Norman “Norm” Eaton was the honoured guest at the Battle of Crete commemoration at Saint John the Theologian Greek Orthodox chapel at Prevelly Park near the mouth of the Margaret River in Western Australia.
The event which also marked the patron saint’s feast day on 9 May, was attended by the veteran bearing his medals from the war as well as 100 people drawn from the local community and from Perth. Bishop Elpidios of Kyaneon led the service assisted by Fr Emmanuel Stamatiou and Fr John Sullivan.
“I spoke to Mr Eaton’s family at his funeral on 28 May and they said that the veteran had been overjoyed by the love and support shown to him (at the Battle of Crete commemoration) by people who had not forgotten what the Australian soldiers had done in Crete,” Fr John Sullivan told Neos Kosmos.
“It was a moving, emotional experience and there were a number of people at the chapel who were from Crete,” he said.
READ MORE: A little piece of Greece on the Western Australian coast
Mr Eaton was captured by the Germans and saw out the rest of the war as a prisoner of war.
He died the night before he was to have attended a special ceremony for the state’s three surviving World War II on 28 May by the WA premier Mark McGowan.
The chapel of St John the Theologian was donated by Battle of Crete veteran Geoff Edwards who founded the adjoining village naming it Prevelly Park in honour of the Monastery of Prevelly and the surrounding villages in Crete that had sheltered hundreds of Allied soldiers and helped them to escape after the fall of island to Nazi forces.
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