On the road to Trachila with Private Syd Grant

Historian Jim Claven reflects on his travels to Trachila


Sitting by the harbour in Trachila, it seems not so long ago that I sat with Catherine Bell as she showed me the photos of this little village in the Mani taken by her father Syd Grant during the Greek campaign in April 1941.

Syd was a private in the 2/8th Battalion who came all the way from Victoria’s western district to take part in the defence of Greece. His story is that of the Anzacs in Greece. After arriving in Piraeus, they made their way north to meet the Germans in battle. What followed was a series of dogged, bitter rear-guard actions as the Allies fell back under the weight of German onslaught. Syd’s photos capture the constant air attacks suffered by the defenders as they moved south from the Aliakmon River. Syd was one of the thousands of diggers who made his way to Kalamata to await embarkation to Crete.

Today, Kalamata bustles with tourists and locals enjoying the fine weather and beautiful waterfront and City Avenue promenades. In 1941 it was bustling with another sort of ‘tourist’ – thousands of Allied soldiers – Anzacs, Greeks, British, Palestinians, Cypriots and Yugoslavs. Syd has captured the multi-national nature of the gathering in one of his amazing images. Local civilians vie to be photographed with their erstwhile defenders.

Local historian Nikos Zervas points out the caves to the north of the city, above the Castro, where members of the Palestine Labour Corps found safety from the air attacks. They would be joined by local civilians fleeing the indiscriminate bombing that befell the city in April 1941.

Other Australian photos show the diggers marching down along Kalamata’s Aristomenos Avenue. While many buildings have changed, two local historians – Panagiotis Andrianopoulos and his friend Sotiris – help me identify the shops and streets from these photos. Syd and his comrades made their way through the city to the olive groves to the east, for protection from the daily Stuka bomber attacks. A few patches of the old olive groves remain amongst the expansion of the modern city.

Around 18,000 Allied troops had been assembled at Kalamata by 26 April, and from then until 29 April some 9,200 of these were successfully evacuated from Kalamata’s waterfront. The 26 April witnessed the biggest single effort of the entire evacuation from Greece. And it was from Kalamata that the Yugoslav crown jewels were evacuated aboard the HMS Defender.

As they marched to their evacuation positions on the waterfront, many diggers wrote later of the kindness of the local people, of them offering cake and wine, and thanking them for coming to help defend Greece. One digger – Bill Jenkins of the 2/3rd Battalion – was moved to reassure one elderly lady that they would be back. And it was from Kalamata that Australia’s most famous ‘war dog’, Horrie, was evacuated with his protectors in the 2/1st Machine Gun Battalion.

Once at sea the troops were not allowed to rest, as the German bombers attacked the ships as they left the harbour and made for Crete or Alexandria. Many mounted their Vickers and Bren guns on the ships’ decks to help in the defence of their troop ships.

 

(L) Trachila village, olive grove. PHOTO: SYD GRANT COLLECTION.

(R) Trachila harbour today. PHOTO: JIM CLAVEN.

One of the ships – the Costa Rica – was sunk, but not before all troops and hands were successfully evacuated.

Walking west along Kalamata’s waterfront Navarino Street I try to imagine what it would have been like on the afternoon of 29 April 1941. It was on this day that an advance group of some 200 German troops raced into the town and captured the Customs House and British officer in charge of the evacuation.
This daring raid precipitated what is referred to as the battle of the Kalamata waterfront. Around 200 Allied troops, including 70 diggers, were raised to action by New Zealand’s Sergeant Hinton and Australia’s Captain Albert Gray from Red Cliffs.

The Australians advanced along Navarino, led by Gray, pistol in hand, Hinton and his Kiwis and with a platoon of Australian and other troops moving along the streets parallel to the waterfront.

As the Australians made a frontal assault on the German machine gun and artillery emplacement at the corner of Koroni and Navarino Streets, Hinton and some of his troops attacked the emplacement from the north. Others attacked the German troops at the Customs House further west. The whole attack was witnessed by a local Greek woman who as a young girl worked in the large three- or four-storey flour mill at the harbour near the Customs House. She would go on to be a prominent member of the resistance in Messinia.

Hinton and Gray would be decorated for their bravery at Kalamata that day – the former awarded the Victoria Cross and the latter the Military Cross. Another Australian soldier who took part in the attack – Private Max Wood – would be awarded the Military Medal.

Many war stories have their humorous aspects. Just before the Allied attack on the Customs House, an officer from the British 4th Hussars who were defending a position north of the city had come into Kalamata to assess the situation. He was quickly surprised and captured by a German officer – someone he had known from the pre-war years. The German invited him for a beer and as they sat reminiscing, the Allied counter-attack took place and the tables were turned, the German taken prisoner and the British officer released!

Yet the brave Allied victory would be short-lived. The eruption of fighting at the waterfront persuaded some of the Allied evacuation ships to abandon the evacuation. While other ships did return, by the end of April the around 8,000 Allied troops in Kalamata were left behind.

Following their formal surrender, they were now interned on the outskirts of the city. Some 1,500 Jewish members of the Palestine Labour Corps now became prisoners of the German Army. Some Allied soldiers – including Syd – tried desperately to escape capture by swimming out into Kalamata’s great bay towards the lights of ships in the distance. Syd records that many drowned. He made it back to the beach and was captured.

But this was not the end. Many Allied soldiers were able to escape from the prisoner’s encampment and make their way east into the mountains and villages of the Mani. There they were helped by the local villagers who fed and looked after them at great risk to themselves.

The drive to Trachila today takes just over an hour, but one can imagine what it would have been like 75 years ago as Syd trudged along the long and winding track to the village. It winds up into the mountains and along the coast, past olive groves and crystal blue waters. It would have been thirsty work on those hot May days. As I make my own way I notice the caves that dot the mountains along the coast and at the village of Agios Nikolaos I wonder if these are the ones in which Syd hid during his walk south.

When Syd and his comrades arrived in Trachila in late April they were welcomed by its villagers. He records how they found accommodation for them in what looked like an old abandoned church on a hill above the town and in the olive groves nearby. Each day women from the village would come to them with food and water. In the village’s little harbour, he interacted with the local men and boys. He captured these scenes for posterity in his photographs.

When I showed Syd’s photo of his hideout above the village to an elderly villager he immediately recognised it and pointed to the ruined buildings above. The past is never far away in Greece.

But Syd’s stay at Trachila was thankfully short – for him and for the safety of the villagers. The villagers told Syd that they had noticed the wash in the harbour as evidence of large ships further out. Syd used a torch to signal to the ship in the bay and soon he was alongside the British destroyer HMS Hero. Before they were taken aboard, Syd recorded that the Royal Navy officer insisted they prove that they were in fact Australians by singing Waltzing Matilda – which they did!

It was in a building like this above Trachila that Syd Grant was hidden in April 1941. PHOTO: JIM CLAVEN

At 2.30 am on 1 May 1941, Syd was one of the 69 Australians, along with another 41 Allied troops, evacuated by the HMS Hero. Other small parties would similarly be evacuated from other small coastal villages further south, such as Selinitsis and Limeniou. Other Allied escapers – including some 200 soldiers of the 4th Hussars – would hide in the mountains and villages within the Mani for months.

As we know from last year’s Neos Kosmos report, Syd would eventually return to Victoria and name his soldier settlement farm in honour of the city and its region that has saved his life – Kalamata. And his photographic collection – with its images of the people of Kalamata and Trachila – will be donated to the State Library of Victoria in November later this year.

As I depart Trachila for the return to Kalamata I notice the poppies that have sprung up along the route – around the building where Syd was hidden. A fitting reminder of those like Syd who came to this part of Greece in 1941 and the locals who helped them.

* Jim Claven is a historian and freelance writer. He travelled to Greece for the 75th anniversary of the Greek and Crete campaigns representing the Battle of Crete and the Greek Campaign Commemorative Committee. Moves are now underway to develop memorials as part of an Anzac trail across Messinia and the Peloponnese to assist commemorative visitation to Greece. He thanks Catherine Bell for permission to quote from her father’s memoir and acknowledges the support of Melbourne’s Messinian community for his visit to Kalamata, in particular Mr Paul Sougleris, Mr George Iliopoulos, Ms Jenny Krasopouli and Mr Rica Soublis.