A new feature length documentary that tells the story of the Anzacs during the Greek campaign of 1941 is being planned.
Late last year the Australian Government announced its funding of this new project proposed by Melbourne’s Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee. The project will see unique video, audio and still photography brought together to bring to the screen this important part of the Hellenic link to Anzac.
The project undertaken by historian Peter Ewer – author of the ‘Forgotten Anzacs’ – and filmmaker John Irwin – an accomplished documentary maker of the Anzac story. They are being assisted by myself – author of ‘Grecian Adventure’ – and Vicki Kyritsis – a Greek Community director. The documentary will feature video and audio interviews with veterans as well as Greek civilians who witnessed the campaign and its aftermath. The project will draw on more than 130 hours of video and audio recordings of more than 50 veterans and civilians.
Neos Kosmos has been informed that the script for the documentary is being completed and a detailed review of all available documentary materials undertaken, including those held in Australian and overseas archives. The project team has also commenced additional photographic work in Greece.
Recently, the team conducted a video interview with Catherine Bell – the daughter of Greek campaign veteran Syd Grant – at her home in country Victoria. A member of the 2/8th Battalion, Syd had arrived in Greece in March, before heading up to northern Greece to face the looming German invasion. His campaign took him over the length of Greece and back again, taking part in the fighting retreat to the evacuation ports of the south, all the while subject to enemy air attack.
Unfortunately Syd was not evacuated from Kalamata but was captured after the fall of the city to the advancing Germans. Syd was then able to escape, scrambling his way south down the Mani coast, with the hope of evacuation. His hopes bore fruit. Syd was one of an estimated 200 Allied soldiers who were successfully evacuated by British warships from harbours along the Mani coast in early May, following the fall of Kalamata.
Syd documented his Greek campaign in a series of photographs, all of which feature in my book ‘Grecian Adventure’. I assisted the Grant family in donating Syd’s collection to Melbourne’s State Library of Victoria. Importantly, Syd recorded on audio tape his memories of the campaign as well as his return to Kalamata and Trahila after the war. These were faithfully transcribed by his daughter Catherine.
Some of his most poignant photographs depict his time in Kalamata and on the Mani. He photographed Allied soldiers with local civilians in Kalamata as well as the people of the Mani village of Trahila. These represent some of the very few photographs taken by an Allied soldier while on the run from the Germans as the Greek campaign on the mainland drew to a close. I have been fortunate to have followed Syd’s trail to Trahila, identifying the sites photographed by him many years before.
Dr Peter Ewer said that it is so important that the recordings, writings and photographs of veterans such as Syd have been preserved for posterity. He hopes that the new documentary will enable a new generation to appreciate this important part of Greek and Australia history.
Committee President Lee Tarlamis OAM MP said that the Committee was very proud to have sponsored this important project.
“Our Committee was established to commemorate and build awareness of the Hellenic link to Anzac across both worlds wars. We have achieved much in our more than ten years of effort, regarding Lemnos and its part in the Gallipoli campaign as well as promoting aspects of the Saloniki campaign of 1915-18 and the Greek campaign of 1941. We have every confidence that the project team will deliver an amazing documentary, bringing the Greek campaign and its Anzac story vividly to life”, Mr Tarlamis said.
The project team was keen to capture on film Catherine’s account of her father and his campaign, as well as his respect for the Greek people and his naming of his farm “Kalamata”.
It was my honour to ask Catherine the questions, with John Irwin filming the interview. Catherine discussed on camera the story behind her father’s images, recalling his memories and reflections told to the family over the years. She spoke of the context and meaning for Syd of some his key images, especially those of Kalamata and Trahila. She talked of his post-war return to Greece, to Kalamata and Trahila. But mostly, she conveyed the connection he continued to feel for Greece and the Greek people years after the war had ended. She said that his visits to Northcote meant a lot more to him that merely finding his beloved olives.
“I think he might have liked to have rented a flat above the Greek shops there and have sat by an open window, listening to their voices, recalling his memories of the people of Kalamata and Trahila,” she said.
Mr Tarlamis thanked veteran’s descendants like Catherine Bell for supporting the project. The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year and subsequently released.
He is also noted for having named his farm in Victoria “Kalamata” and regularly visited High Street Northcote to purchase his beloved Greek olives and to listen to the voices of the post-war migrants from Greece who settled there and throughout Melbourne. He remained proud of the support he was given from the Greek people during the campaign.
The inclusion of Syd Grant’s experience of the Greek campaign – along with the many others – are important as they vividly confirm the respect the Anzacs held for the Greek people. Along with the memory of their fallen comrades, this was one of the main reasons that many of the Anzac veterans, back home after the war, remembered the campaign.
Jim Claven is a trained historian, freelance writer and published author, his most recent works including Lemnos & Gallipoli Revealed: A Pictorial History of the Anzacs in the Aegean (2019) and Grecian Adventure: Greece 1941, Anzac Trail Stories & Photographs (2022). Secretary of the Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee, he can be contacted via email – jimclaven@yahoo.com.au
