Middle East
Australia was shocked when the first Gallipoli casualty lists came through. The nation, for the first time, realized the price of war. It was only natural that parents and well-wishers should combine to provide the fighting men with modest comforts to supplement Army rations and issues; and so the Australian Comforts Fund was established, Substantial sums were raised to buy food and material for members of the first A.I.F. Distribution was always difficult but what we did receive was greatly appreciated. We expected little and were correspondingly grateful for what we got.
When the second war broke out I had lost my old military skills and I was 49 years of age. The obvious way for me to go to the war was to volunteer as a Comforts Fund Commissioner. Arthur Coles, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, held a prominent position in the Comforts Fund organisation; and he accepted my offer with alacrity. The only difficulty was that I had to pass a medical examination. I had already been subjected to scornful comments from colleagues who suggested that as my only training since 1918 was as a cigar smoker I was not likely to last long under military conditions.
I received a notice to report to a highly-placed medical man for examination. I thought this might be risky, so made enquiries and found that examinations were also conducted by younger doctors of lesser military rank. Among them I found for whom I had recently been able to do a favour of some importance. I have never regarded the doing of a favour as conferring a right to demand one in return but in 1939 I made an exception. I explained to my doctor friend that I had committed myself to going abroad and that to be turned down on medical grounds would be most embarrassing. My modest request was that he should sign the necessary papers before I submitted to the requisite medical tests. My doctor friend may have broken some medical rule but he was a gentleman and grateful; he did what I asked.
I left Australia in the Ulysses, which ship also took the first A.G.H. and a unit commanded by Stan (later Sir Stanley) Savige, an old friend from World War l. As off-siders I had Bob Kennedy and Ted ??? both of the V.R.C. staff. Ted had only one eye and so I had had trouble in navigating him through the medical channel. Mitchell, who was a member of the Unit, insisted on being my batman, despite my warnings that three of those who had served me as batmen in World War l came to an untimely end. My warning was half humourous but unfortunately proved to be valid. Poor Mitchell died overseas. Ted, too was killed but Bob Kennedy returned and later became Assistant Secretary of the Victoria Racing Club. Ray Goward, a well known Sydney accountant, was in charge of the Comforts Fund activities when I reached Palestine, and we were joined shortly afterwards by John McDonnell who was to earn distinction in the art world, serving for many years as the London Adviser to the Felton Bequest.
Without vanity I can claim that we did a serious job; we sought out units in all sorts of places, and served them regularly and conscientiously.
As with all such organisations, including those which serve the under-developed nations, stories of black marketing and the unscrupulous sale of donated goods inevitably arise. No rumour is too ridiculous for willing ears. Our experience was no exception. Sir Thomas Blamey, who commanded the Australian Imperial Forces in the Middle East, eventually became so concerned that, having satisfied himself of the injustice which was being done to the Comforts Fund and those who administered it, he ordered me to make a quick trip to Australia to explain to the public what had been done and what was being done.
The stories of corruption had always originated from the riff raff who complained that they never shared in any hand-outs, This generally true because they are absent from their units as patients in a V.D. Hospital or as inmates of an Army Detention Barrack. Before I left Palestine I caused a normally strict military rule to be broken. I had accumulated a substantial number of letters written by servicemen complaining that they had not received anything from the Comforts Fund. I waited on a friend in the Records Department, pointed out that these letters were not true, and demanded and received the confidential records of the writers. As I anticipated they revealed the military history of those who had complained.
I took the necessary files with me back to Australia. I then experienced probably the most strenuous fortnight in my life. I flew from Melbourne to Sydney to Brisbane to Perth, addressing meetings day and night, and then flying almost without rest to another capital city. I told only the truth and invited any member of my audience to name a single complainant in return for which I would provide the record of the particular soldier. This I was prepared to do, notwithstanding the risk of defamation: not a single person accepted the challenge. The mission was successful.
One experience was unusual. We held in Palestine and Egypt thousands of pairs of woolen sox for which there was no demand. The climate did not call for them: in Australia I was begged not to proclaim this because of the pleasure and satisfaction which knitters derived from knitting long woolen sox for their loved ones. In the cold trenches of France during the first world war woolen sox had been a much appreciated gift, but the habit persevered in the second war, despite the different conditions and climates under which the fighting was being carried on. I could not accept this nonsense, and announced publicly and daily that wasting wool and time on making sox verged on the scandalous and that we had no use for sox of any size or description. At the end of a fortnight I flew back to Egypt, and for the first time in my life I found my hands trembling as though from palsy.
We had very, very few complaints after this tour, and Unit commanders were intensely grateful for the contributions they received from Comforts Fund stores. One of the most acceptable gifts for the ladies in the Services was shaving soap; this they used as a hair shampoo.
I am afraid that if another large-scale war should break out, there will be no place for a Comforts Fund. Frankly, I do not think such an organisation is necessary. Neither do I approve of sending Australian beer thousands of miles from its original brewing place (though I recognise how admirably this task was performed by the Canteens and my friend Tom Farrell). In wartime, shipping is much too valuable to be used to bring to a soldier his favourite beverage or to carry to him articles of which his semi-civilised opponent is ignorant. Conditions have changed so much in warfare that the problem is not likely to arise again.
I am not sure whether a volume was written on the work of the Australian Comforts Fund in the second war – I think it was but I know I made no contribution to it, though invited to do so. The views of Goward, McDonnell and myself, and doubtless of others who served faithfully, was that we had done our best and that no more was to be said.
Most of us, particularly race goers, often bemoan the lost opportunity and the distinction or wealth that would have been ours if only we had acted differently. The scene is Palestine and the Lebanon in 1940. Blamey had not yet arrived in Gaza, and George Vasey was administering Headquarters. From a strange source I received a pressing invitation to go to Haifa immediately to meet a French officer. The time was a day or two before the French debacle, when Paris was declared an open city.
In Haifa I spent a night listening to the lamentations of a broken-hearted men. The French officer confided that a substantial number of the Free French soldiers in the Lebanon were anxious to come into Palestine and to bring their gear and transport with them. All that was needed was a representative of the A.I.F. to assure them of a welcome. I told the story to Vesey who, of course, could not be officially connected with such an adventure. I asked Vasey to note that I was not going A.W.L. and assured him that I would do nothing to compromise him or the Army, for I realised that anything I did or said was liable to repudiation.
The sole transport available had every defect one could expect from a fourth-hand car in Palestine. Every few miles it spouted water – a veritable geyser. With two of the boys attached to me I set off in this contraption. Experiencing all the mishaps we could possibly anticipate, we finally reached the mountain separating Palestine from the Lebanon. Our car puffed and blew as it made the ascent. Half way up we received a curt command from someone on foot: there was no trouble stopping the car. I jumped out, and was bombarded with vituperation. The most unworthy motives were attributed to me. I had no knowledge of the status of my accuser and my explanation was uneasy and did not do justice to my mission. We were ordered to turn about and return to the place from whence we came. We obeyed. I had no documents authorising me to cross the frontier and nothing at all to establish the bona fides of my journey. I was ashamed of my performance, and still am.
Blamey arrived a few days later and I recounted the incident to him. He realised its importance and entreated me to set out again – this time with proper documentary provision. Unfortunately a rallying call to the Free French had done out from France in the meantime, and intervention was too late. Had we succeeded in entering the Lebanon, the chances greatly favored our prevailing on a substantial part of the Free French Army to cross over to our side. When I was recalled to Australia in 1942 I found concrete evidence that my notions were not fantastic. Calling in at Capetown I met an English officer who had been liaising in Lebanon in 1940. My French officer at Haifa had stressed that this gentleman, though personally charming, was not a sufficiently forceful character to be a persuader. Without disclosing the part I nearly played, I interrogated him at length. He confirmed all my French officer had told me and bewailed his own lack of authority to negotiate. So ended my dream of glory. No Free French soldiers came over, and later our army had to attack Lebanon and Syria before the Free French forces were subdued. I still wonder whether it was or was not an example of – “For want of a nail a shoes was lost – for want of a shoe the was lost – for want of a horse the battle was lost”.
I was fascinated by the Lebanon and Syria. My knowledge of it was sketchy but made friends who were steeped in its history: they told fascinating tales of the feudal customs which still prevailed, including even the Droid de Seigneuir some of the distant villages. One of my narrators who had been engaged with his brother in an amorous adventure in Damascus – the rendezvous being a Turkish bath and the go-between a servant who visited the lady’s house and carried messages – was assassinated in Damascus not long after our departure, being killed with an iron bar. For a long while I received letters from his brother entreating me to return to Beirut to help him procure justice. Needless to say I declined to fish in dangerous waters.
One interesting character I met in Palestine was Fahkri Bey Nasashibi. He was inclined to the British and was a foe of the Hussien group led by the Grand Mufti. I found him a congenial spirit and we saw much of each other in Jerusalem in 1940-41. He always wore a lead vest, having been twice shot at by his opponents. When occasionally we were dining in public I did not sit too close to him in case one of his opponents decided to take a pot shot. His wife was French and allegedly had become a Moslem but I don’t think either was interested in Mahomet or his teachings.
I spent a week-end with Fahkri on the eve of a raid in Iraq involving a political change favourable to the Allies. As Fahkri had a meddlesome nose for politics, he explained to me that he was leaving on the Monday for Iraq to see what was happening. I suggested that Iraq might be unhealthy for one so heartily disliked by his local enemies but he brushed my comments aside. He left as planned, only to be assassinated within a few hours of his arrival in Iraq.
Another victim of the assassins was the old Emul Abdullah of Transjordania. Jamil Nazal, still living in the United States in 1969, was our major domo of the Fast Hotel in Jerusalem; he came from Aman and was very close to Abdullah. He took me to Aman to present me. I had a couple of hours with the Emir, Jamal acting as interpreter. My chief recollection of the interview is his long dissertation on the mingling of thoroughbred blood with his pure Arab stock. According to him, it took thirty generations to entirely breed out the alien strain. He was assassinated when visiting Jerusalem.
Red Robbie, General Sir Horace Robertson, and I won consternation, the trainer had named Anzac. For an ‘Arab’ to be good enough for racing an infiltration of thoroughbred blood is necessary, but sufficiently far back for the Arab characteristics to again become predominant in the progeny. Flowing mane, famous tail, broad forehead, etc. were the main test for racing the pony which had to pass inspection by a qualification committee; it is this Committee which decides whether the animal has sufficient ‘Arab’ characteristics. After a couple of races the ‘Arab’ again comes before the Classification Committee and if its speed and action was obviously well above normal ‘Arab’ capacity, the too speedy ‘Arab’ was rejected. The art is to have a pony which physically confirms to ‘Arab’ standards but possesses just enough (but not too much) speed to avoid rejection.
We had bought the Arab pony for £100 and we sold him to King Farouk’s uncle for £1000. We claim to be two of the few people who made money honestly out of Palestine.
The race meeting held near Gaza in the early days of World War ll probably was the biggest sporting event held there since Samson carried away the gates. It was magnificently organised. The Victoria Racing Club provided a valuable Arab mare for competition between the competing Arabs, the races Splendid racing colours had been donated by Victorian owners. One Arab was so attracted by the colours he carried in a heat that he galloped for only a furlong or two and then took off into the desert, taking the colours with him. A remarkable sight was the glint in the eyes of the Arab women who gathered around watching the magnificent display of silks which were jealously guarded by Ted and Bob. The women obviously wanted the silks but we lost only the set mentioned above.
At this time Palestine was rich in efficient English administrators, for one of whom I was able to do some little turn. Later he asked me whether he could do anything for me. I made what turned out to be a rather large request, namely that he should arrange for Erna, a charming Jewish girl from the Continent, who was illegally in the country, to have her residence made legal. Erna was giving us valuable assistance as an Army Comforts ‘retainer’. The request was larger than I realised because the law provided that any one illegally in Palestine had to leave the country and then apply for re-admission We solved the problem by wrapping Erna in a sheep-skin coat, putting her in our car, taking her to the Lebanon, arranging for a paper or two to be signed there, and then transporting her to Palestine as a legal migrant on the following day. Erna was infatuated with Australia; enthralled by the stories told her by our soldiers, she later came here with her mother. Unfortunately she had weak lungs and decided to return to Palestine where she died soon afterwards.
In the Lebanon was a most fascinating woman. The story went that she had married a chief of the mountain Druse and, although separated from him, had maintained friendly relations. According to report she was engaged in secret intrigues, a story which I believed then and still believe. In a restaurant or night club she was generous; through the staff she would invite an officer to share her table and sometimes, according to rumour, he escorted her home. She did not accept money but on the contrary spent generously.
Just before I left the Lebanon I got a summons to call on her. I knew that my physical attractions were not so great as to cause her infatuation, but normally I would have taken the opportunity to make her acquaintance because of the strange stories which surrounded her. As I felt a certain inability to handle a lady of her vast experience, I declined the invitation. I left shortly afterwards for other parts and heard no more of her. Years later I received a paragraph from a French newspaper telling how an aunt had gone to the theatre with her nephew and ??????, The accused was the lady of whom I have written.
When Alice Deliria came to Australia I was immediately enrolled as one of her admirers. Some say she was only ‘cafe chatant’; but I have seen few individuals so able to excite an audience immediately they stepped on to the platform. No one who heard her sing “Every Woman Thinks She Wants to Wander”, and observed her form and dress, ever forgot her. During her tour I acted for her professionally; she had some difficulty concerning property with her then husband, and she consulted me on a few occasions.
In the Second War I was in Tel Aviv one night when Fairfax, of Desert Song fame, was providing an Army entertainment. He asked me to go to the Gat Rimon Hotel and ‘bring Madame’, for the audience had become a little restive, liquor being available: I presented myself at the Gat Rimon Hotel, found Alice Delysia, and made my bow- “Once again at your service, Madame:”. The rain was pouring, so I was entrusted with the task of putting her shoes on and wrapping a great coat around her. She entered the hall, the audience stood silent, and she confirmed her hold when she announced, “I shall sing you the signature tune of my country – J’attendrai’. She was a great entertainer. Although she may not be remembered amongst the greats I have elevated her ?????
I also saw a good deal of the Iman or Keeper of the Mosque of Omar, the Dome of the Rock, which permitted only a limited number of daily visitors. For a consideration in the form of large quantities of cigarettes I persuaded him to carry the figure and to take a lot of Australians who were on leave. Each month he would wait upon me at the Fast Hotel as an official visit and I would hand him the stipulated number of cartons. Almost invariably his visit would be followed by one from his second in command who would protest that his chief did not make a fair distribution of the cigarettes and added certain allegation as to the manner in which he disposed of them. This involved me in a further supply but on a lesser scale to my complainant. On one occasion one of the boys added a drop of spirituous liquor to a teetotal drink, which was the only refreshment my visitor would accept. He didn’t appear to notice the difference.
The effort of an army to effect in secrecy a major troop movement from a civilian area is usually a matter for Olympian mirth. Long before “secret” and “most secret” documents embody the final details, precise particulars of destination and approximate particulars of the date of departure are current.
That a man may rise noiselessly at midnight from a jangling, clanking wire mattress is credible. This is a kindergarten test compared to the task of concealing the hustle, stir, fuss and pottering which precede the journeying of His Majesty’s troops. So it was with our departure from Egypt for Greece. Jimmy Moses, Egyptian ex-dragoman, now our chauffeur and general handyman, told us early when and where we were going.
Long before any official communication reached us there had been full and voluble discussion as to which of the staff would go. Everyone wanted to go to Greece. Some, but not many, knew a little ancient history and for them there was magic even in the old Greek names. To most it was just something new – another place to see, another adventure to undertake.
It was almost inevitable that our party should finally consist of Ted, Bob and Mitchell. Ted went off to Port Said to chaperon the stores, for it was a strange phenomenon that stores always seemed to travel better with an attendant. He had a weary wait there, and a slow crossing on a tub. When he did reach Greece his stock was in much better condition than himself; a leg injury suffered in Libya had worsened. Mitchell went where I went, and Bob came as surely the head accompanies the dog.
Official authority for our embarkation was, for some reason, delayed. Finally, six copies of a most convincing document somehow appeared. Each bore three reference numbers, carried two strokes thus – 63/9/74 – and an exhortation to all and sundry to aid our going. They bore a stamp and an unidentifiable signature. The embarkation officer accepted three of the documents with an alacrity which expressed his obvious delight at having the requisite number tendered.
As our names were on no nominal roll, and no one evinced any special desire for our company, we picked a nice large ship and picked well. She left next day, whereas the ships we had rejected were detained for days and made quite heavy weather of the journey.
That is how we went to Greece!
Jack Hetherington, Reg. Glennie, Chester Wilmot, Laurence Cecil, Gavin Long, and Ken Slessor, all of the Australian Press, were on board. Accommodation was scarce, so we tucked ourselves into a secluded spot on deck which served as a card room by day and a dormitory by night. This served us better than it did the ship’s doctor who, at one stage, threatened us with harsh penalties for continuing to play cards on what he was pleased to call “one of His Majesty’s ships”. Thus we reached Greece.
Since 1914 Australians have made nodding acquaintance with many countries. Of most of them we can claim no real appreciation: and even when from choice or chance we sometimes spent weeks, and more rarely months, in one of them, we rarely trod the paths which led to real knowledge. In Greece we found a country with a soul. The delicate adjustment of debits and credits resulting from our landing there cannot yet be made. It cost us thousands of men, and many thousands of tons of shipping – naval and mercantile. Yet, before the historian strikes the final balance and arrives at his reasoned conclusion, I trust something will be thrown into the credit scale for the inspiration the A.I.F. gave, and more for what it received.
From the moment we disembarked at the Piraeus we were at home. A limited number of men had preceded us and taught the thumbs up sign to young and old. They used it for our reception. Old men and toddling mites, unable to speak a word of our language, stood at the roadside, smiled their welcome; and “thumbs-up” served as an esperanto which made language unnecessary. Even the few of us who entered Greece oppressed by a sense of impending disaster, were startled into a temporary optimism.
The whole drama was played in five weeks, and the dark days came very soon, but never up to the instant of our flitting was there the slightest change in the Greek attitude towards spontaneous, the smile a little more forced and fleeting; there was a consciousness that Greece was about to suffer another martyrdom, but for us the greetings were ever so kind, and the protestations of gratitude no less sincere. It was the gratitude that puzzled us. Why, we asked, should a nation be so grateful to an army, whose coming had certainly not lightened – and possibly had made heavier – the cross which its people were soon to bear. But the Greek reasoning was simple and generous, and the answer invariable.
“You have come from the end of the earth as volunteers to fight for a country you did not know”.
The unanimity of this sentiment embarrassed us. That they had themselves accomplished a miracle of warfare was accepted by them as a commonplace. Their healthy contempt for Italy and Italians intruded into every conversation, nor did the countryman always conceal his opinion that the spirit of Greece was to be found in its harsh mountains, broken plains and scattered islands rather than in its ancient metropolis.
For some of us it was a revival of the France we knew and loved in 1914-1918. The very spirit of a nation was pulsating, and even the most insensitive finger could feel the beating. No public dancing was permitted, and the crisis was too acute for private entertainments, but the cafes provided meager and mostly meatless meals to the constant strain of a pleasant jingling song which mocked Mussolini and Ciano. The melody reached Egypt later, and even now in unexpected places Athenian memories revive as a soldier strolls past, whistling the disrespectful air. Last Christmas Eve I received a letter smuggled from Athens. It spoke briefly of several things, and among them the Mussolini song.
After the Germans and some Italians came it was sung publicly to the obvious delight of the Germans and the irritation of the Italians, whose protests compelled action; and an order was issued forbidding the singing. Athens complied, technically. No words were sung, but the music was still played. This brought further Italian protests, which were more effective. I hope some day to sit once more in an Athenian restaurant and pay handsomely for an orchestral rendering.
Within a day or two of our arrival in Athens we found Kolykotronos Square, presided over by an equestrian statue of the old hero of the War of Independence. Almost opposite the statue was a small theatre arid a dancing academy. We took over the academy as our city store and dormitory, and left ample room for Ted’s accommodation beneath a large glass fanlight. He came, gave one look at the fanlight, one thought for the German Air Force, and lapsed into the vernacular. Persuasion on the conventional “Don’t worry” lines failed to convince him that his berth was safe.
Actually Athens proper was never bombed. It may have been respect for the city or fear of reprisals: “If Athens or Cairo is bombed we will bomb Rome”, said Churchill. When we arrived, Greece and Germany were not yet at war, nor was there any strong anti-German sentiment. German assurances that Greece would not be invaded were recent and very definite. Memories of the famous torch-carrying between the two cities were still fresh. The dictatorship of Metaxas had been sympathetic toward Germany. The German colony in Athens was influential and well liked. The German Consul was there to see us arrive.
On Athens’ walls there were not hundreds, but thousands, of war posters. None of them was anti-German, or, for that matter, anti-Italian. As propaganda they were sensitive and spiritual and relied for effectiveness on an appeal to national pride. During the last free days of the city, however, there was one piece of propaganda remarkable for its savagery. One morning we woke to find it pasted on every stone of every wall. A long line of pigs, with recently-cut throats, was depicted. Austria, Roumania and Czechoslovakia lay in their death agony, but Bulgaria, still on its feet, had a noose around its snout with the leading string in Hitler’s hand. Hitler had a maniacal leer, he wore a butcher’s apron, and on it were clots of blood from the knife he held aloft. The malignity of the artist’s hate could not go further. Some of us knew the imminence of the city’s doom, and feared the reprisals which this last expression of defiance might bring. Representations were made to a friendly acquaintance in one of the Greek Ministries and, next day, all the walls were scraped bare. Our recollections of Greece are graphic and vivid. We made friends whose present fate concerns us greatly Yet the tally of our meetings and the number of our days there is easily computed. A week after our arrival, Germany declared war on Greece: within a month the evacuation was completed. In Greece we spent two Easters – ours and theirs. On Sunday, April 6 – our Easter – the Graeco-German war started, and that night the German Air Force dropped their Easter eggs on the Piraeus.
It was about 11.00 a.m. that news of the new war reached the streets. The churches were just emptying. The worshippers were mostly sad-looking, blackclad, hatless women. There were a few children, less civilian males and some soldiers, mostly wounded. Suddenly there was mass movement everywhere. Bands of youths ran through the streets and some made for the German Consulate. They cheered and they shouted words we did not understand. Such Australians as they met were surrounded, cheered and sometimes lifted shoulder high. The scene was more suggestive of a victorious peace than of a declaration of war by an enemy with the most powerful army ever assembled. Those of us who believed we already knew the inevitable outcome found it intensely depressing.
Tom Farrell, formerly of Embassy Restaurant fame, then and now an indefatigable officer in Australian Canteen Services, was my companion of the morning. In the afternoon we visited the Perth, then at the Piraeus, taking down enough comforts for a general distribution. Everyone on board was still jubilant over the Taranto naval victory, and the signals that passed during the battle were produced, explained, and discussed. The cruiser pulled out before nightfall, and so escaped the general disaster which overwhelmed the port a few hours later.
At night the raiders came, and the sirens wailed in Athens. Their destination was the port. The noise of the bombs was audible in Athens, and later a glow could be easily seen. It was clear then that damage had been done, but it was hours before we knew the wound was mortal.
At the Piraeus was a ship laden with ammunition. We never really knew why it was there or whose the blame, and subsequent recrimations did nothing to clarify the issue. The only thing that mattered was the result. Set alight from one of the objects hit during the raid, it burned for some hours, and when it eventually blew up, the Piraeus, most of its ships, all its port-landing machinery and hundreds of houses were involved in the catastrophe. The busy port of Sunday was on Monday a shattered ruin.
Ships were still burning, twisted metal and useless landing gear littered semi-destroyed wharves, and thousands of refugees trudged the road to Athens carrying or pushing their salvage. From that time on the Piraeus was unusable for large vessels. Around it were still numerous small craft and caiques on one of which – the St. Nicholas – our small party eventually got away.
In the interior, the full extent of the disaster was not generally known, but its magnitude could not be hidden from Athenians. Other factors determined the bitter end of our Grecian adventure: but even if Yugoslavia had changed its Government earlier, or Turkey had decided to intervene, the destruction of the Piraeus would probably have been not merely prejudicial but disastrous.
From April 6 until our departure, German aeroplanes continued to bomb the port. They flew across Athens every night, and the alerts came more often and lasted longer. Soon daylight raids were common. Usually the raiders flew comparatively low and were easily seen. Occasionally the dive bombing was spectacular. Once they visited the A.I.F. depot at Daphne and machinegunned the camp. Regularly they flew over the 5th Australian General Hospital to bomb the near-by aerodrome, but the hospital was not molested.
Our store-dormitory was just under the hocks of Kolykotronos’ horse. It was round the corner from the King George and the Hotel Grande Bretagne, where the Greek general staff had their headquarters. Tom Farrell gave us space under his tents at Larissa for our forward goods, and poor Mitchell, who died in Jerusalem early this year, took up the first lot by a very slow train which was soon discontinued.
We had taken only a few preparatory steps towards moving in when our first visitors called. The caretaker and the caretaker’s daughter Litza were in the vanguard. Father cast covetous eyes at our tinned beef, but Litza was proud, and to the end she was reluctant to accept even a petty gift of foodstuff for which she must have craved. We had no such difficulty with the old man.
The nearby theatre continued to play for a few days and the artistes scanned their parts within a few yards of our front and only door. Our circle grew very quickly. It ranged from Liza and the artistes to a representative of the Greek Ministry of Welfare and Sir Michael and Lady Paileret, of the British Embassy. The latter was keenly interested in plans for serving the troops. We had money and goods and some fine schemes were discussed. That they came to nothing was Hitler’s fault, not ours.
There was a Greek naturalised in Australia, caught by the war on a visit to Athens, whose family ties prevented his taking a final chance with us, and George, who brought his sisters, Aurore and Jeanette. The carpenter over the lane came regularly to our salon. He made what we first thought were baby coffins. They proved to be cases for single shells intended to be hauled up the Albanian mountains.
There was the old and moderately rich banker, who had lost a huge fortune in Turkey, and whose chief pride was that Frank Harris had acclaimed him in a book as one of the world’s great lovers. And there was Felicia. Felicia was very young and very innocent. She had eyes as large as her stage aspirations; was very gentle and delighted in the talk of “Mr. Jim” (Mitchell). Felicia had, of course, to introduce her mother and the family. Mother didn’t speak a word of English or French, and, as none of us ever progressed beyond Calimera, Calinicta, and Calispera, conversation had a tendency to languish. Felicia had lung trouble, and needed much care. I don’t like telling the story of the last day, when mother, through a member of the family who spoke French, begged us to take Felicia from a country that would soon be starving.
I can only say in extenuation of our refusal that our chance of getting out looked, at the time, slightly less than even; that our destination was uncertain: that, even if all were well, there was the problem of getting the girl into Egypt; and if we did – what then?
In a famished and ravaged Europe there are doubtless nations and people whose plight is today worse than that of Greece and the Greeks. The trouble for some of us is that we saw Greece and learned to love it. Perhaps you remember the story from Quentin Reynolds’ “London Diary”.
“This afternoon, Bob Low and I were walking through Swallow Street.
“Tip your hat”, Bob said, hastily; and automatically I did.
“Why?” I asked.
“We just passed a Greek restaurant”, he said.
When the Huns declared war on Greece the Australian troops, with New Zealanders, held a line which ran approximately from the northern base of Olympus through Veria and across to the Monastir Gap. Not many appreciate that our whole force consisted only of two divisions – the Australians and the New Zealanders, with artillery and a few supplementary troops. The tired and inadequately equipped Greek army had the job of holding Volos Pass in the east, in addition to the Albanian front. The 16th Brigade under Brigadier (now Major-General) Allen were perched on a mountain near Veria; the 19th under “Uncle George” Vasey – may his shadow never grow less – were on their left and exact final location of the 17th under an old friend, Brigadier (now Major-General) Savige, eludes me. Corps H.Q. were originally in a hamlet behind Servia, from which they had to speedily move to Ellesano, where the Hun Air Force provided a surprise party for the moving-in.
Winter was just coming to an end. There was still snow on the mountains, but the Judas trees were in bloom and the poppies were everywhere. The lovely Greek landscape, with its seductive line, its color and its harshness, was good to look on, but life is hard there, even in peace time. On the roads, hundreds of women were toiling, widening and smoothing the highway. The main route to the front ran from Athens through Thebes and Lamia to Larissa and Servia.
Just beyond Larissa we found Pagliacci’s circus troupe. They were seven including the enormous brown bear. Two women and four men, Gipsies all, were of the party; two tambourines were the orchestral instruments, and the nearness of the battle field did not prevent them giving what must in truth have been a farewell performance. On every mountain slope were peasant patrols. They wore no uniform, carried obsolete shotguns, were very, very old, and looked very determined.
A night at Servia on the eve of the retreat was passed in an evil-smelling shed where sheep had obviously had prior rights. Jim Sargood, now a prisoner, and some of his companions, were hosts. It was impossible to reach the 16th Brigade, but the good offices of a signal sergeant put us in communication. He climbed a telegraph post, attached his telephone, and enabled us to ask the Brigadier to send two trucks back for comforts for his men. This seemed very satisfactory, but next day I met my friend Colonel Simpson, who commanded Signals. He had a point which he put forcibly and well about unauthorized interruptions of urgent army messages. However, I don’t think the sergeant’s action really lost the battle for Greece.
Forty eight hours later, Servia was in the hands of the Huns. Meantime, things were going badly at Volos. There was heavy bombing, ships were sunk, our allies were in retreat, and the 6th Australian General Hospital, which had taken a lot of stuff there, were ordered to make a hurried retreat to Athens.
Tom Farrell, who was consumed by burning enthusiasm to prove that his canteens could go wherever the troops went, had a strange meeting at Volos. Surrounded by several well-meaning but to him unintelligible Greeks, he simply could not get a direction as to his route, when an old woman rushed up. Her brogue was rich County Cork. Asked what on earth she was doing there, she answered, “Sure, I’m the original Irish washerwoman in Greece. I married a Greek, and why shouldn’t I be here?”
I have no intention of detailing the story of the retreat. At one or two places our men did inflict comparatively heavy casualties on the Germans, but some of the figures published are beyond belief. I knew something of the 5th British Army retreat during the last war, and more of the German retreat in August-September 1918. The latter certainly was a sturdily contested, but conventional views of an army in retreat differ sometimes quite a lot from reality. According to expert opinion, the Greek retreat was particularly well planned. The responsibility for the plans was Sir Thomas Blamey’s, and to him the laurels.
Back in Athens, an invitation came from someone in the Ministry of Welfare to visit two of the large Greek military hospitals. The Victoria Racing Club had provided a sum of money for distribution to deserving recipients, and this was surely a proper occasion. About £200 was exchanged for drachmas. One Australian pound was worth approximately 370 or 380 drachmas. The sight of a soldier bereft of limbs is always pathetic, and in these hospitals the percentage of patients with either one or two feet amputated – usually from frost bite – was appallingly frequent.
That was moving, but don’t envy us our role as hospital visitors. One has to give fifty drachmas, or, more rarely, 100 drachmas to dozens of men without feet – and hear Australia cheered for it – before comprehending the agony of handing such a pittance to heroes. We tried to work out just how little in the Australian equivalent the Greek soldier received daily. It may be twopence or threepence; the remuneration is entirely nominal.
Most of the patients thought of the war in terms of the Albanian front. To them it was still Greece versus Italy, and they had the proper pride of soldiers who had won a great victory. The high standard of the hospitals, gratified us. One matron was an experienced Greek lady who had trained in England. According to her, each Cretan soldier, of whom there were many, jealously guarded his knife in hospital, and insisted on taking it even to the operating theatre. Our interpreter made so fulsome a speech about Australia in each ward that I almost wished for one of them.
How a country like Greece can make adequate provision for her scores of maimed men I cannot suggest! Yet it must be a recurring problem. Greece was at war in 1896, 1912, 1917-18, 1922, and today endures a martyrdom.
Last days in Athens! They were fitful, feverish, days with alternations of optimism almost to the end. German aeroplanes in almost chronic flight over the city! News of the bombing of Larissa aerodrome! Death of the Prime Minister, successor to Metaxas and a change of Ministry! A few German airmen and other prisoners driven through the streets! Rumors and contradiction! A story that the King and Prince were about to leave! Gloom and anxiety! Evacuation of foreigners with British passports! I suppose the story differs little from that of other cities about to bear a conqueror’s yoke.
It was clear that the end was near. The city where the institution of liberty had been first and most fully developed was about to pass to those whose creed was its very negation. The Acropolis under whose shadow we had nestled for a few brief weeks was to witness a triumph of might and evil.
Almost at the end, three of us made a farewell visit to the Acropolis. A lone photographer was still there. We were probably his last military customers. The sirens were blowing and the usual bombing of the Piraeus was proceeding. We took a last look at the city, plucked a few of the abundant poppies, and wondered how long we would wait for REVENGE.
No provision had been made to evacuate me and the two boys who were attached to me. Possessing inside knowledge that the Hun would be in Athens in a day or two, I made private arrangements to hire a caique and escape to neutral Turkey. Manoli Frangopulos, a Greek who was high in the shipping world, informed me that “George” – which was the only name by which
I ever knew him – had a caique named St. Nicholas at the Piraeus, and that for £300 George would take on my job. I had no particular desire to be a guest of Hitler’s minions, and so I negotiated with George. I then found that it was necessary to seek permission from the remnant of the Greek Naval Department for the caique to leave the Piraeus. This had to be a, ‘do it yourself’ job. We had a rubber stamp inscribed “Australian Comforts Fund”, on which we inked heavily the word “Australian” and blurred the remaining words. Mitchell, my batman, wrote in a few words, and Bob Kennedy (later Assistant Secretary of the Victoria Racing Club) typed out a note certifying that the caique was urgently needed for important duties by General Thomas Blamey and that it was to be entrusted to me with absolute authority. No one queried the document, and I received written permission to leave the Piraeus, which was now being bombed heavily.
In Athens I called on a certain medical unit asking whether it wanted to send anyone out. If so they could come along for the ride. The offer was accepted. I was then asked by a doctor of some seniority to take with me a heavy bag containing important material. Feeling like a boy scout called upon to perform some noble duty, I willingly agreed.
In Athens I had hired a motor car which the owner was now very anxious to repossess. For some nights previously we had made certain we retained possession of his car by removing two wheels which we replaced each morning. We left a message for the owner that his car could be found on the wharf and then drove to the Piraeus, taking with us all our tobacco and as much soap, toothpaste and other comforts as the car could transport in a couple of trips.
On our way to the caique I had called at headquarters to find it abandoned except for a couple of N.C.0.’s. A very large room contained trestle tables loaded down with 1,000 drachma banknotes. Enquiry disclosed that the N.C.O.’s had been ordered to burn the money. I asked whether we could take some of it and was politely told I could take the lot. It was all for burning. We declined the generous offer to ‘take the lot’ but did stuff our pockets. It seemed hardly worth the effort but there was always a chance that the money might be useful. The chance soon came. George, the owner of the ship, wanted his money and his claims were immediately satisfied. George then discussed the islands between our port of departure and Turkey, all held by Italian forces, and suggested that we changed our destination from Turkey to Crete. I agreed. So we sailed from Piraeus. It would be boring to relate the strange things which happened at Syphnos and Mylos, beyond saying that each day we disembarked on an island, and each night we tried to continue our voyage towards Crete. The combined strength of wind and wave were too much. Night after night we passed the Cape of Mylos, only to progress a few miles and then turn back. On our final night at Mylos an attempt was made by leaderless troops – they were not Australian or British – to take the caique from us. We were occupants of a rowing boat making our way back to the caique when machine-gunners in the cape sprinkled the area and ordered us to shore. We complied. Later through George we were instructed to row to the caique which was out of sight and act as a guide for the troops in a much heavier boat laden with their machine guns. It was now dark and we were to signal with a torch. Our boat was lightly laden and George, Mitchell, Bob and all except myself rowed manfully. I flashed the torch twice to enable our unwelcome intending guests to follow but, having gained a lead of some hundred yards or so I put the torch aside and cheered the rowers instead. They continued manfully and we reached the caique with our pursuers lost in the darkness.
We had to leave Mylos that night and we could not return. After rounding the Cape, the winds were the same as on the previous night. It seemed obvious that we could make no progress towards Crete. I asked George for the alternative; he explained that there was none but to put back to Cythera, near the Greek mainland. This meant, of course, that if we survived the bombing, we would be taken prisoners of war. I have always been able to sleep anywhere, under any circumstances. I soon fell asleep, only to be awakened about 1.00 a.m. with the exciting news that the wind had finally changed and that it was possible for us to make progress in the opposite direction. Around we turned. Eventually – to our delight – we landed on the island of Crete. Almost simultaneously came a flotilla of big vessels, carrying members of the A.I.F.
I still hold the heavy package entrusted to me by the doctor in Greece. Each night we had carried it off the caique and each morning we had returned it to the caique. We took equal care of it on the island of Crete. After the German aircraft had bombed the port, a military order came that I was to embark in a destroyer with my team. This caused us no distress, although the actual attack on the island had not yet been launched. Once again we carried our valuable medical parcel – we assumed it contained valuable medical records. We landed eventually in Egypt, and on reaching Alexandria we presented it somewhat pride fully to Samuel Burston, who was Director of Medical Services. I modestly awaited the expected plaudits for our achievement in safely delivering the parcel. Burston performed the official opening. The contents – he found – consisted merely of a typewriter and medical textbooks! I was somewhat displeased and I retailed the story fairly widely, until eventually the doctor – he had himself reached Egypt safety – asked me to forgive and forget. I forgave but did not forget.
National alliances are fragile things as easily broken as private friendships, but despite occasional political difficulties tribute must be paid to the manner in which the Greeks accepted our departure from their country. My impression is indelible. Our going there had caused them no end of trouble and brought them no benefit. They were handling the Italians but our landing attracted Hitler’s attention. Human nature being what it is, I thought they were entitled to feel we had let them down. But no. As we left it was common to see even women and old men making the Churchill victory sign. Everyone clearly wished us a safe departure.
During the Allies’ fluctuating fortunes in the Middle East, I was the Chief Commissioner of the Australian Comforts Fund. I was in Alexandria early in l942 when I received a cable saying that Dr Evatt, Minister for External Affairs, had appointed me as the Australian Consul-General for the Netherlands East Indiea. Later I learned that this post would probably lead to my appointment as Minister to Holland, once the war was over. Meanwhile I caught a flying boat by way of Khartoum to Durban in South Africa and there waited for a ship to take me to Australia and, I assumed, my new post in Djakarta. At Durban, at a race meeting on Saturday, I saw two bombers collide just outside the racecourse – a tragic happening in which both crews were killed.
Back in Australia my new post as Consul-General was now almost pointless. The Japanese had over-run the Netherlands East India, there was no prospect of my going there, and so my consular duties were merely titular. This did not appeal to me. I wanted something more active and I pressed for my release which was eventually arranged. I then enlisted in the army.
General Sir Thomas Blamey had returned to Australia, becoming Commander of the Allied Land Forces in the South-West Pacific as well as Commander in Chief of the Australian Military Forces.
He faced extraordinary difficulties, not only in the military campaign against the Japanese in the islands but also in administrative and personal issues in Australia. A few, but not many, of his difficulties were of his own making; for he had an inability to compromise. His mind, however, was completely legal and judicial on everything save that which touched upon his own affairs. He was very nearly a great man, and certainly greater than many of those who criticised him.*
NOTE: * Gorman’s friendship with General Blamey was close, but in his memoirs he did not write much about their relations. So he has given no hint of how he had persuaded Blamey to resign as Chief Commissioner of Police in Victoria in 1936, how he had advised Blamey in Cairo in 1941 to place before the government in Canberra the prediction that the military expedition to Greece could prove disastrous, how he had played a prominent role in persuading the Premier of Victoria in 1943 t appoint one of Blamey’s generals, Edmund Herring, as the Chief Justice of Victoria, and how he had proposed the toast to Blamey at the select dinner at the Hotel Australia after Blamey had been made a field marshal in June 1950. All these episodes are discussed in John Hetherington’s book Blamey: Controversial Soldier. Undoubtedly Gorman had discussed these episodes with Hetherington. Indeed Hetherington, long before his death, had made plans to write a biography of Gorman.
Blamey was flattering enough to believe that I would be of use to him. T.A.B., as he was commonly known to us, had me elevated to the rank of Brigadier with the high-sounding title of Chief Inspector, Army Administration. I was not a trained soldier, and my role was not to advise on strategically enterprises but to keep Blamey acquainted with hold-ups, dislocations, and anything that militated against efficiency. If rules and regulations clogged the Army wheels, I was expected to clear the road and keep the traffic moving. This involved taking an occasional trip if the matter was really urgent. The job was not entirely unrewarding but earned me some unpopularity with department heads devoted to protocol.
My temperament did not lend itself very readily to strict compliance required by Treasury and Army regulations, although I admitted their necessity. My final comments, on a file where my intervention was successfully defeated, were written on the final page – in breach of that delightful rule which emphasises that each Minute must be on a separate page.
“Let the loud contention cease
Geese are swans and swans are geese
Let them have it as they will
Thou art tired- best be still”.
One matter particularly interested me the question of Courts of Enquiry. As the regulations stood, every collision between motor vehicles, every disappearance of an article of any value, no matter how small, necessitated a Court of Enquiry. I saw records when the sum involved was 6s.6d. Incensed by a frequent senseless waste of time I carried on a war for the abolition of Courts of Enquiry in appropriate cases. The struggle was long and tense. My opponents relied upon one argument – “There is a regulation” – to which my rejoinder was “I know. Remove it”. To do this sounds easy but anyone with experience of the Treasury and Regulations will understand how difficult it in fact is. However, we eventually won and motor cars which merely grazed each other escaped from becoming subjects for a Court of Enquiry.
In another context, one of the most amazing cases that came to my notice concerned an officer who figured largely in Security which thought well of him. Bert Evart held him in high regard. I found that he had obtained his Army rank by representing that he had served with Scotland Yard, the Surete in Paris and that he had vast world experience. He had improperly used “security” power over unfortunate Italians, had never been outside Australia and was quite unfitted to be trusted with place or power. I recommended the cancellation of his commission and cancelled it was.
There were conflicting ambitions in the high ranks and T.A.B. did not receive from all his highly placed officers the loyalty which he so well deserved.
During World War ll it was generally accepted that T.A.B. had confidence in me and viewed my recommendations favourably. This knowledge caused some of the highly placed to treat me with consideration and to speak freely about their own problems and ambitions. I have amusing recollections of a dinner I hosted at the Athenaeum Club towards the close of World War ll: most of the 2nd A.I.F. Generals were guests. After the meal there was much hob nobbing, lobbying, exposure of personal ambitions and discreetly expressed protests. It was a memorable night but many of the guests are dead and it would be cruel to name the over-ambitious warriors. I was a close friend of “Red Robby” (General Sir Horace Robertson) whose career with both A.I.F.’s is well-known. A dashing soldier with wonderful qualities and an almost endearing kindness, he did not under-rate his own qualities as a soldier; and stories of his amusing vanities delighted even his closest friends.
I recall particularly the time when the Government ordered Blamey to the islands where operations were in charge of Syd Rowell then temporary Brigadier, Rowell quite wrongly regarded the coming of Blamey as a direct reflection on him. In truth T.A.B. had confidence in Rowell and the move was due solely to the Cabinet instructions. No assurance to this effect could shake Rowell’s belief to the contrary and he never forgave T.A.B. His lack of wisdom reached such a stage that he had to be recalled to the mainland. I had more knowledge of the truth than he, despite his high position. On his return large promises were made to him by a certain newspaper conditional on his leaving the Army and joining the newspaper staff. After much thought he declined the offer and accepted a post abroad with reversion to his substantive rank of Colonel.
At the crucial period we had a confidential conversation when I made my position clear as a loyal supporter of T.A.B. and that I had strong views, quite contrary to those of Rowell himself, about the incident which caused the trouble. I also told of my great admiration for him personally and entreated him not to follow foolish advice to leave the Army, pointing out that no temporary prospects could warrant his quitting the career for which he was well equipped. I said he had merely to wait patiently for a high Army post. He decided to stay, later became Chief of Staff, was made General and later received a Knighthood.
Later in the war I took the nucleus of a Brigade to the United Kingdom in order to arrange – as soon as the war should end – the repatriation of prisoners of war from the Continent.
Le Guardia, the Mayor of New York, generally described as The Little Flower, presided over a luncheon for us. I was near to him and for an hour he held me fascinated with his story of the power of a New York Mayor. La Guardia was a man of integrity but he named what seemed to me very large sums as the legitimate perquisite of a Mayor and astronomical sums for an unscrupulous one.
About the same time I made the acquaintance of Oscar Hammerstein ll. Oscar, prominent in this most sophisticated city, a man of farmer-like simplicity; it was impossible not to admire him. I kept in touch with him and shortly before his death, when I knew that his days were limited, I wrote (pretending not to know of his dire condition) saying something of the pleasure his work had given to the world and to many in Australia. I received a charming modest reply. He was obviously touched that anyone should express such views concerning his work. His death was a source of great grief to me.
Reaching England, I spent an afternoon wandering through the English countryside with Ernest Bevin. He was not a friend, merely an acquaintance. After lunch we walked for a couple of hours. He spoke with surprising frankness, and told me of the most dreadful decision he had ever had to make as a Cabinet Minister. Was a convey to go to Russia? Stalin had been particularly troublesome with suggestions that Britain was deliberately withholding aid. Cabinet called in expert after expert: their advice was unanimous. There was no chance of the Convoy getting through; its destruction would be total. Cabinet than had to arrive at its dreadful responsibility. The decision was that the Convoy had to go, irrespective of the fate predicted. Bevin added that a reasonable part of the convoy did in fact get through but he was much moved as he spoke of seemingly condemning hundreds of men and valuable ships to certain death and destruction, merely because of political necessity. Later, in an aside, discussing Australia, he made this remark. “The trouble with your labour politicians”, he said, “is that very few of them can forget that they were once trade union officials”. He made it clear that this comment was to be repeated during his lifetime.
Another man who made some mark on me was Bidault, who was one of the great leaders of the French Resistance during the second war. Travelling to Paris with Dr Evatt a few days after Paris was relieved, we were guests of Bidault at the State dinner and I was sitting next to him and learned much from him concerning the tribulations of the Resistance Days. What I remember best was this. “My great fear was that I might be captured and might betray some of my compatriots. I am a Catholic and so do not believe in suicide. So my morning and evening prayer was that if I were captured I would have sufficient strength to resist the terrors of torture and betray no one.” He went on to say that when they entered Paris he found that his friend and co-leader had forty or fifty fractured bones – the work of the Huns.
Evatt is dead and I have discussed him many times, poor fellow, but really he was an impossible man with whom to be associated. I always feel guilty when I talk of him because he’s the one man who did me favours – rather large favours – for which I was unable to feel any gratitude. I would like to think this remark applies to Evatt only and to no other person in the world.
When we went to Paris he insisted on my accompanying him to liaise and generally run around as his henchman which I did. He was guilty of no rudeness to me but his behaviour to intelligent sophisticated Frenchmen, his performances with poor Mrs. Forde (wife of the Deputy Prime Minister), his absurd behaviour to establish his own prestige were, of course, too ridiculous to describe.
One of my first jobs was to pick up old Picasso so that he might have the honour of meeting the Evatts. I deputed this job to my friend, John McDonnell, who discovered him somewhere and arranged the interview.
The week with Evatt in Paris was full of irritations and undignified behavior. Prior to my going over he had asked me to what post did I aspire to go as Minister. I had been nominated for the Netherlands and there had been controversy between Evatt and Curtin as to whether I should go instead to the United States, which was quickly terminated by my waiting on Curtin and assuring him that there was no question who should go, Owen Dixon not myself. But I still had some hankering for foreign places and when Evatt asked me what my wishes were, I parried his question. The nation I had in mind was France but, for some reason, I suggested we might leave the matter open until we returned to England. My concern at his behaviour in Paris was such that on our return to England I did not communicate to him and strange to say never spoke to him again. Back in London I had telephone messages asking me to call on him: I did not. I think now that my conduct was a bit high handed, but I was at the time so shocked at his inability to perform in public in accordance with my notions of what was due from a prominent Australian minister that I decided to make a complete break.
Throughout most of my life I have professed a great abhorrence of intolerance. Truth compels me to admit that I have not been logical, and on certain matters I have displayed a quality which I deplored in others. One of my major biases related to Germany. I conceived a dislike for Germany during World War 1 though I admired the high quality of its soldiers. This was accentuated by the coming of Hitler and World War 11. Again I must admit that the German professional soldier displayed soldierly qualities which were not to be found in certain other nations which professed a more civilised attitude. Notwithstanding this I for many years abstained from visiting Germany. My only visit until the middle sixties was when, after the Armistice, we were billeted in Marcinelle, near Charleroi in Belgium, and went to the Rhine.
I persevered with this resolution not to visit Germany during numerous visits abroad; and it was not until much later, after spending some time in the Austrian Tyrol, that I found it inconvenient to go on to London without passing through Germany. So I stayed at Baden Baden for a few days, patronizing the Casino there, enjoying a fine hotel, but with feelings unchanged. I do not plead justification for my bias: I merely record a fact. Years later I made several short trips to Germany as President of the International Dried Fruits organisation which controlled an International Agreement. One visit was to Munich after an abortive meeting elsewhere. It turned out that at Munich we did agree and we fixed up the second or, as it was later called, the Munich agreement in relation to dried fruits, a matter of considerable importance to the Australian industry. I also visited nearby Dachau, one of the notorious concentration camps established by Hitler. Visiting Dachau did nothing towards eliminating by bias.
I am ashamed of this attitude. Two of my friends, distinguished surgeons, Sir Albert Coates and Sir Edward (Weary) Dunlop, were both prisoners of war of the Japanese. They survived tremendous hardships with honour and had no occasion to love their captors, but they have no ill feelings against them. But I still have unpleasant impressions of Germany; and I have succumbed to an unpraiseworthy satisfaction during my visits to England when a number of my English friends, in private conversation asserted their sincere hope that the two parts of Germany would never be reunited. Knowing a little of German history, something of its harsh philosophies and of the 1870 French war, the 1914 war, and the 1939 war, I feel there is no occasion for supreme confidence that repetition is impossible. My view is not charitable and I will not live to know if it is justified by future happenings.