Larissa Jackman holding the very precious story board.
Last week’s Informer story about Howard Baker’s father serving in Crete, prompted Whitianga resident Larissa Jackman (nee Brown) to tell of her father’s war experiences, also in Greece and Crete. Fortunately her father told many stories, and Larissa recorded everything.
As a young man in his 20’s Stanley Curtis Brown went to Australia, and that’s where he was when World War 11 broke out. His Dad had fought in the Boer War and the First World War, and Stanley wanted to do his bit, but getting home on the boat to New Zealand would have taken time.
So instead, he joined the first echelon of volunteers with the Australian Imperial Forces and joined the 6th Division Machine Gun Battalion. From then on, he was known to his mates as ‘Kiwi Brown’.
In May 1940 the 6th Division left Western Australia on the Queen Mary, bound for the Middle East, but instead were diverted to U.K. to bolster defences there. Off the coast of South Africa Stan threw overboard a message in a bottle to his mother in Glen Massey, in the Wakato. His mother received it 2 years later after it was picked up in Madagascar.
For several months the 6th Division were camped on the Salisbury Plains, with the Battle of Britain raging in the skies above them. In November 1940 they left for desert training in Egypt and in April 1941 they joined the British units fighting in Greece. Stan recalled fighting around Mount Olympus, and in the town of Larissa. (That’s how his daughter got her name.) They carried the big Vickers gun all the way up the mountain and back. Time and time again they regrouped as the Germans pushed them back. Many soldiers were hiding in the hills and much equipment was abandoned. The 6th Division Vickers gun was the only one left. The men had no provisions. They were cold and starving.
The survivors, including British and Kiwi troops, were taken off at night from the beach at Corinth, rescued first by barge, then onto a schooner, and eventually signalled ‘SOS’ to the British destroyer Griffin. Once on board, they were given mugs of hot chocolate. It was their first food for many hours. They landed at Suda Bay, on the island of Crete.
Larissa captured Stan’s words: ‘Machine gun was unusable, no tripod. Very little ammunition or weapons. No food or organisation. Still with what was left of the unit.’
They were in Suda Bay for 4 days before moving to Galatos. German Paratroopers were landing, and by May 30th the Germans had occupied the island. Australian, Kiwi and British troops were again evacuated in a convoy of ships bound for Egypt. ‘Set sail for Alexandria (Egypt) on the Thurland Castle. Heavily bombed on the way across. Discovered cases of bully beef down below and had the first good feed for months. Now only 3 left from our unit.’
The troops left for Australia on 10th March 1942. This was not the end of Kiwi Brown’s war. His battalion went on to fight the Japanese in New Guinea, and in Borneo.
Stan did manage to get home to the Waikato once or twice to see his mother. The local paper (date unknown) recorded, ‘Considerable interest was aroused when a soldier appeared in a slouch hat and greenish coloured uniform – a rather unfamiliar sight…’
Larissa says her father experienced only friendship while serving 6 years with the Aussies. “He made so many great friendships and over the years he received many Christmas cards from his Aussie mates.” Larissa has visited the town of her namesake in Greece, and she has been to Crete. For her, ANZAC Day is a very important day on the calendar. Among her father’s souvenirs she even has a bottle of desert sand.
