Book Review - Diggers and Greeks: The Australian campaigns in Greece and Crete

Diggers and Greeks: The Australian campaigns in Greece and Crete

Written by: Maria Hill,

UNSW Press, Sydney, 2010, 

ISBN 9781742230146, 496pp

Reviewed by: Karl James, Australian War Memorial

After its successful campaign in the Libyan desert at the start of the year, in late March and early April 1941, the Australian 6th Division was sent to mainland Greece with other British and New Zealand troops. The British had promised the Greeks military assistance if Greece was attacked. When the anticipated German invasion came it was swift and strong. The Germans forced the Commonwealth troops from their positions in northern Greece back in a series of withdrawals, culminating in their evacuation from ports in the south during the last week in April. The poorly conceived campaign was brief and trying for the Australians who were ill-equipped for the cold, mountainous terrain, and continually harassed by German air attacks. The Australians were frustrated too, by their allies. While the Greek military and politicians had been fighting against the Italians on the Albanian front with determination since October 1940, many Greeks were reluctant to fight the advancing Germans.

The Germans followed their success on the mainland with an airborne invasion of Crete in May. The island was defended by a weak and poorly armed force of Australians, British and New Zealanders, cobbled together from units mainly evacuated from Greece. Nevertheless, these men, as well as the Cretans, inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy. After ten days of desperate fighting, the island fell to the Germans.

The Greek and Crete campaigns cost the 6th Division heavily, with more than 1500 men killed and wounded, and more than 5000 taken prisoner. Many Australians made perilous escapes from enemy-occupied territory to Egypt and Palestine by small boat or overland through Turkey. It took months for the division’s units to return to strength.

Since the publication of Gavin Long’s volume of the official history Greece, Crete and Syria (1953) numerous books and soldiers’ memoirs have appeared relating to the campaigns. Greece and Crete are far from ‘forgotten’ as many authors have alleged but, as Maria Hill rightly points out, the experiences of the Greek people themselves are nearly always overlooked.

A historian with a background in education, Hill utilised her Greek-Australian heritage to carry out extensive research in Greece and Australia. She skilfully highlights Greece’s diverse political, economic and social culture, discussing, for example, why many mainland Greeks were sympathetic to the Germans, activity supporting the invaders, in sharp contrast to the fiercely independent Cretans. Hill’s central theme concentrates on how the Australians interacted with the people of Greece and Crete, and the ways in which the diggers tried to understand the Hellenic world. Richly illustrated and easy to read, Hill approaches the campaigns with a fresh, though slightly skewed perspective.

In places the British, as well as the Germans, are portrayed as the common enemy, while the absence of any detailed description on the nature of the fighting or the conduct of operations on either campaign is frustrating. Hill clearly states that she did not want to write another traditional ‘military history’ but in neglecting the actions and experiences of the Australians and the Greeks in combat, she misses the campaigns’ most intense moments of drama.

Despite the impression given by the books size, most Australians only had a few weeks in Greece and their interaction with the local people was fleeting. Soldiers spent a pleasant day or two in Athens, which was a welcomed change from those spent in Palestine, Egypt and Libya, before being sent north and then a hurried evacuation. The interaction between the two peoples was largely limited to trying to control columns of civilian refugees and observing retreating Greek soldiers. Even in Crete there was little opportunity for much more than pleasantries. Not surprisingly, the strongest bonds were formed between Australians left behind in occupied territory and the Greek families who hid, fed and clothed them. Hill has done well to tell these stories which highlight the generosity and bravery of ordinary Greek people.

Diggers and Greeks is an interesting companion to Long’s official history and other military histories of the Greek and Crete campaigns. In this period of coalition warfare, it is a timely reminder of the importance of understanding our allies as well as our enemies.