A couple battalions from the 17th Australian Brigade were being moved by train on the way from Athens to Thessaly. The train crew that were carrying the 2/6th Battalion had stopped because the crew were afraid of air attack. The train had stopped for some nine hours in the night during 14 and 15 April. The 2/7th had their train attacked and the crew left them stranded. Fortunately, there were Australians with rail experience along. The men set up one engine as a decoy. They took another engine and made a train to carry the 2/7th Battalion to Domokos.
The men actually holding the defensive line on 17 April were able to execute a withdrawal by stages. They occupied carefully chosen postions. As they moved, they blew bridges and cratered the roads. There was artillery holding the Servia and Katerini Passes. As we had mentioned, the men climbed from the foot of the road to the top at the passes and put craters in the road to slow the German advance.
The Germans were forced to cautiously advance, stopping to repair the road as they went forward. The Germans were not able to use their tanks so they had to rely upon their artillery.
There was action at the Pinios Gorge on 17 April. The three colonels there were busy preparing defenses. Colonel Chilton, a relatively young Colonel, had deployed their force in the defenses. Macky had agreed to Chilton's plan for the New Zealand force. The Pinios Gorge extended for some five miles. The gorge was quite narrow and had steep walls. The river in the gorge was narrow and the railroad ran along the north side.
This is based on the account in "Greece, Crete, and Syria" by Gavin Long.
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