The Australians felt helpless when confronted by German tanks. As a senior man spoke: "Some are going back, but we have no orders to withdraw". This one group didn't receive word "but the rest were withdrawing. At this point, Murchison, a company commander, told his platoons to move to the road and get on the trucks. Lamb had already told one company to withdraw.
When it was getting dark, Lamb ordered the vehicles to halt started to position infantrymen in a defensive position. What might have been a "line" was actually an "L". They were next to the rail line "on the left". The men were close together to be actually touching. One platoon commander thought they were at the end of the line, so to speak.
Soon, a German tank approached. A man standing up in the turret was shot full of bullets. there was totala chaos, but the Australians managed to hold onto their position due to a certain amount of discipline Someone wondered why the Germans did not keep going, after hitting the Australians quite hard.
The Larisa road was looking small, narrow, lined by ditches. The road was crowded with vehicles trying to drive. They ran into Germans energetically firing. There were many casualties.
Some New Zealand carriers drove up and the commander decided to force is way through. Soon, the leading carrier was mined and blocked the road. A grlup of men then attempted to attack a German machine gun nest with four men. Eventually, all four Germans were killed. As we saw, there were still Australians and New Zealand troops ready and able to fight and defeat Germans. This is based on the account in "Greece, Crete, and Syria" by Gavin Long.
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