Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Fighting on 24 April 1941

 As we recall, the Australian 2/4th was sitting, blocking the road at about five miles beyond Brallos. Vasey then ordered the 2/1st Battalion to ove along the main road until they reached the 2/4th Battalion position, which they reached by about 6pm. 

The guns of the 2/2nd Regiment had come under air attack on 23 April. The regiment commander ordered that during the night, the guns should move back some 1,000 to 1,500 yards. He had them leave the camoflage nets over the old gun positions. That was in the area held by the 2/11th Battalion. The infantry stayed away from the old gun positions. 

That morning, the Germans made a dive-boming attack on the old gun positions. A captain and four men were there, acting as artillery observers. 

On the 24th, early in the day, they could see trucks driving over the bridge across the Sperkhios, which had been repaired. There were also tanks on the main road driving south. At one point, the tanks turned to the east, so as to attack the New Zealand positions.

Australian machine gunners opened fire on German infantry who were oving forward. They were on the "near side of thr rails". They would occasionally fire, during the day. Suddenly, at about 4:50pm, the Germans opened fire with motars on the Australian infantry. This preceded a bigger attack. 

This is bases on the account in "Greece, Crete, and Syria" by Gavin Long.


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