Spirited Away

Last Allied POWs on Crete December, 1941

By: Anthony W Buirchell

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Hardcover | 19 November 2024

At a Glance

Hardcover
472 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24 x 3.66

Hardcover

$65.99

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Crete 1941, Autumn, the final group of Allied Prisoners of War was being rounded up to be shipped to Germany. They were gathered at Iraklion but instead of continuing to Greece the group was split. One hundred and thirty six were placed in a convoy of lorries and sent south over the mountains. Where were they going and what were they going to be doing at their destination?

No-one knew the fate of the men who were spirited away for the next eight decades. A New Zealand researcher in Christchurch chanced upon a pair of canvas made shorts that had signatures all over it. One of those signatures was from a West Australian. The West Australian contact started to piece the story together when he discovered a soldier, who was in the convoy of lorries had written a diary covering the lost time. Piece by piece the story and the men involved in it came to light.

What happened on the wind swept and isolated area on the south coast of Crete in the autumn of 1941? Who were the soldiers whose names appeared on the mysterious canvas shorts?

The story centres on several men and their adventures on Crete. William Roy Buirchell is caught on the south side near Tymbakion and returned to Galatas. He makes another escape and stays 'loose' from June until October, 1941. Unfortunately he gets Malaria and finds himself in the Tymbakion Prisoner of War Camp. Albert Edward Chamberlain becomes a POW and is shipped to Salonika and then into Germany. Vic Petersen is a West Australian is captured but inexplicably he and many others are kept on Crete. Each of the characters the researchers found were placed in the book.

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