The Battle for Crete - a young Cretan phones to say 'thank-you'

The Battle for Crete — a young Cretan phones to say thank-you

William Firth Little was born at 75 Ramsden Street in Barrow-in-Furness on October 22nd, 1912, two years before the onset of the Great War. William — or Bill - was the sixth in a family of seven children born to John Little, a boiler-maker in Vickers Shipyard and Mary Firth-Little, a seamstress. He attended Rawlinson Street Council Schools from1917 to 1924 and Barrow Grammar School from 1924 to 1931. Much of his leisure time as a young man was spent exploring the Lake District with his four brothers and he came to know the area like the back of his hand.

He went on to Chester teacher training college from 1931 to 1933 and then to find a job. In a diary we found, he had noted that during the six months from graduation he applied for about 100 teaching jobs and was called for interview for three, two on the Isle of Man. His application to Murray’s Road school in Douglas was successful and he took up his appointment on February 1st 1934. Barring the interruption of the second world war he would teach on the island for the rest of his life.

He married Winnie in July 1939 but war broke out in September and Bill signed up with the 129th battery of the 15th Manx light regiment. In 1940 the battery set sail to the North Atlantic, Freetown, Durban, Alexandria and Crete. It was in Crete that he would experience the action of war and capture by the Germans, an experience that would be etched deeply on his mind for the rest of his life.

In August 2003, six months before he died, Bill recalled the Battle for Crete.

The blitz in Suda Bay started … we fired off I don’t know how many rounds, BANG, BANG, BANG. In all our battery had about 30 aeroplanes down. Then we got word to evacuate. So then we set off to Sparkia. None of us realised that actually it was 30 miles across the island to reach Sparkia, on the back of a lorry……we surrendered. Unfortunately the German airforce was not told. We were lined up, the Germans came down and shot us up. We lost about 10 men on that occasion. Afterwards we were so shocked … we slept exactly where the Germans told us. The next day we set off to walk back to Suda Bay, a return journey for all of us, but this time as prisoners of war.

The surviving members of the battery were taken by ship to a camp in Thessalonika then across Europe through Austria to a prison camp at Lamsdorf in Germany. Bill would be in this camp for 3 years, during which time he ran classes for fellow prisoners in Literacy, Geometry, Trigonometry and Arithmetic, using books sent by the Red Cross.

From Lamsdorf the prisoners were shifted to Camp E — a work camp. Then for four months during the Winter of 1945 they were marched by the Germans from Blechammer to Bayreuth, a route that took them through the Tatras mountains. Bill’s closest friend in prison camp, Dennis Merry, kept a secret diary of the march, a few extracts of which are reproduced below

Jan 21st1945 Reported to be surrounded by the Russians and marched out to cross the Oder river. Issued with an invalide parcel,

Jan 23rd Left at 9 o clock and marched… 20 kilometres. A better march and a good warm billet next to a cow shed. Got some milk and potatoes. People were all evacuated Rhinelanders. Very good to us.

Feb 1st No move. One and a half loaves for 5 men. Barley soup burnt. Very hungry.

Feb 8th No move. The farmer says ‘ you are sleeping in my barn and it’s costing you nothing. You should work on the farm’. And we are experiencing black-outs when we get up! One and a half kilogram loaf and 9 extra apples between the six of us. Rumour of a landing in Northern Germany

Feb 9th Left at 8.30 to Nieder Adersbach at 3.30. 30 kilometres. Hard march. Men collapsing from hunger and weakness, 50 in billet. The woman was very good, gave us plenty of spuds; enabled us to have soup in the morning before marching

Feb 21st No move. Germans decided to form 2 fixed companies for the march and Bill and I spent eight and a half hours sorting names and numbers and making out the lists. Bread issue.

April 11th left at 7.20 and went some distance outside the town. Saw a very large force of American bombers visit Rogensburg and Landeshut,

Sunday April 29th 1945 Liberated by the Americans at 12.50!!!

And so, eventually, to an airfield somewhere in the South of England, to Fleetwood by train and home to the island, to married life and Murray’s Road School in Douglas on the Isle of Man.

In 1971, Bill, along with other veterans of the 129th battery returned to Crete on the 30th anniversary of the Battle. Led by Edgar Cottier, they revisited Suda Bay and the war cemeteries. (see the Isle of man Courier Nov 18th 1971).

In June 2003, 58 years later, a young Cretan Michalis Orphanikis, with whom I was working on a European Community education project at the time, telephoned Bill to thank him and all his comrades for the efforts they had made all years ago to save Crete. Michalis arranged for a video of Bill, aged 90, talking about Suda Bay, to be translated and shown to schoolchildren in Greece in 2005.

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