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Those known to have fought in Battle of Greece during the Second World War 1939-1945. The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
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Want to know more about Battle of Greece? There are:128 items tagged Battle of Greece available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. |
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Sgt . James Clark Stewart 6th Btn. Black Watch My Dad, Jummy Stewart enlisted at Perth Scotland on 16th of October 1939.
He was sent to France in 1940 as part of 51st Highland Division. They dug trenches etc and Dad called it the phoney war . They stole chickens and eggs from the French to supplement their rations.
When the Germans broke through in May 1940, Dad and his section fell back to Dunkirk and arrived there about 22nd/23rd of May 1940. Dad said the Scottish soldiers were rounded up and reformed and ordered to form a u shape round Dunkirk. Dad called this a rearguard action.
They defended Dunkirk to allow the ships to evacuate the troops. Dad talked about being at de Panne and then being told to destroy the vehicles and guns and fall back (along the coast to Dunkirk.)
Dad returned to Dunkirk on 30th/31st of May 1940 and eventually got off the beach on 1st/2nd of June.
He described wading out to boats/ships. Being strafed by German planes. He described almost getting onto a ship but being turned back as it was over-full. That ship turned and headed out when a German plane dropped a explosive down the funnel. So he was grateful he was turned back. He eventually got on a small boat and then a ship back to Dover. He slept all the way.
He was then sent to the Isle of Wight to defend it as they expected an invasion.
The next recollection was training on the west coast of Scotland in 1941/42 with Lord Lovatt. Here it was abseiling and climbing onto moored ships.
He was then sent to North Africa in 1943. Dad was a driver and drove officers to Meetings etc. One day Brigadier Beak asked him to have his best uniform on and he wasn’t told in advance where he was going. It transpired it was for Brigadier Beak to meet Winston Churchill visiting troops in North Africa. Dad was able to salute great man.
From North Africa Dad was then sent to Italy and he recalls Vesuvius still erupting as they entered Naples harbour.
Dad fought at Monte Casino which he describes as hand to hand battle. The allies took Monte Casino one night then were forced back the next, which went on and on. He describes snipers waiting for them.
Then Dad was sent to Greece to help the Government fight ELAS who were communists.
He did not recall VE Day. He doesn’t think they celebrated it as they were still fighting.
Eventually they boarded trains that took them through war torn Europe to get back to England. In January 1946 Dad was demobbed at Catterick Camp, Yorkshire. He was given a 3 piece suit and either £5 or £10 plus ration book.
In later life Dad attempted to see his book in Name of Gold in Paris which marks Dunkirk veterans. He didn't see it as it was July and all museums were closed.
We took Dad to Dunkirk on a family holiday to see the beaches and Le (De) Panne.
He took part in a Black Watch march in Perth to commemorate 50 years since El Alemein.
At his funeral in 2010 the Black Bear was played.
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Pte. Horace Bailey Cotton 57th LAA Regiment Royal Artillery Horace Cotton served as a dispatch rider from 1933 to 1945. He was at El Alamein and in Italy and Greece, he lived to be 93.
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R.S.M. Thomas Joseph Sullivan Royal Ulster Rifles Thomas Sullivan served with the 8th Royal Ulster Rifles and sailed from Greenock to Algiers. They joined 1st Army and became 117th L.A.A. Regiment, RA and went on to Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, Greece, Italy, Austria
Thomas was a PoW for one night as the Germans had gone overnight due to the approach of the Royalist Russians.
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Dvr. John Edward Potter 4th Field Squadron Royal Engineers  Jack Potter joined up in July 1940, after the fall of France.
He was sent to Egypt, completing his basic training while on board ship.
He was posted to the 4th Field Squadron, Royal Engineers.
Jack served against the Italians in the Western Desert in 1940, then Rommel and the Afrika Korps.
He was then detached to the Australians and sent to Greece, in 1941. The evacuation from Greece saw him twice sunk in Piraeus harbour aboard Navy ships, before escaping on a liner commandeered by the Australian Army in Alexandria. Back to the desert war, and the battle of El Alamein, the capture of Tunis, and the surrender of the Afrika Korps in 1943.
Next was the invasion of Sicily, followed by the invasion of Italy, and the slow pushing back of the Germans to Monte Cassino. After taking part in the opening stages of this battle, his unit was transferred back to the UK for a refit prior to D-Day.
He saw action on D-Day, in the battles for Normandy, the invasion of Holland, Arnhem, and finally the invasion of Germany, before de-mob in Feb 1946.
Not one home leave during his entire service!
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Sgt. Henry David Lowry 2nd Btn. Royal Irish Fusiliers  My greatest regret is not having asked more questions when I was able to.
My dad, Harry Lowry lived to age 87 and was a quiet, humorous and kind man. He joined the 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers as a teenager, as had his father for WW1. His pre WW2 and wartime service included Palestine, Malta, Leros / Kos of which I know little. What little I do know includes the terrible hunger, constant bombing and indescribable duties such as clearing human remains after bomb raids.
As an older man he would still look up to check what was flying overhead when a plane was near, and would wake from sleep and be alert instantly.
I understand that his battalion invaded Leros / Kos and that after some 3 days fierce fighting when they were hopelessly outnumbered, and half of his Battalion were either killed or taken prisoner, he escaped into the sea (he was a non swimmer) and was picked up and returned to Malta. When he eventually returned to the UK, it was in the seat as a rear gunner in an aircraft, a very unusual role for him.
He served 25 years in total with both RIF and other arms such as RASC and later RAPC.
My Hero.
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Maj. Valentine "Paddy" Hehir 3rd Btn. Royal Tank Regiment Paddy Hehir joined the Tanks after serving as a bugle boy in Lydd, Kent.
He was in the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment from the early 1920s to 1960 and claimed to have been the longest serving officer in the history of the Regiment. He always won the veterans' sprints at Bovington Camp sports day because each officer got one yard for every year of service. But he was a champion miler, so might have won off scratch.
He served in all the Tanks major conflicts, including the Desert Campaign, Alamein, Greece, Italy and finally the push through northern France to Belsen.
One of his best friends was Bill Close, whose book, A View From The Turret was, in my opinion, (I'm Paddy's younger son) the most compelling first hand account of the war I have read.
Dad was celebrated in a song, Up the Blue, which was a sarcastic reflection on how little credit they got despite being so often the first to go 'up the blue' forward into enemy territory, where, they sang, the flasher Regiments took the glory.
Before retirement he was QM of Bovington Camp. But he continued to wear khaki for many years, first as a full time officer in the Territorial Army in Paisley, Scotland, then when he and mum moved to a village on Longleat Estate - near where Mum came from in Warminster, where he was a gatekeeper, supposedly keeping the tourists safe as they passed the double sets of gates into the lion enclosure.
Supposedly, because one day he shut the outer gate, and turned to discover a lion twenty yards away sitting on the veranda of Dad's little wooden watch house. Fortunately it had just had lunch.
Dad saw that Lord Bath had no idea about how to run the stores, filled with tourist tat and sold at the gates, so he came up with a plan and his Lordship made him QM of Longleat.
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Pte. Hodgson Wilson "Bill " Alker 6th Btn. C Coy. Durham Light Infantry  Hodgson Alker was born in April 1919 at Willington, Co Durham. He enlisted in the Durham Light Infantry on the 15th of November 1939 and was posted to No 3 Infantry Holding Battalion
He arrived in France on 13th of March 1940 on the SS Ulster and was
posted to C Company, 6th Battalion, DLI on the 18th in Belgium, at Smeerchebbev Loersegem. He saw action in Northern France at Arras, Vimy Ridge and Beaurins in the Battle of Arras 1940. Made it back to
Dunkirk and was evacuated at 20:00 hrs on 1st of June 1940 on a Minesweeper from the Mole. He was then deployed on the south coast defences at Cullompton.
He embarked from Scotland on 23rd of May 1941 on the SS Duchess of Windsor, Canadian Pacific Line. On 27th of May all convoy escorts disappeared as they were hunting the Bismark. He disembarked in Egypt on 10th of July 1941 having sailed via South Africa, Aden and Port Suez. 6th DLI embarked for Cyprus on 27th of July 1941 on the Destroyer HMS Kimberley, Kokinni Trimithea.
They moved to Palestine 3rd of November 1941, on HMS Nizam, Napier and Jackel and entered Iraq on the 14th, being based at EskiKellek, Kirkuk and Habbaniya before leaving for Egypt on 13th of February 1942.
They were engaged in the North Africa Campaign at Gazala, Mersa Matruth, El Alamein, Mareth, Wadi Akarit, Enfidaville, Canal Zone. The Battalion then embarked for the Invasion of Sicily on 29th of June 1943 on the Winchester Castle and landed at 3:00 am 10th of July 1943 at Avola Floridia, moving through Solarino, Primosole Bridge, Catina, Alterella to Riposto. Bill embarked for the UK on 16th of October 1943 on the Sibajak and arrived 3rd of November 1943 to take his first leave for two and half years. The battalion were based at Shudy Camp near Thetford, while training for Normandy. The embarked for France on 3rd of June 1944 at Southampton on HMS Albrighton and landed in King Green Sector on Gold Beach, Normandy at 11:00 am on D Day near Ver sur Mer. They then saw action the the
Battle of Normandy at Conde s Seulles, Tilly Seulles, Villers Bocage, Auny, Mont Pincon, La Cannardiere, Conde s Noireau St Honorine la Chardonne until they were pulled out for rest on 18th of August 1944. At the end of the month they joined The Pursuit to Brussels through Nerrin, Gondecourt, Seclin, Vendeville, Tournai, Bizencourt, Ninove, Shepdaal to Brussels. They were in action in the The Battle for Gheel in September 1944 during the push into Holland, protecting the right flank at Eindhoven on the 16th, and on through Breugel, Lieshout, Beeken Donk, Uden,Grave, Nijmegen, Haalderen.
6th DLI returned to England in December 1944
The Battalion was disbanded and the men who had survived all of the campaigns from the beginning of the war were sent back to England to train others for active service. The remaining men were sent to join other regiments.
He was posted to Skipton Camp in Yorkshire and was training new recruits when he met his first wife Edith Child.
1946-12-16 The camp closed on 16th of December 1946 and Bill was released to the reserve the following day. He returned to coal mining in 1946/7 first in Lancashire then back in Willington Co Durham.
Hodgson never talked about war to his family and only in later life visited France with the Legion. He dies in 1992.
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Tpr. Adam Jamieson Cairns Royal Scots Greys Adam Cairns enlisted into 52nd (Lowland) Divisional Royal Army Service Corps Territorial Army on 14th of April 1936.
He was posted to Anti-Aircraft on 1st November 1938 and discharged from Territorial Army on 16th of January 1939 having enlisted into the Regular Army as a Trooper of the Calvary of the Line.
He was posted to Palestine with The Royal Scots Greys.
on 28th September 1939 he was posted to 7th Dragoon Guards, Royal Armoured Corps. He transferred to Royal Armoured Corps and posted to British Forces Greece on 28th of February 1941.
Adam was captured on 28th of April 1941 and sent to POW camp in Corinthia, Greece, then transferred to Stalag XVIIIB on 28th of July 1941.
He was then transferred to Stalag XVIIIA and was sent to various work camps until 1945 when he was liberated.
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Fus. Maurice McMulkin 2nd Btn. Royal Irish Fusiliers Maurice McMulkin served on Malta, during the siege 1940 to 1943. After Malta, the battalion was redeployed to Leros, in the Dodecanese Islands. On 12th of November 1943, the island was invaded by German forces. Five days of heavy fighting was followed by the island defenders succumbing to superior enemy forces.
Maurice was captured and after an arduous train journey across four countries lasting some two weeks, he ended up in Stalag XIA at Altengrabow. Being only a fusilier, he was put to work and spent most of his time at a work camp near to Halberstadt. He was liberated in April 1945 and according to his army records was repatriated to England on 23rd of April 1945. Including his pre-war service time from January 1938, he had been overseas continuously for over seven years.
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Sgt. Cyril Vivian Hawke 2nd Btn. Duke of Cornwalls Light Infantry Cyril Hawke was called up in October 1941 on his 18th birthday.
He trained in Bodmin and Northern Ireland.
Serving with C Company 2nd Btn, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry he went overseas to North Africa in 1942, stayed until end of campaign in May 1943.
He then went to Italy landing at Salerno in autumn 1943 and fought through Naples, Cassino, Rome and ended up in Northern Italy by the end of 1944.
He was sent to Greece in December 1944 and then transferred to the 1st Battalion, Hampshire Regiment (reason not known) and served in Greece until end of the war.
He arrived home in 1945 and re-equipped to go to the Far East but whilst sailing through the Med the war in the Far East ended and they were taken to Libya to carry out garrison duties in Benghazi.
Later he went to Palestine for garrison duties there.
He was discharged in Canterbury on 5th of June 1947.
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