Consulate of Greece

Newcastle - Australia

Good Morning.

Father Nicholas Scordilis, Reverend Kesh Govan, The Executive committee of the Nelson
Bay RSL Sub-Branch, Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am privileged today to attend this dedication ceremony for the plaque presented by the
Greek & Australian communities as a gesture of gratitude for the service of Anzacs in both
WW1 and WW2.

Please allow me to repeat some history with regards to the sacrifices made by the ANZACs
during both world wars, that allows us to understand the special bond between the Greeks
and Australians.

At the start of WWI, Greece remained a neutral nation. However, British, Australian and
New Zealand ships and troops were allowed to use the island of Lemnos as a base from
which their attack on Gallipoli was mounted in 1915. Also, a large contingent of Australian
and New Zealand nurses served along the northern border of Greece during the period 1916-
1918.

Even though Greeks arrived in Australia during the mid to late 1800s, it was not until after
WWII and the Greek Civil war of 1946-1949, that Greeks immigrated to Australia along with
the USA and Canada.

Australia has been a destination for immigrants from Greece since colonial times, but it was
our shared experience especially during the campaigns of 1941 which added a new dimension
to that relationship, a bond that we see in the faces of veterans when they return to Greece
and Crete, and in the lives of Greek families who have made Australia their home.

In 1941 Greece was the last country in mainland Europe holding out against the fascist
invasion. Since the Italian invasion in 1940 the forces of the British Empire, including
Australia, had been supporting the gallant Greek resistance.

In this early phase of the war, many Greeks were swept up in the enthusiasm of celebrating
the victory at sea at Cape Spada, Crete, when the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney sunk a
more powerful Italian cruiser and damaged another in July 1940.

Eight months later the RAN was again in action between the Peloponnese and Crete, part of
the victorious British fleet that defeated the Italians at Cape Matapan.

Lustre Force was the codename given to the tiny British Commonwealth Army that was
dispatched from North Africa comprising largely of Australian and New Zealand infantry.
They were tasked with helping strengthen the Greek defences due to the threat of a German
invasion. As the threat grew stronger, it became immediately apparent that the forces
available were not adequate for the defence of the Greek mainland.

215 Newcastle Road, P.O. Box 595, East Maitland NSW 2323 Australia
Phone: (+61 2 4933 6777) Fax: (+61 2 4934 1517) Direct: (+61 2 4001 0599)
Email: grconsulate@easygroup.com.au
 Consulate of Greece
Newcastle - Australia

The Australians fought their first major action in Greece at Vevi Pass from 11 to 13 April
1941. In near blizzard conditions, the Dodecanese Regiment and the 21st Greek Regiment
fought beside the 2/4th Battalion from New South Wales and the 2/8th Battalion from
Victoria to hold the Pass.

In the sort of action that was to be repeated over the next fortnight, actions reminiscent of
Leonidas and his Spartans, the Greeks and Australians tried to hold the German armour while
the rest of the army fell back and attempted to build stronger defences further south.

With minimal anti-tank weapons the fight was a very one-sided affair and after two days
barely a third of the 19th Australian Brigade was left to fall back to the Aliakmon Line.

The next defensive position was Brallos Pass above the ancient battlefield of Thermopylae.
When the Germans broke through this defensive line on the eve of Anzac Day 1941, British
Commonwealth and Greek troops fought their way back to the coast where the Navy could
take them away to the temporary safety of Crete or Egypt.

On 20 May 1941, Crete became the stage for the worlds first ever major airborne invasion.

The island was defended by a combined British Commonwealth and Greek army that had
even less equipment, support, means of communication and mobility than Lustre Force.

The German airborne invasion centred around the capture of three airfields and the city of
Chania situated on the north western coast of the island of Crete.

The New Zealanders held the westernmost airfield at Maleme. The British held the airfield of
Heraklion on the north coast at the centre of the Island, and between the two a combined
group of Australian and Greek infantry units guarded the secondary airstrip, eight kilometres
east of the port that Australians called Rethymno.

After 10 days of fighting, the Germans had taken the island but at a cost so great that mass
German airborne forces would never again be used in that role in combat.

For the Australian troops the campaign ended in retreat and evacuation, capture or escape and
evasion. For Crete and its people, it was a bloody introduction to four years of occupation.

The 6th Australian Division, of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force (AIF), provided the
Australian component of Lustre Force. It was the first infantry division raised in Australia to
fight the Second World War. The division went to Greece with 17,125 men. By the end of the
campaigns in Greece and on Crete more than a third of the division was killed, wounded or
captured.

In Greece, the AIF losses were many 320 killed, 494 wounded and 2,030 made prisoners of
war. In 10 days on Crete another 274 were killed, 507 wounded and 3,102 captured.

215 Newcastle Road, P.O. Box 595, East Maitland NSW 2323 Australia
Phone: (+61 2 4933 6777) Fax: (+61 2 4934 1517) Direct: (+61 2 4001 0599)
Email: grconsulate@easygroup.com.au
 Consulate of Greece
Newcastle - Australia

While the Greeks endured an occupation punctuated by massacres at the hands of the Nazis,
the AIF who got away from Greece and Crete spent the rest of the war fighting in another
hemisphere, against an Asian enemy that threatened their very homeland.

Since the war, Greece and Crete have become places of pilgrimage for the Australians who
fought there. Although the campaigns on Greece and Crete were among the shortest in which
the AIF were involved, the memories of that land and its people have remained among the
most powerful and most emotional for its veterans.

Australian veterans have been proud to add Greece and Crete to the unit banners they carry
on Anzac Day and to the memorials in city suburbs and country towns that remember their
fallen mates.

In the seaside village of Stavromenos on Crete there is a street named Ian Ross Campbell,
the name of the Australian from Sydney who commanded the Australian and Greek force that
defended the airfield at Rethymno.

It is in honour of those memories of Greek and Australian courage, and to commemorate the
hundreds of Australians who lie in the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Phaleron, on
the outskirts of Athens, and beside the sparkling waters of Suda Bay, we dedicate this very
special Plaque.

215 Newcastle Road, P.O. Box 595, East Maitland NSW 2323 Australia
Phone: (+61 2 4933 6777) Fax: (+61 2 4934 1517) Direct: (+61 2 4001 0599)
Email: grconsulate@easygroup.com.au