Tales from the Special Forces Club. Sean Rayment
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on to a schooner and sailed from Kalymnos to Leros, which was no more than a mile or two so didn’t take too long, but while we were unloading our gear we were attacked by Stukas. I don’t know if the Germans were just lucky or whether they had a reconnaissance unit on the island, but we were sitting ducks and an easy target.
‘All we had to hit back at them was our rifles and a few Bren guns. It was terrifying. I was behind this sort of low wall firing at the Stukas with my rifle as they dive-bombed.
‘One of our chaps, “Pusher” Wheeldon, was killed in the bombing. He was in his early 20s and came from Chesterfield – a very fit, active chap who would have a go at anything. As the bombing was going on, he jumped back on board our boat and grabbed a Bren gun and set it up on a tripod on the quay so he could shoot at the planes. But he was completely in the open. Bombs were exploding everywhere and he was caught by the shock wave of a blast, which severely damaged his lungs. His face and chest were covered in red frothy blood – he was lying on his back coughing up his lungs, a dreadful sight. He was clearly on his way out, his lungs had been destroyed. The medics came and took him away in a jeep and I think he died about an hour later.’
Once the Stukas departed, the troops began to count the cost of the attack. Many soldiers had been killed and injured, some with appalling wounds. But the casualties amongst the LRDG were remarkably light.
‘There was a row of bodies along a wall near where I had been shooting during the attack. The bodies were all in a line and had been blown there by the force of the blast. I noticed a chap moving along the row and checking for pulses. I don’t know if he was the medical officer or a medical orderly. I saw him pick up the hand of one poor soul and I said, “It’s no good checking his pulse, he hasn’t got a head.” It was carnage, and I think largely brought about by the confusion of that operation.’
On 23 October 1943 the LRDG were ordered to carry out a raid on the nearby island of Levita, which was believed to be in the hands of escaped German POWs. The mission was to typify the lack of intelligence which ultimately condemned the entire operation.
‘We went over to Levita on these Royal Navy motor launches. Y Patrol and some Rhodesians went to the south-west of the island and a New Zealand patrol went to the north-west. We made for a meteorological complex, which we thought might be occupied, and prepared for a bit of a firefight. The building was empty so we moved into the area quite easily. We began digging slit trenches and preparing the defensive position, which was just as well because we soon learnt that rather than just a few POWs there was a strong force of German mountain troops just a few hundred yards away across the valley and they must have spotted us pretty quickly because we were soon under attack.
‘Fortunately, by the time the enemy attacked most of us were in cover. I was in a slit trench firing across the valley when suddenly the Germans started using a mortar. The first round overshot and the next one landed in front of the trench. I thought, “Oh Lord, the next one’s going to come in between.” I could hear it coming in and it landed on the parapet of my trench but didn’t go off – it was about a foot away from my head. Had it gone off I would have been cut in half.’
The battle raged for several hours and it was also clear to Jimmy and his patrol members that bitter fighting was taking place on the other side of the small island.
‘Our force was commanded by John Olivey, a Rhodesian who had already won the MC and was regarded as a very competent officer. Later that morning he sent a party to see what could be done about having a go at the Germans but they returned soon after with a wounded man and had made little impact. Then it was my turn. John Olivey turned to me and three others and told us to go and have a look and try and get an assessment of the enemy positions and strengths. So off we set, knowing that it was going to be pretty dangerous, but also convinced it was the right course of action.
‘In our team we had one Bren gun and the rest had rifles. I was a lance-bombardier at this stage – it was only acting rank, but it meant that I was in charge. So we moved off and I decided to detour off a little and try and reach the Germans’ flank. We were moving across open ground when a German flying-boat armed with machine-guns appeared and it was quite obvious that the aircraft had spotted us. The aircraft was flying over the top of us, mainly so that we kept our heads down. I couldn’t move forward any further, so I decided to go back to the meteorological station and had just got within sight of the buildings when I saw a lot of people moving around. I obviously thought they were our chaps, but in fact Jerry had captured the meteorological station. I didn’t know that at the time.
‘We were just casually walking over this stretch of open ground, making our way back, when a German machine-gun team suddenly appeared. It would have been damn silly to try and do anything – they would have cut us to ribbons – so we just had to give up.
‘I was absolutely furious because I thought, “That’s it. War over.” We didn’t put our hands up, we thought that would be undignified. This one Jerry who they sent out to round us up indicated that we should put our rifles on our shoulders. We didn’t even do that. We just carried the rifles in our hands and just walked up to where the Germans were and threw our weapons on to a dump. That was that, we were POWs. The rest of the men at the meteorological station had all given up – they must have given up pretty easily, because by the time we arrived they were being marched down to where the Germans had set up their HQ. The whole lot of us had been captured. Meanwhile the New Zealanders on the other side of the island were having a tremendous battle, so much so that they eventually ran out of ammo and they had to give up too. My friend Ron Hill was with them and he was also captured.
‘The overriding sensation after being captured was one of disappointment and anger, but it was quite difficult to analyse one’s feelings. You are in a situation and you have to make the best of it. The full force of being a POW hadn’t hit me by then.’
Jimmy, Ron Hill and the other members of Y Patrol were all marched to the harbour at Levita. There they learnt that they were to be flown by seaplane to Piraeus, then taken to a German prison camp.
After arriving in Athens, the POWs were taken to an old Italian barracks where they were held for several days and questioned by two English-speaking German officers who wanted to discover whether any of the captured British were willing to change sides and fight with the Germans.
‘The officers were very polite, very decent. My attitude was: what the devil are you on about? You can’t possibly win this war. The Russians were well on the go, the US were in the war, Germany was being bombed to hell and it was quite clear what the outcome was going to be eventually. I didn’t say that to them directly, I just implied it, but they wouldn’t have any of it and they wanted us to switch sides and join them. “Germans and British are far too close to be enemies,” they said. Our races were so similar that it was ridiculous that we were fighting one another. That was their attitude. They wanted us to fight against the Russians. Their argument was based on the grounds that the Jews were running our side in the war and that everything could be blamed on the Jews. Our attitude was “Don’t be so bloody silly.”’
By the time the POWs arrived in Athens, Ron Hill and Jimmy were determined to make their escape. Other members of the LRDG had managed to slip past the German guards while being marched through Athens.
‘I, for one, was absolutely up for escaping, especially after a few days in the compound, which I soon became pretty fed up with. Right from the start, Ron and I said we were going to escape. But not before we had some fun with the guards. They were funny little gnome-like men from the Black Forest and they were armed with the most ancient of rifles, great long things which were as tall as they were.
‘We used to make fun of them unmercifully. We would start a bit of a rumpus at one side of the compound and these poor little blokes would start shouting to one another and rush round to one side of the compound where the noise was. Then we would start a similar thing on the other side so they would have to rush back. And we’d sing funny songs to them. At the time, the Americans had a song which had rude noises in it which went like this: “When the Führer says we are the master race we heil, (raspberry noise), heil, (raspberry), right in the Führer’s face. Not to love the Führer is a great disgrace so we heil, (raspberry), heil