Start reading Fighting for Country by James Saunders
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Read an extract from Fighting for Country by James Saunders.
This extract from Fighting for Country captures a pivotal moment in the extraordinary military journey of Australia’s first Indigenous commissioned officer, Reg Saunders.
Dawn broke on 27 May 1941 to find Reg Saunders and a few hundred other Allied soldiers entrenched along a dusty farm lane known to the British as ‘42nd Street’. This unpaved road,
officially Odos Tsikalarion, ran between olive groves on the outskirts of Canea. Here, Australians of the 2/7th and 2/8th Battalions joined forces with New Zealanders—including the Māori battalion—to cover the withdrawal of the main Allied body moving south. After a week of non-stop fighting and retreat, the men at 42nd Street were exhausted, hungry and angry. German patrols had been skirmishing with their outposts since first light. Now word came that a full battalion of enemy mountain troops was advancing on their position from the west. If the Germans broke through here, they would overrun Canea and cut off thousands of Allied troops still in transit. The commanders on the spot—Colonel John Scoullar of New Zealand and Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Allen of Australia—decided to make a stand. It was a fight-or-die moment.
Shortly before 11 a.m., figures in faded field-grey uniforms appeared among the olive trees up the road. The German battalion, moving at march pace, was unaware of how close the Allies lay in wait. Reg gripped his Lee Enfield rifle tightly, peering through the foliage. Every muscle ached; he hadn’t eaten properly in days. Around him, men fixed bayonets with trembling hands. A tense hush fell over the line as the Australians and New Zealanders steeled themselves. Then, suddenly, a karanga (call) rang out from the Māori section. In unison, the Māori soldiers rose and burst into a thunderous haka—a spine-tingling war chant that echoed down the lane. They stamped the earth and shouted in ferocious rhythm, faces contorted in ceremonial challenge. The unexpected sound froze the German advance for a split second. Taking the cue, dozens of Australians sprang up from their cover with a wild guttural yell—an improvised battle cry of pure adrenaline—and charged forward. Reg found himself sprinting at full tilt, bayonet levelled, screaming at the top of his lungs. Beside him charged men from Auckland and Wellington, from Sydney and Melbourne, even a handful of Cretan partisans who had joined the line and now rushed in with knives and old muskets.
What followed were some of the most brutal and memorable minutes of combat in the Mediterranean war. The Anzacs fell upon the shocked Germans like human thunderbolts. Reg later admitted he felt a surge of savage exhilaration in that instant, calling it ‘the most thrilling few minutes of my life’. He dashed through the olive trees, pulse racing, and spotted a German soldier scrambling to his feet just ahead. Reg raised his rifle and fired without hesitation. The German youth dropped where he stood. It was the first time Reg had killed an enemy soldier. In the moment, he felt nothing; ‘just like shooting a kangaroo, just as remote’, he recalled of that split-second instinct.
The fury of battle swept him onward with no time to think. Screams, smoke and the clash of steel enveloped 42nd Street. Men grappled and stabbed at each other among the gnarled olive trunks. Shots rang out, fired at point-blank range. A German machine-gun team was overrun before they could fire more than a burst. Some of the enemy broke and ran almost immediately—these were paratroopers and mountaineers, elite but unused to being on the receiving end of a bayonet charge. Others fought and died where they stood. Reg worked the bolt of his rifle and kept moving. He saw one of his mates run a German through with a bayonet and then, with a roar, yank it free. Another German fell to a Māori warrior’s rifle at five paces, his body hurtling backward in a cloud of dust.
In less than ten minutes of vicious hand-to-hand combat, the German battalion was utterly routed. Dozens of enemy dead and wounded littered the track (later estimates suggest as many as 280 Germans were killed in this action). The survivors fled in panic, abandoning rifles, packs and even helmets as they sprinted back over the rise. Allied troops chased them for over a kilometre, driving them out of the olive groves at bayonet-point. Reg himself only stopped when exhaustion—and the shouts of officers recalling the men—finally pulled him up. Catching his breath, he realised his hands were sticky with blood; he wasn’t sure whether it was his or someone else’s.
The silence after the frenzy was eerie. Olive leaves drifted in the air; the only sounds were the groans of wounded men and the crackle of a small grass fire ignited by a flare. Reg walked back up the lane and found the German he had shot. The young blond man lay on his back, eyes open and glassy. A thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. Reg felt a jolt of remorse as he looked at the lifeless face. ‘Jesus . . . you’re about the same age as me,’ he murmured to himself.
In that instant, the triumph of victory gave way to the sober reality of what he had done. He rolled the body over gently and thought how only hours ago this enemy soldier had been full of life. Yet there was no time for reflection; officers were urgently re-forming the men. The charge at 42nd Street had bought the Allies a precious window of time, but now they had to use it. Without pausing even to count the enemy dead, the Australian and New Zealand battalions pulled back from the scene, melting away into the hills before German reinforcements could renew the attack. Thanks to their audacious counterstroke, thousands of Allied troops behind them were already streaming south into the White Mountains, racing for evacuation.
Extracted from Fighting for Country by James Saunders available now.
Fighting for Country
by James Saunders
The story of Captain Reginald Saunders MBE, Australia's first Indigenous commissioned officer, a true leader who served with daring and distinction in World War II and Korea, as told by his nephew James Saunders.
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