Best and Bravest

by Glyn Harper

  Many New Zealanders again joined the army, which was sent to Egypt to train. The first battles in Greece and Crete were disastrous defeats, which cost many casualties. However, in the North African desert campaigns the New Zealand Division again emerged as a significant fighting force. Another force was active in the Pacific, but as the Japanese threat there diminished the New Zealand Army’s efforts were concentrated in Italy for the remainder of the war.

  A very significant number of New Zealanders also served in the new air forces. At first small numbers were attached to British units of bombers and fighters. The New Zealanders were one of the largest groups of overseas pilots to fight in the Battle of Britain and also took part in the early bombing raids on Germany. They continued to be involved in significant numbers in the European air war and over the Atlantic until the war’s end. The new Royal New Zealand Air Force was also a very significant element in the Pacific, and New Zealanders also served in this theatre in British or Royal Navy aviation forces.

  From 1942 to 1944, New Zealand spent 50 per cent of its national income on the war.

  GREECE

  ‘To Hell with This!’

  SERGEANT JACK HINTON

  John Daniel (known as Jack) Hinton was born at Colac Bay, near Riverton, on 17 September 1909. Jack ran away from home when he was 12 and worked delivering groceries for five shillings a week. A year later, when he was 13 years old, he sailed to the Ross Sea on a Norwegian whaling ship, the C.A. Larsen. The vessel was a factory ship, and at 15,000 tonnes was the largest whaling factory ship in the world. Jack Hinton worked on board as a galley hand and was the youngest member of the crew. He spent nine months on board, for which he was paid £381, a small fortune in those days, especially for a 13 year old.

  After signing off the C.A. Larsen, Hinton worked as a farm hand around Lake Wakatipu, before he moved to the West Coast of the South Island. There he worked as a gold miner on the black sand beaches, and then as foreman-driver in the Public Works Department.

  When war broke out in 1939 Jack Hinton was one of the first men to enlist. He volunteered at Greymouth, where he received a telegram from his father urging him to ‘do his duty’. His father had served as a sergeant during the Boer War and there was a small package with his father’s sergeant’s stripes and a note that said ‘Here — sew these on!’

  Jack joined the 20th Infantry Battalion in 1939 at Burnham Military Camp and was put in C Company. At 30 he was much older than the other men and a few weeks later he was promoted to corporal. He sailed with the 20th Battalion in January 1940 and was promoted to sergeant in August.

  Jack’s mates described him as ‘a man of strong, rugged features’, a down-to-earth bloke with a dry sense of humour. Although he was a quiet man, he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. In Egypt in the first few weeks of 1940 the troops were on British Army rations and they were always hungry. General Freyberg was visiting C Company while it was doing a field firing practice at Abbassia. He asked a senior NCO (Jack Hinton) how the men were progressing but received a blunt reply:

  ‘How are the men shooting?’ Freyberg asked Jack.

  ‘How would you expect them to bloody well shoot,’ he replied briskly, without stopping to think. ‘Not enough bloody rations, stinking heat and sand.’

  ‘Repeat that,’ said the General. Jack repeated it.

  ‘What’s your name, sergeant?’

  ‘Hinton, sir.’

  ‘Oh yes, Hinton,’ replied the General. ‘Carry on.’

  Freyberg had a few words with the company commander, who spoke to his sergeant about the proper way to speak to senior officers. The good news was that their rations were increased.

  The New Zealanders were sent on to northern Greece to help defend the country. When the Germans attacked on 6 April from the north and from the west through Yugoslavia, the New Zealand Division had to withdraw south. The division moved back to guard the Olympus Pass where they managed to halt the Germans for three days. But when the Germans moved around them they had to withdraw again, so the division was pulled back to the Thermopylae Pass, and then further south to where they could be evacuated by the Royal Navy. The fighting was brief and fierce, but by 14 April the Allies were in retreat.

  Jack Hinton hadn’t seen much fighting in Greece, as he’d been with the division’s reinforcement unit in Athens and then further south at the port of Kalamata, where thousands of troops were waiting to be evacuated.

  On 26 April 1941, Jack and the rest of the New Zealand reinforcements were camped in some olive groves just north of Kalamata, a fishing village surrounded by hills. It was crowded with thousands of British, Australian and New Zealand troops. An English officer, Brigadier Leonard Parrington, was in charge of the evacuation. During the night of 26–27 April, 7000 Australian troops were taken off in Royal Navy destroyers and the New Zealanders were told to be ready to be shipped out the next day.

  On 27 April things in the village were very disorganised. ‘No one seemed to know what was going on — there was much confusion, and there were people milling around,’ recalled Albie Thompson from 4th Field Artillery Regiment. No one was evacuated on 27 April and the troops had to wait. The situation was tense as a squadron of British warships was expected at any moment and the Germans weren’t far away. Of the 6000-odd troops awaiting evacuation at Kalamata only a small handful were equipped to fight.

  On 28 April, a German advance guard from 5 Panzer Division reached Kalamata at dusk. They pushed through to the quay, where a large group of Allied soldiers were lined up, and opened fire with two machine-guns and two self-propelled six-inch guns. In the fading light the firefight was messy and confusing and when the Germans captured the naval liaison officer all contact with the British ships was lost.

  When he heard the firing, Jack Hinton went to the headquarters and tried to find out what was happening. No one had any idea. While he was there Jack was amazed to hear Brigadier Parrington order the men to surrender.

  ‘Surrender?’ said Jack incredulously. ‘Go and jump in the bloody lake!’

  ‘I’ll have you court martialled for speaking to me like that!’ said Parrington.

  ‘If you’re not careful I’ll have you court martialled for talking surrender!’ Jack replied.

  Jack set off to find out what was happening. He was armed with a .303 rifle and bayonet and had several hand grenades in his pockets.

  He ran along Beach Road towards the town and met up with Major B. Carey of 3 Royal Tank Regiment in command of a machine-gun post near the beach. Carey promised Jack he could provide covering fire for an advance so Jack raced back, collected about 12 New Zealand soldiers and led them into Kalamata.

  Their first target was the big gun firing on the port. Heading towards the guns, he ran into two men who were sheltering in a doorway. Jack was on the point of bayoneting them when one spoke to him in English. It was a medical officer, Major George Thomson. Jack’s men then came under fire from German infantry, hitting one of the New Zealanders in the arm. An order was shouted for the advancing New Zealanders to ‘retire to cover’, to which Jack shouted, ‘To hell with this! Who’ll come with me?’

  Jack Hinton and Private A.M. Jones set off towards the German guns. Jack dealt quickly with a machine-gun post blocking the way, using a grenade to kill its crew. Then while Private Jones’ Bren gun provided covering fire, Jack reached the waterfront and attacked the first of the big guns. He was only metres from the nearest gun when its crew noticed him. The gun fired but missed him and Jack threw two grenades at the gun and crew. Because of Jack’s attack, as well as the machine-gun fire from Carey’s post and supporting fire from the other New Zealand attackers, the surviving Germans abandoned their gun and fled into nearby buildings along the waterfront.

  Jack Hinton had just one grenade left. He threw it at the remaining gun, which the Germans abandoned, also fleeing into nearby houses. Followed by a crowd of eager New Zealand soldiers, Jack attacked them and cleared both houses, killing all the Germans who had taken
shelter there. At the end of this action, a German rushed out from behind a building and fired a short burst with his submachine-gun. Hinton was hit in the stomach and was out of the fighting.

  The Allied soldiers recaptured the town and control of the quay but there were no evacuations. The Royal Navy saw the fight from the sea and thought the town and quay had been lost and there was no naval liaison officer on shore to tell them otherwise. In the early hours of 29 April the trapped soldiers at Kalamata heard German tanks and lorries arriving. Brigadier Parrington formally surrendered at 6.00 a.m. that day. The fighting at Kalamata had lasted only a few short hours. It had been a confusing mess.

  The wounded Jack Hinton was now a prisoner of war (POW). Jack spent many weeks in a German POW hospital at Kokkinia near Athens recovering from his stomach wound. When he was well enough Jack was sent to the POW camp in Germany.

  After the fighting was over, letters from other New Zealand prisoners mentioned Jack Hinton’s courage and leadership and Major Thomson wrote a recommendation for the VC, which was announced on 14 October 1941. At the time Jack Hinton was in solitary confinement in a German POW camp as a punishment for attempting to escape. The commandant of Stalag IXC, near Bad Sulza, paraded the prisoners and announced the news. Jack was pulled out of his cell, presented with the VC ribbon and marched back to solitary confinement.

  Jack Hinton hated being a POW and made life difficult for the Germans whenever he could, escaping twice. On his second escape attempt he was free for a couple of weeks. After he was recaptured he was beaten and interrogated by the Gestapo. A report on his conduct as a prisoner says:

  Sgt Hinton in Stalag 9c kept the boys in a good state of morale, made himself unpopular with the Germans as a result of constant consideration for the men, especially New Zealanders. Sgt Hinton also made one escape but unfortunately through a railway accident he was recaptured before being able to leave the country.

  When his prison camp was set free in April 1945 Jack borrowed an American uniform and fought with the US Army before his nationality was discovered and he was sent to the United Kingdom. King George VI presented him with his VC at Buckingham Palace in May 1945.

  CRETE

  Sniper Hunter

  SERGEANT CLIVE HULME

  Alfred Clive Hulme (known as Clive) was born in Dunedin on 24 January 1911. When the war began he was working on a farm in Motueka and he joined the 2nd NZEF two days before his thirtieth birthday. He was a powerful man with broad shoulders who showed lots of initiative and leadership, a cool head and remarkable skill with weapons.

  During the Battle of Crete Clive Hulme was a provost sergeant at the 2nd Field Punishment Centre at Platanias. The centre held soldiers who had committed crimes or serious misdemeanours and being a senior NCO at a military field punishment centre was a tough job. On 20 May, the prisoners were having breakfast when the German airborne attack began, with gliders carrying troops and paratroopers landing by parachute. There was no time to lose. The prisoners were issued with their rifles which had been stored close by and were set free to fight the Germans. They all fought hard and those who survived were released from their sentences.

  Sergeant Hulme dealt with a number of snipers on his own at Platanias. When the prisoners joined up with the 23rd Battalion, he led several groups of soldiers to destroy some of the German forward positions. After two days Clive Hulme and the small parties of men he led had killed over 100 Germans.

  Clive used a German paratrooper’s camouflage blouse and cap to deceive the Germans. He was also using a German Mauser sniper’s rifle equipped with telescopic sights and carried Luger pistols. Tricks like this were against the rules of war and any soldier caught in an enemy uniform could be executed. When he was in his disguise Clive came across a small party of New Zealand engineers who had been taken prisoner and were being guarded by only one German. He didn’t want to risk hitting one of the New Zealanders by shooting the sentry, so Clive calmly walked up to the man and killed him with a bayonet.

  Clive Hulme was one of the New Zealand soldiers who took part in the famous attack on the village of Galatas. During that attack a platoon from the 23rd Battalion was held up by machine-gun fire and grenades coming from a building. Clive went forward on his own and attacked the building with grenades, which sent the Germans running.

  It was just after clearing this building that something terrible happened. Shots were fired at the New Zealanders from another house and Clive saw a German run inside. He and another New Zealand soldier went into the house after him but couldn’t see anyone. Then they noticed a trapdoor in the floor was slightly open and they thought the Germans were hiding in the cellar. While the other New Zealand soldier lifted the trapdoor, Clive threw in two German grenades.

  But the people sheltering weren’t German soldiers, they were Cretan women and children and they were killed or injured by the grenades. As they left the house the German soldier was found hiding behind a door and the other New Zealand soldier grabbed Clive’s rifle and bayoneted the German.

  That night, again disguised as a German paratrooper, Clive stalked around the outskirts of Galatas, killing several more Germans. The next day he learned one of his brothers had died of wounds. This news affected him deeply and he set out to avenge his brother.

  During the withdrawal from Galatas, Clive dropped behind his battalion and took up a sniping position covering a food dump. He waited until the Germans arrived, shot three of them and forced the rest of the German patrol to withdraw.

  After a hard night march the battalion reached Stilos and the exhausted men threw themselves to the ground to snatch some rest, while two officers checked ahead. When they reached a stone wall on top of the ridge they spotted a party of Germans about 400 metres away. The Germans saw the New Zealanders and fired at them. It was a desperate situation and the weary men were ordered to the ridge. Major H.H. Thomason, the company commander, barked out an order: ‘Sergeant Hulme! Get men on top of that hill! Whoever gets men there first wins!’

  Clive, still in a cold fury over his brother’s death, didn’t need to be told twice. He was one of the first to reach the hill and opened fire on the Germans who were now only 15 metres away. When some grenades had been primed, he threw these at the enemy. After shooting several Germans, he was hit in the arm, but he kept shooting. The Germans beat a hasty retreat. Clive Hulme’s bravery had inspired and encouraged the other men all the way through. The battalion’s history records:

  Hulme was to be seen sitting side-saddle on the stone wall, shooting at the enemy on the lower slopes. His example did much to maintain the morale of men whose reserves of nervous and physical energy were nearly exhausted.

  The next day was full of action. During a meeting of senior officers German snipers hiding among rocks in the hills opened fire. Clive volunteered to deal with them. Wearing his German camouflage he climbed up behind the Germans and pretended to be part of their group. He shot the leader first, and as the four other snipers looked around to see where the shot had come from Clive also turned his head, as if searching for the shooter. Then he shot and killed two more in quick succession. The other two snipers realised something was wrong and began to leave, but he shot them both.

  When the New Zealanders were withdrawing the Germans started firing a mortar at them. Sergeant Hulme attacked the German position on his own, killed the mortar crew of four and put it out of action. On the same day he killed three more snipers who were causing trouble. Clive Hulme had now killed 33 German soldiers and he was stalking his next victim when he was shot through the shoulder. Ordered to the rear, Clive stayed in Stylos, directing traffic and organising stragglers. He travelled with the 23rd Battalion to Sphakia on 30 May, from where he was evacuated to Egypt.

  His battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel D.F. Leckie, recommended Clive for the VC. Lieutenant W. Roach, Lieutenant G.H. Cunningham, Major Thomason and Brigadier James Hargest provided the eyewitness statements. Brigadier Hargest’s statement recorded that:


  Sgt Hulme, during the whole of the fighting up till the moment of being wounded, conducted himself with such courage that the story of his exploits were on everybody’s lips. From my own personal observation I know he showed such a complete contempt for danger that it amounted to recklessness . . . The effect his actions had on all the men in his unit is incalculable, and he at once became almost legendary. I sincerely hope that the recommendation will be accepted.

  Clive Hulme’s VC was announced on 10 October 1941. He returned to New Zealand and his son Denny became the World Formula One Champion in the 1960s.

  Double VC Recipient

  SECOND LIEUTENANT CHARLES UPHAM

  During the Second World War, only one soldier was awarded the VC twice. That soldier was the New Zealand officer Charles Hazlitt Upham.

  Charles Upham was born in Christchurch on 21 September 1908 and he went to Christ’s College during 1923–27. The college had a compulsory cadet system and Upham served five years with the cadets, rising to the rank of sergeant. After he finished high school, Charles went to Canterbury Agricultural College and graduated with a Diploma in Agriculture. For the next six years he worked as a musterer, shepherd and farm manager in the backblocks of Canterbury.

  When the war started in 1939 he joined up straightaway.

  Six days after he sailed from New Zealand with the 20th Battalion Charles Upham was promoted to sergeant. After several months’ training in the Western Desert, he was sent to the Officer Cadet Training Unit (OCTU) as ‘a reluctant candidate’. He managed a C pass and graduated at the bottom of his class.

  In 1941, Second Lieutenant Charles Upham was a 33-year-old platoon commander, which is quite old for that rank. He had a reputation for taking great care of his men and for his skill with all types of weapons. He led by example, something that earned him the respect of his men. He also developed a reputation for being ‘obstinate, pugnacious, independent, blunt, tactless, hard-swearing, highly strung, careless in his dress’, qualities that often drove his senior commanders to despair, but they recognised that beneath the gruff exterior Charles Upham was a superb leader.