THE CHINA MAIL SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1957.
-by CUMMINGS
Cummings
ALL QUIET ON THE PERSIAN GULF
AMERICA
EXPECTS
EVERY
MAN
THIS DAY
TO DO
NOTHING INDISCREET
Sssh!"
Once they cheered us.. Now they insult our dead
Let's show
THIS morning a harsh, hot sun will be
T
beating down on the Mediterranean.
ishind of Rhodes,
And there, in the glare of that sun, will be 65 small mounds freshly turned from the rocky soil.
Spare a moment's Chonght for flut sunlit scene this morning and for the men who lie beneath those rough
mounds.
They are the British Servicemea Greek whose bodies were, dug up by shovels from dieir resting-place on the island of Cos, where they
fight and died.
1 knew many of those FB.
We
CAN
get angry
They got the South
African
I knew them when they were billis as they turned away from
alive and strong and young, the pheld, flying slowly in
And as remember them now climy.
my mind go back
moment 14 years ago.
tu
The South J
Africans looked
aki they
preity med. and wree. The pilots were all hi
I was one hour before dusk 10 fellows comunanind by on a Friday in late Septembre. Major Van Phet.
Their food
GREECE
ATHENS
CRETE
MEDITERRANEAN:-SEA==
RHODES
MILES
All who listened in the quiet throbbing of engines.
I was flying a Beaufighter set was short, their cucks-who the rock-studded Brean 564. wire Fimgile South African We were one and a half hour. Tribe men-wore terated of the out from Cyprus flying low.
Lembing, to meals were erratic aiki infrequen The wafer My navigator wo: Might-
bracki The pilots Theutenant 'Themas CC 252 Wa
re-ted anywhere they could get Squadron, my pusenger Air
emshep uthouses, farm- Vice-Marshal Saul, who was in
house, tenta
in pitched emmand of the operation to narrow ravines,
lure Co
Why ever had we taken Dil
Ting advance bages in the liberaton anic fantastic operation?? That's
of that fate evening rettised the trutzet up to the sky expeeling of Greece.
what the men i anet could no
desperate nature of the.opera- to see German hoonhers. Then Why use when
aired tion For this was September 1945. understand.
the consequences, suddenly out of the Fog a few Remember wial was happening things premed to be going so
Then came the air mazabal test in front of them gume the
ource of the noise. Landing The Allies had been pushing splendidly ter the Allies, should
craft. through Sicily. And suddenly we try to land and held one to final words. He said
Grey German landing- have two or eraf, lurching through the surf hurst this tiny island right under the "Perhaps you amazing Mursini had been imprisoned notes of the Germans with the three tough weeks in front of and on to the shingle and sand.
British burg 400 mulles you. But think of these people by his own people, The Halitum neures,
What was the point of
11: there" and
pointed out of the
The Spiltres could not lake were pulling
out 10 sea where Cireece lay olt. The pilets ran for revolvers The Axis had cracked
That evening Air Marshal beyond the horizon-"those ne ad rites and retreated back open.
Saul called everyone together, our friends the Greek They towards the main airstrip. We walked down into a narrow have had two whole years of it valley where he explained to under the Germans, They are The Germans were supported pilote and ground crew why we our files, our frien is. We owe by destroyers and submarines, troops were highly it to them to hold this island to Their were there,
I remember that all welt. I the last un if it means them treined. They tommy-gunned, martares, and grenaded their remember, the scrub-covered getting their freedom earlier.”
way in, And so the men steca with
Pilo's. Cros, radar oMeers in that parched the valley
Wing! went back to their duties ink-gh them with rifles.
The
news
Desolate
wal. away? wi Ital?
quiINGS were going very very well. But you might not hade thought so if you had been with that Beaufighter in
evening sky,...
Think of our situation.
Over on our right wis
the
coast of Puricey, and on our left,
six or seven miles distant, the Cemman - recupied
Thides.
WA
island uf
by
MAX AITKEN
We could see German Messer- schnitt dying over Whodes,
the
which airtek, eveling
the biggest and illsing and thin air marshal's one of
We quiet voice in the #til even. Anugral in the Egen. new on underneath their radar ing air.
their unsten by
Ile toki u how the decision wereen and Lighters. We approached Cos had then taken en the sur-
Bf the render
Italians
at dusk, wheels down, and fired cur recognition signals.
Let me tell you what Cos
Hike.
It is a thin decolate sliver of
rock jutting out of the sen
is 25 miles long, live miles wide.
The landing strip, if you could call it such, was einde to the
Ca, 900 yards long.
narrow gush
Ing of the friends they Bed Commander "Bubbles" Love led a terrile defence of the air- their friends
krow-
never seen,
Tor the German attack.
Greece. For their sake, they trip. But they had tie
ledge of and Bghting, and went back indly to prepare
my were relentlessly overcome, Durhom Light Infantry were next day the South frught on gallantly but
isinforced by overpowered by the Wiro
numbers two British squadrons. The phd Savagery of the Gennan fameus 74, under "Squa" alck. Hayter, and 274, under Johnnie Morgan.
The Afric:us
Tucs to
famous
The Germans knew the valne Coy and Leros. They knew these two lands as buses for the Royal Air Force, and
two
British jump into these istands which squadrons were welcomed - harbour for the Royal Navy
Both squadron com- are half-way to Greece, fortity fully.
thustartle and
then, haki them, and make manders were
Surrender?
It was HE explained that it could
on the
POCKET CARTOON
it
by OSBERT LANCASTER
them the spearhead for our gay. Both were beautiful pilots Ending in German-held Greece. Sevenly-four Squadron was flat, sandy moved down on to beach, which
uses as atinway,
Meanwhile the four companie simply a
mean a tremendous change of the Burham Light Infantry, military side of a hit. It was easily in the course of the war If we who were the tugi recognisable because there were could come as Churcid force on the land, were fortify- described it, on the soll under- ing their positions, and supplies belly of Europe,
were being pushed through at Dakotas I could eliminate the weary night in special fast bouts dia- One attack up through aly It guised as Greek traders. could mean a complete change LA.F. air-sea rescue boat was
disguised as a Turkish yacht. Then the ale marshal's volca German bir
activity hod
Fix burned out Paketas lying Around the perimeter.
The men in those under the ecmnand of Whitney Straight had ended that after nean, They had managed to drag their supplies out just before the Messerschmitts came in and blew them up.
JUST
SOON LEARNED
in the conceps of the wor.
WHOLE GRIM THE
I
HOW
SET-UP WAS.
Number
grew grave. He turned to the quietened down, and the time on was used to try to fortify the Island better, More Boters guns,
situation which faced us That Island of Cos
Te said that our Middle East more anumultion, I.Q. had hoped that the Italians. feed. Squadron en lincir zutrender would over- Spitfire
an:l
FOT
But it was plain to all ihat German activity
c the South African Air Force come the Germann in Rhodes, the Jall
had lande: three days pre- but this had not happened. The meant an impending aflack, viously. They had been having Germans were there in strength. No cas, however, expected the a wretched time.
They were reinforcing Rhodes violence with which it arrived.
The Germans would send over from Crete, and no doubt were The landlugs started at dawn on bomber Jan tlecoy. The preparing to launch an all-out October 2. There was low cloud Messerschmitin walked out to attack on Cod and the neigh and fog.
74 Ken unit they saw the Spitfire bouring istund of Leres, which
Squadron down on the beach heard the texl out, and then in they came. we had also calzed.
Hots
"Do you know, All, I'm very much ofrald these aren't oil tharus t
SELWYN
meam freedom for Greece, and they threw everything in to stop it.
itself
I
-All In a doctor's day-by CEDRIC CARNE-
HOW WELL DO
YOU SLEEP?
4
contu
N the early hours of the morning, when most are turn-
terribly awake. Are you one of them? Are you like Mrs. Wilson, who, as the clock ticks loudly on the mantelpieco and the grey light of dawn edges through the curtain, gives in, and leans towards the bedside table for sleeping tablets?
"I didn't use 10 be like that." she said, When I was young? I could steep on 1 clothes line. My head Just und to tough 3 pillow, and i WN [away. Now I'm like a
neurotie im atar."
Mrs Wilson wesn't a neurotic sort of person at all. She just didn't realise that, with advancing age, people need fewer hours strep -though they need
miere Test,
"Be sensible, Mrs. Wilson," I said, "and acerpt the feet that you sleep less because you ared
and diplomacy. But there is a less sleep,"
time for anger foo,
"So you're against sleeping pills, doctor?"
In any case, as we grow older iwe compensate for broken nights At the moment the average by taking naps during the day. The tea around these andis
British Bounewife buys 11ib.Think of grandpa and grandina berame
Brave for
Hay Groe's currants every year. Briti and Empire fighting
1 may sound a trivial thing
They, incidentally, knew the men, but on the land of Cn but the Greek eennomy depends value of not going to bed en delor,
British dead were
overloaded somach. The main verently buried,
meal or the day should not be oldiers and semen.
taken too late at night. It is best to eat earlier and take a light enork just before turning in.
"Biscuits and a glass of milk for example," I advised.
airmen.
on his trache.
Why, then, should not every Roarehold boycott Greek Thoso 65 men and their
curtans? Why not ask instead comrades who found no graver runtants from Australls and know
W38 nol Just South Africa? anather battle. It was hazurdeus operation fought
a
THE EFFECT ON GREECE on Greek self for the freedom WOULD BE DEVASTATING, of Circeer.
Now their bodies have been dun up. They have been earted from their lonely resting place like corpses in a plague, And all because the Greek: say They want to build a pot-house there.
The
Then there are spend their holiday ibacy. Greece.
On the other hand, some can't step because they who are physically or imentally invertired, Big executives, for (xample, who have to scheme continually and whose hours are counted in crises are just too fatigued at the end of a day.
"Not always," I replied. Sedatives can bẹ mest helpful for short periods, The danger is they can become a habit. The sceret is to break that fixed idea in the mind which is ex- pressed in the sentence: I just can't sleep without my pills.
strange but the main facter in so many who
om incomoja is
suffer fear of in- somnia, They go to bad think- ing: 111 be restless all night. done-in in the morning, and look washed out," And tála what happens. It is the original Idea that is wrong.
It's
Mrs Wilson
Change that idea and there is no need to take sedatives.
Easy Ho say, commented, propose instead?
but what do you
Self hypnosla, tartled her.
replied It
0%
Just as in kymosis the mind,
made at first, should be blank as possible. Then the jaw should be allowed to tap end all inusdics rolazed completely. The allowed to Tip of the tongue
This year nearly 20,000 British tourists are planning to visit the
rif Greece,
Sir They are so on edge that their imanch Compton Mackenzie is conduct- inuseles are in a state of ten- In a special culture tour of ion. And the key to sleep is Can Aap act be are spiteful Greck temples and rulma, Other not only haleyon mind but than this?
fa-htenable tours will follow.
relaxation of the muscles.
Some, of course, don't sleep as And every
Turist will Tr
of touch the lower teeth. Greeks have armed our helping to finance the Greeks in well as they might because eneries in Cyprus.
illness.or physical discomfort, their campaign of hate.
like arthritis and Conditions
Mrs Wilson sat back in the Why help them? The white neuritis
may become
chair with her eyes just closed. at night. Ail were shipped with a mile from columns on the Acropolis have noticeable
the She was practising. stood for over 2,000 years. They came, Now comes the
patients such as these Greck ports.
will still be there when the little shouldn't beenme too dependent you tried a night-cap?" árult to our dead,
men who have inherited them on sedatives. Often they have are Snally forced to belitve like Ingomnia, not becsure What can we do about it?
cf pain For there is a time for patience civilised people once again. buy because they expect pain. loudly.
The guns which killed and malmed! 547 many of our young men there
From Today-fly
more
"fry it yourself," I said,
"Mrs Wilson." I said, "have
She seemed engrossed. "Mrs Wilson.” I had to shout
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