This account was written by Helen Thomas (later Lady Waterhouse) very soon after the events described -- probably in Crete before leaving for Alexandria. It has not been re-touched.
It was on Thursday April 17th that the Greek High Command communique first mentioned Kalabaka, and as I glanced through the morning paper before going to work I realised for the first time that the unthinkable might happen. Of course we all knew how heavy were the odds against the Greeks, but we also knew how much was at stake. And seeing the crowds of British troops who had passed through Athens and how tough they looked, and having in five months of war in Albania come to have the highest possible opinion of the Greek army, it was natural to hope and believe that this time the German armies would not break through, and that we should see a second Marathon, a modern Plataea.
Nevertheless the spring sun shone less brightly for me that April morning as I walked to the Legation, and everything there confirmed my uneasiness. In every room were long faces, and people swept about the Chancery unsmiling and talking in low voices. Before the morning was over we had official instructions to pack a suitcase and be ready to move at short notice. By the afternoon the news was more cheerful, but talk of evacuation was now general and the Legation was full of anxious British subjects seeking instructions. The following evening 2 shiploads sailed for Egypt; but the Greek Government stayed on in Athens and the Legation staff stayed too, and at times we even hoped we might not have to go. Staff officers came back from the front and cheered us with their conviction that the Thermopylae line at least could hold for ever. And the sun shone and we went into the country each afternoon to see what might be our last of Greece. The air-raid sirens went so constantly that it was almost impossible to remember whether the last was an alert or an all-clear. The Germans were bombing the Attic aerodromes and sometimes Piraeos, but in the city we could see nothing and hear only distant sounds of bombs and guns.
Finally at 1.30 on Tuesday 22nd came the order "Be at the Legation at 4 o'clock with as much luggage as you can carry yourself". Last minute packing was done, goodbyes were said to American and Greek friends - as few as possible as it was almost unbearable to go to safety knowing to what fate we were leaving them. At the Legation were cars and lorries loaded with luggage, groups of people wearing too many clothes - and then the sirens sounded and for two long hours we sat about waiting to be allowed to go. The ship we were to travel on was coaling, and work could not proceed during an alarm; to take on passengers and coal at once was impossible, so we sat on our luggage drained of all feeling but an impatience to start. At last as the sun was setting one by one the cars swung out into the long Phaleron boulevard, passed through Piraeos, now nearly deserted, with hardly a whole pane of glass near the waterfront, to the coal wharf where lay the Elsie, busily coaling.
The Elsie. Before the war she was a nice little boat, one of the best engaged in island traffic in spite of her 40-odd years. Now she was a guttersnipe of a ship; all her interior fittings had been torn out except for a few cabins at the after end. All that remained was one filthy deck below another and numbers of almost filthier life-belts. And on these decks we ranged ourselves, with just about enough space for each of us to lie down. You could choose between fresh air and cold on the top deck, or warmth and a variety of smells below, but that was all. There was just time before darkness fell to take stock of the company. There were children, from one year upwards; there were old ladies of over seventy, some very frail. There was a cripple who sat all day and all night in a deck-chair and needed injections at intervals. There were Legation secretaries and their families, and the Legation and Consulate servants and their families. Greek, French and Dutch conversation mingled with English, and in the few cabins were officials of the Yugoslav Legation. On the lowest deck were 140 German prisoners, watched over from above by Australians with fixed bayonets and a machine gun. The crew were all Greek, but on the bridge was one RNVR British officer, and we had one gun.
While we could still see to eat we ate - all had brought a certain amount of food and one stalwart had whisky, gin and bitters - and then we stretched out on blankets and tried to sleep. Somewhat to my surprise sleep came easily and lasted, though fitfully, most of the night. Morning came but no water to wash in and precious little to drink, so we ate a little and lay down again. At 10.30 we began to see Crete, a line of snowy mountains, and then the green and grey lower hills and soon the narrow entrance to Suda Bay. A sea-plane passed us flying low, but it was friendly - it probably had H.M. George B on board - and although alone and unprotected except for our gun our passage to Crete was made quite unmolested.
Suda Bay was protected by booms and full of ships, some partially submerged. There was HMS York, crippled and aground but with her guns in action, units of the Greek fleet, a Sunderland or two and some Yugoslav flying boats, and many merchant vessels. We were late, and the noon convoy had sailed without us, so we lay at anchor until the evening, feeling dirtier and crosser every hour. About 5 some enemy planes come over and dropped parachute mines, many of which fell on land or were exploded by rifle-fire as they came down. An hour or so later another convoy left, escorted by Greek naval units, but we were still left behind. Another night passed, much like the first and then, as we still showed no signs of ever leaving Suda Bay, a party of Influential Persons went ashore to see the SNO-in-C. The Greek crew were said to be understandably anxious to return to Piraeos and their families, and the prisoners were getting restive. At last one of H.M. Trawlers came out and took us off in batches, and we experienced - even in so short a journey - like so many refugees all over the world the immense kindness of the Navy. Hot tea was served to all, milk found for children, and even the air raid which happened while we were crossing the Bay seemed less dangerous. Once ashore we were handed over to the Army, and transported to what was in happier days an American Agricultural Institute dealing with phylloxera. Since the departure of the Americans it had been used by the Army and again abandoned, and we found it empty and overlaid with dust. Such accommodation as there was was divided up according to age, sex, or both, until all of us had roofs over our heads. After a roll-call had been taken we began to settle in. The place was dirty; it had no furniture; but on the other hand it was airy, it had facilities for washing and two deep wells, there were flowers in the garden, there was space to stretch cramped limbs, and there was a little taverna across the road with Cretan wine and soft white cheese and fruit. In fact it was paradise after the Elsie, and the country round about was lovely even for Greece, knee-deep in flowers and green with trees. I felt justifiably indignant when on a solitary walk to what I hoped would prove a good view-point I was forced to take cover in a very deep stream-bed to avoid a spray of machine-gun bullets from some low-flying German aircraft. Returning somewhat shaken I was pursued as an Italian spy by small Greek boys, and only acquitted on the evidence of British Tommies, who also explained that the machine-gun bullets were aimed at a petrol dump (and hadn't hit it).
The Elsie's passengers left Crete some 7-8 days later in a large convoy of six crowded merchant ships and some 13 naval vessels, including an aircraft carrier and an AA cruiser; they reached Alexandria without incident. The writer was fortunate in having an uncle and aunt resident in the Cairo suburb of Ma'adi and was spared the painful experience of being a refugee. She secured a passage to the UK on the P&O liner Orontes, returning with a small complement of passengers, mostly service personnel invalided home. She was a fast ship and thus, though almost without armament, sailed without convoy. Her voyage, starting from Suez, took in Aden - where she embarked numerous wives and children of the staff of the Iraq Petroleum Company - Mombassa, Durban (spending a fortnight in dry dock), Capetown, Trinidad - where consular and other passengers for the United States disembarked - and a far North crossing of the Atlantic which brought her in through the Hebrides to Glasgow on the eve of August Bank Holiday. Letters preserved by the writer's mother provide details of this Odyssey. It is perhaps worth recording the experience of a friend who, sailing from Istanbul home a few months earlier, was torpedoed off the West African coast and spent 36 hours in a lifeboat before being picked up from Freetown. Miraculously almost no lives were lost as the ship took 40 minutes to sink; the submarine surfaced alongside one of the boats and asked if they had got into radio communication with Freetown. As the ship sank there was an overpowering scent of oranges, which had been taken on as cargo in South Africa.
Helen Waterhouse - Jan 1991
Lady Waterhouse died in September 1999.
This page last updated 26th October 2002 by
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