
Spirited Away
Last Allied POWs on Crete December, 1941
Anthony W. Buirchell(Author)
Cric Croc Enterprises (Publisher)
Published on 19. November 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
472 pages
978-0-9756230-1-5 (ISBN)
Description
Crete 1941, Autumn, the final group of Allied Prisoners of War was being rounded up to be shipped to Germany. They were gathered at Iraklion but instead of continuing to Greece the group was split. One hundred and thirty six were placed in a convoy of lorries and sent south over the mountains. Where were they going and what were they going to be doing at their destination?
No-one knew the fate of the men who were spirited away for the next eight decades. A New Zealand researcher in Christchurch chanced upon a pair of canvas made shorts that had signatures all over it. One of those signatures was from a West Australian. The West Australian contact started to piece the story together when he discovered a soldier, who was in the convoy of lorries had written a diary covering the lost time. Piece by piece the story and the men involved in it came to light.
What happened on the wind swept and isolated area on the south coast of Crete in the autumn of 1941? Who were the soldiers whose names appeared on the mysterious canvas shorts?
The story centres on several men and their adventures on Crete. William Roy Buirchell is caught on the south side near Tymbakion and returned to Galatas. He makes another escape and stays 'loose' from June until October, 1941. Unfortunately he gets Malaria and finds himself in the Tymbakion Prisoner of War Camp. Albert Edward Chamberlain becomes a POW and is shipped to Salonika and then into Germany. Vic Petersen is a West Australian is captured but inexplicably he and many others are kept on Crete. Each of the characters the researchers found were placed in the book.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Australia
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
1007 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-9756230-1-5 (9780975623015)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
What motivated me, after 45 years in education, to make a career change to be a writer? I have always loved rhyming and spent many wonderful days in a Kindy class, as a volunteer away from my Deputy Principal role, reading stories to the children. The predictability of pictures and rhyme had the children joining in and hanging on every word. Here was my real passion. My childhood was growing up in the country town of Kojonup, West Australia. I have researched family ancestry, written and published two novels and four children's books. Spirted Away is a book about the invasion of Crete and its aftermath. In it I found the true story of my father, William Roy Buirchell WX 5208.