War, occupation, civil war · War and occupation
Dive bombers hit the 24th Battalion camp: four New Zealanders killed
26 April 1941 Proven
The New Zealand 24th Battalion reached Myloi early on 26 April 1941 and rested in a dried-up riverbed. Australian lorries driving to the camp in daylight were spotted, and dive bombers attacked the area at intervals for about an hour; splinters of rock made every bomb more deadly. Four men were killed: Lance-Corporal R. A. Jackson and Privates R. R. Buckeridge, F. A. Hogan and R. G. Woods. At 13:00 the battalion drove on to Tripoli.
Note: The four names are the only 24th Battalion men killed in action on 26 April 1941 in the Roll of Honour; Burdon gives the number four for Myloi. Jackson, Buckeridge and Hogan lie in one collective grave at Phaleron War Cemetery; Woods has no known grave and is named on the Athens Memorial.
- Where
- Myloi (the village)
- Threads
- War and occupation
- Certainty
- Proven confirmed by primary sources
Sources
- R. M. Burdon, 24 Battalion (Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War), Wellington 1953, pp. 45–47 and Roll of Honour Open (opens in a new tab)
- Anzacs of Greece virtual memorial (CWGC data): R. G. Woods Open (opens in a new tab)
Also in this period
-
13 December 1940
A soldier from Skafidaki falls on the Albanian front
The Greek Army's roll of the dead of 1940–45 records Sokratis Papanastasopoulos, born in Skafidaki in 1916, killed at Golemi on the Albanian front on 13 December 1940.
-
28 December 1940
A soldier born in Myloi dies in the military hospital of Mesolongi
Private Panagiotis Lymperopoulos, son of Epameinondas, born in Myloi in 1915, died in the military hospital of Mesolongi on 28 December 1940, during the Greek-Italian war. He is listed in the Greek Army's roll of the…
-
1941–1942
A second German reconnaissance flight photographs the bay
A German strip flight of 1941–1942 (film 93) photographed Myloi again: the curve of the bay, the village along the main road at the foot of Pontinos, the station and the pier.
-
1941–1943
A coastal gun near the tower of Bouboulina
Among the occupation defences of Myloi was a coastal gun next to the tower known as the tower of Bouboulina. The base of the gun emplacement could still be seen in 1994.
