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Book one
The battle of greece
The New Zealand Division arrives in Greece in late March 1941, part of a three division British Commonwealth force, sent in an attempt to dissuade the Germans from invading. Hitler’s fascist ally, Mussolini, has failed to subdue Greece; the Italian army is bogged down on the Albanian border. Hitler cannot wait - the clock is already secretly ticking down to Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of his erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union.
Greece, the troublesome thorn in Hitler’s side in the Balkans, is besieged by 12 German divisions, these quickly sweep aside the army of neutral neighbour, Yugoslavia, and the inadequate Allied force facing them. The Greek nation sues for peace to spare the civilian population, causing the British force to scramble for the evacuation beaches.
The book follows the fictional Second Lieutenant Neil Rankin’s platoon of citizen soldiers from the South Island of New Zealand, as they dodge and fight their way from the slopes of Mount Olympus south over the Corinth Canal to the port of Monemvasia in the Peloponnese. They learn the bitter lessons and cost of war as they go, their fate becoming the reader's paramount concern in this fast-paced yet convincing debut novel.
Book two
The battle of crete
If the Greek campaign in 1941 was the curtain-raiser, then the subsequent battle in Crete can best be described as the main event. This sequel to the well-received The Rabbit Hunter again focuses on Second Lieutenant Neil Rankin and his platoon of fictional soldiers from the New Zealand Division as they are pitched headlong into the real Battle of Crete.
When the battle opens, it is man against man, individuals pitting their wits against an implacable enemy, resulting in the New Zealand soldiers suffering the kind of reaction that is now internationally recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The battle was a technical defeat for the Allies, but the invading elite units receive such a mauling that Hitler never again commits them to a large-scale airborne assault. Both thrilling and tragic, The Battle of Crete sets the bar for realism in war fiction.
Book three
The aftermath
The fighting on Crete has been savage and costly. The Allied forces have been assailed from all sides without respite by the superbly equipped elite German divisions and the omnipresent Luftwaffe. The Allied survivors of these battles have carried out a relentless fighting retreat from the island’s north coast across the high mountains to the evacuation beaches in the south.
The Royal Navy is again called upon to save the remnants of the Allied force, included among which are many Anzac evacuees from the battles in Greece.
Historical Context
The book is set in the Battle of Greece, in April 1941. The first part covers the arrival of the final elements of the New Zealand Division in Athens and their deployment to the north of Greece. The Division made up a significant part (along with British and Australian troops) of the force sent to defend the country against the invasion threatened by Nazi Germany.
Greece was already at war with Italy, whose fascist dictator Benito Mussolini had decided to recreate the Roman Empire. The invasion had proved very troublesome for the Italians, who had been pushed back over the Albanian border by the Greek army. However, the Greeks were hard-pressed and had few reserves to face Germany.
Hitler, unbeknownst to Britain and her allies or to Mussolini, needed to secure his southern Balkan flank for his pending invasion of the Soviet Union, planned for June. He intervened by ignoring the neutrality of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, pouring in 12 German divisions, which swept in from north and west, threatening to cut off the British expeditionary force occupying fixed defensive positions.
First contact with the enemy was soon followed by withdrawal. Greece’s position quickly deteriorated once the Germans invaded, and in order to save civilian lives the Greek government surrendered. This precipitated the hasty retreat of the British expeditionary forces, including the New Zealanders, down the length of the country.
The withdrawal from the initial defensive line across the Corinth Canal to an evacuation port near the southern tip of Greece is covered in the second part of the book. The story culminates with a bloody assault on a small fishing village to secure the evacuation port and the tense wait for shipping to make good their escape.
