Creforce: the Anzacs and the Battle of Crete by Stella Tzobanakis
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Paperback - 192 pages - English
Ages 10 +
* Premier’s Reading Challenge List across Australia
*The 2020 edition is the second and includes an updated cover and content.
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One of the greatest largely untold Anzac stories of World War II based on events on the Greek island of Crete.
They fought together.
They risked their lives together.
Their bonds have lasted a lifetime.
Creforce: the Anzacs and the Battle of Crete is the dramatic story of the second Anzacs and their role in one of the biggest battles in the military history of Australia, New Zealand and its Allied forces during World War II.
The book is written for children 10 and up and explores the real-life `adventures’ and misadventures of more than 14,500 young Australian and New Zealand soldiers who were sent to the Greek island of Crete – famous for myths, Minotaurs and labyrinths – under the second formation of the Anzac Corps, to help defend it against Nazi Germany.
The book includes never-before told, first-hand accounts of those that lived through the battle, and reveals the author’s personal Anzac story, discovered whilst writing this book. It also weaves in the battle stories of extraordinary and real-life `characters’ including:
• Roald Dahl: the famous British novelist and children’s author who was a fighter pilot.
• Charles Jager: the 20-year-old amateur lightweight boxer from Richmond, Melbourne who loved the racetrack and Greek classical stories.
• Charles Upham: the educated sheep farmer turned valuer from New Zealand who was single-minded, perservering, swore a lot and hated injustice.
• Reginald Saunders: the 19 year-old soldier who was the first Aboriginal Australian to be commissioned as an officer in the Australian Army.
• Horrie the Wog Dog: the little terrier who became an unofficial mascot. He was smuggled into Greece, evacuated, bombed off his ship and carried messages for the Allies, and
• the people of Crete: who have been likened in the book to Ned Kelly for their outlaw-style tactics as part of the Cretan resistance. The most notable is The Cretan Runner, George Psychoundakis, an uneducated, poor, young Cretan shepherd who became a decorated war hero for aiding British soldiers, including author, scholar, Patrick Leigh Fermor who has been described as a cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond.