The remarkable story of Reg Saunders’ heroics and courage, as one of the many Australian soldiers who managed to evade Nazi. capture, is revealed in the latest In Black and White podcast.
Reg Saunders is remembered as an Australian war hero and the first Aboriginal commissioned officer in the army.
And nowhere was his courage and resourcefulness more apparent than on the Greek island of Crete, where he survived on his wits while on the run from the Nazis for 11 months.
Saunders is the subject of the latest episode of the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters.
His story is told in a new book by Craig Collie called, Where the Flaming Hell Are We?, about the young Australians and New Zealanders who fought the Germans in Greece and Crete.
Saunders was born in 1920 on the Framlingham Reserve, near Warrnambool, and his mother died when he was young.
His father and uncle had served in World War I, so after World War II erupted, Saunders enlisted with a bunch of his footy mates.
He fought in Libya then Greece, before he was evacuated to Crete, where he was involved in a bayonet charge at the Battle of 42nd Street that killed almost 300 Germans and stalled their advance.
But when the Aussies and New Zealanders were evacuated as the Germans overran the island, Saunders was one of 6000 soldiers left behind.
About 5000 men surrendered and became prisoners of war.
Read the article in the Herald Sun.