Panzer Commander Hermann Balck: Germany's Master Tactician by Stephen Robinson

Author:Stephen Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Exisle Publishing Limited

The Allied rearguard at Larissa, 18–19 April 1941.

As the firefight continued, four New Zealand Bren gun carriers attempted to force the roadblock as Lieutenant Johnson observed: ‘Upon proceeding 100 yards the leading carrier ran into what I presume was a land mine, slewed across the road and blocked any further movement forward.’ 35 Johnson rallied a small group of New Zealand soldiers who overran a German machine gun nest before withdrawing to the flat ground with several wounded. He decided against further assaults and instead attempted to bypass the roadblock and reach Larissa.

After Roemmer’s platoon resisted another assault, the ambush site went quiet for the rest of the night and Jacob reported: ‘The attack collapsed. About 30 Australians came in to surrender, and the rest ran in all directions across the fields trying to escape SE.’ 36 The Allies left behind around ten dead and twenty wounded while Jacob’s company had suffered two killed and two wounded.

Another convoy further north along the road halted after observing the tracer fire and flares from the ambush site and rumours spread that the Germans had captured Larissa. Lamb, believing that the town had fallen, diverted the convoy east along what he incorrectly believed was the Volos Road but was actually a dead-end road to a village near Mount Ossa. 37 The Allied survivors of Tempe Gorge dispersed into small groups as men and vehicles headed east along dirt tracks towards the coast and, in the darkness, many of them became lost.

THE FALL OF LARISSA

At sunset on 18 April, three W Force formations remained north of the Larissa crossroads — Allen Force retreating from Tempe, the 6th New Zealand Brigade from Elassona and the 17th Australian Brigade from Kalabaka. As Lamb’s rearguard held Kampfgruppe Balck at bay, the 6th New Brigade passed through the town and its last troops cleared the crossroads shortly after midnight.

As the fighting raged along the Pinios during the day, Brigadier Stanley Savige kept the 17th Brigade in place until he received orders to immediately withdraw. 38 The 2/5th Battalion accordingly headed to Larissa in trucks at dusk and the 2/11th Battalion followed after midnight. The last convoy of the 2/11th Battalion passed through Larissa at 0300 h. 39 The defenders of Tempe Gorge had saved W Force as Wavell acknowledged:

The defence of the gorge was carried out with such spirit that when at last on the evening of 18th April the Germans were masters of the gorge, the main body of the Anzac Corps had successfully withdrawn past its western exit. 40

At dawn on 19 April, Jacob’s company advanced towards Larissa from the ambush site while the panzers advanced south towards the town. Balck observed the devastated landscape:

Now for the first time we could really see what a hiding the enemy had taken. As in France, trucks in convoy stood on the road and in the bushes. All round were guns and A Tk guns, shell-shattered or manned only by corpses, and among them Bren carriers and two tanks.

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