Interview: Denis Sampson describes the Battle for Crete

Battle for Crete, day one: Denis Sampson remembers

Private Denis Sampson served with the 6 Field Ambulance. Here he describes what it was like to be in the British 7 General Hospital at the time of the initial German attack

Transcript

It was quite a thing, you know, to hear that the Germans were actually arriving. I didn't notice anything about it until I'd got sent down to the hospital. Private Hector McPherson from Christchurch and myself were sent down by our sergeant, Sgt Dudley Ford, to help them at the hospital with what they required down there. We reported for duty and we were told to go to the-it was a tented hospital, it was a true hospital. This was the British 7th General Hospital. A full hospital and the tents-big, long marquees-but only one had been dug in by this stage because they hadn't been there long. They had the medical supply tent and they had the pharmacy supply tent there. Those sort of things. The one that was dug in was used for seriously wounded. Others would be for the people who were just ill, or people who were lightly wounded. The ward we were sent to was for lightly wounded. There were quite a number of men in there who were, what was classified as lightly wounded, and it was our job to get them breakfast. And the poor blighters are still waiting for their breakfast. They haven't had it yet!

Because Germans arrived out of the sky. The Jerries decided to turn up. Right then.

Did you know that they were going to be coming that day?

No. No. I didn't know anything about it.

There were planes coming over the top of us, dragging gliders, which of course went on beyond us. Obviously they were going to Maleme airport which was up the road a bit somewhere. There was also the planes running around strafing and bombing as well. The planes were coming in with parachutists and they were dropping down and being shot as they came down. They bombed the hospital.

Did it have a red cross on it?

Yeah. We had a huge red cross down on the ground. Didn't make any difference. Because everything was so close to each other, they couldn't tell the difference if it was an armed arsenal or what. They bombed it. That's one of the things I was caught up in.

When these planes came over and the parachutists came down and they were taking over the hospital as well. Or, at least, trying to take over the hospital. They were certainly landing somewhere. Hector, my mate, took all the actual walking wounded out. We got them into a slit trench because there were slit trenches right round. And then after a while, later in the morning, he took them out to the road. It was a full road out to the main road, right through the middle of the hospital. He took them out there onto the Crete road itself, and they disappeared. The Germans had taken them away. That was all over.