WWII The Black Watch

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with the scenario of the defense of Meleme aerodrome. Although this one fight in the battle was primarily New Zealand troops (21st, 22nd, and 23rd NZ Infantry battalions), for the reenactment we will have New Zealand, Australian, and British platoons.

Would be interested to see how this will be done, as the defenders shot so many of them as they were parachuting in...they got an absolute mauling in the first few days, with whole units wiped out almost to the man, as far as I can recall.

And they only captured the air field because the NZer's had mistakingly withdrawn in the middle of the night...

But hey, good luck, hope it goes well.

Phil C

Oh I forgot, Charles Upham, got his first VC for an attack on the airfield, among other things.

(ripped this from Wiki)

...He commanded a forward platoon in the attack on MALEME on 22nd May and fought his way forward for over 3,000 yards unsupported by any other arms and against a defence strongly organised in depth. During this operation his platoon destroyed numerous enemy posts but on three occasions sections were temporarily held up.

In the first case, under a heavy fire from a machine gun nest he advanced to close quarters with pistol and grenades, so demoralizing the occupants that his section was able to "mop up" with ease.

Another of his sections was then held up by two machine guns in a house. He went in and placed a grenade through a window, destroying the crew of one machine gun and several others, the other machine gun being silenced by the fire of his sections.

In the third case he crawled to within 15 yards of an M.G. post and killed the gunners with a grenade.

When his Company withdrew from MALEME he helped to carry a wounded man out under fire, and together with another officer rallied more men together to carry other wounded men out...