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I am deeply grateful to Second Lieutenant Denvir for giving me
the opportunity to write this book, and for his patient and
good-natured submission to a cross-examination lasting many
weeks. My thanks are due also to Mrs Denvir, whose
hospitality made this cross-examination so much easier for all of
us, and to Major-General HK Kippenberger, who wrote the
foreword.
When Second Lieutenant Denvir escaped from a German
prison camp in 1941 he had to leave behind with another New
Zealand prisoner of war the diaries he had kept since he
arrived in Egypt in 1940. He began another diary when he
joined the Partisans in Yugoslavia, and in it he recorded briefly
some of his experiences from the date of his capture in Greece
to the time of his arrival in Italy. Of necessity he told only half
the story because almost every day he faced the danger of
falling into enemy hands, and he could not risk mention of
names or places.
Second Lieutenant Denvir brought that diary back to New
Zealand, and filled in the gaps before I started to write this
story. Newspaper and magazine articles dealing with his
adventures or phases of the Partisan resistance movement in
Yugoslavia helped to fill in the background. From Campaign in
Greece, the official story of the 2nd NZEF in the Greek
campaign, came the description of the British retreat up to the
time that Second Lieutenant Denvir was captured. The chapter
on the death of the Russian prisoners of war in the camp at
Maribor has been written from Second Lieutenant Denvir’s own
story and the account given by a New Zealand medical officer,
Major GH Thomson, to an official war correspondent with the
2nd NZEF. The Saturday Evening Post and the New
Statesman and Nation provided additional details of the career
of Major WM Jones, the British liaison officer in Slovenia, and
I am indebted to Antony Alpers, of the New Zealand Listener
staff, for the inspiration for my opening chapter. |
