Service Number: 5545 Unit: New Zealand Infantry Occupation On Enlistment: Waiter/Civilian Cause Of Death: Died of sickness after escaping from prisoner of war camp. Embarkation Details: Private, 19 Infantry Battalion, 2NZEF: 1st Echelon Vessel: Strathaird Excert from the book "Escapes" Author: M. B. McGlynn.. In: Crete Publication details: Historical Publications Branch, 1953, Wellington Part of: The Official History of NZ in the Second World War 1939–1945 Page 516: In July 1941 Private C. C. Nicholl (19 Bn) and Private W. Gilby, an Australian, saw a boat well out to sea. Thinking that there might be people on it who, like themselves, might want to escape from Crete, they piled their gear on the beach and swam out to it. They grasped the side and in broken English and by signs asked the two Greeks on board to take them to North Africa. The Greeks made no move to pull them in; they talked, then screamed, and finally they picked up sticks and hit the soldiers until they had to break away. They swam back to the beach but were no sooner there than Nicholl collapsed. Gilby dressed him and watched him during the night. By morning he knew that he would have to get him to shelter and aid. Nicholl was in agony with severe pains in his stomach. They set out over the mountains but Nicholl was too weak and in too much pain to walk any distance. Gilby then carried him for eight miles to a village where there were Germans. The sick man was immediately put to bed. Gilby sat beside him all the time and was with him when he died two days later.1 Gilby went back to the prison camp.
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