page_title: James Hargest
section_title: Greece and Crete
hierarchical_section_title: James Hargest / Second World War / Greece and Crete
caption_attribution_description: English: Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Andrew, VC, with Brigadier Hargest and General Freyberg at Helwan, Egypt, 22 July 1941. New Zealand. Department of Internal Affairs. War History Branch :Photographs relating to World War 1914-1918, World War 1939-1945, occupation of Japan, Korean War, and Malayan Emergency. Ref: DA-13918-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22343464 The creator of this work was most likely an official photographer of the NZ Military Forces and thus copyright in this work probably rests or rested with the Crown. The Crown has released this work under the CC-BY 3.0 unported license. Refer to source website for details: http://natlib.govt.nz/about-this-site/copyright-and-privacy. This work's copyright expired 50 years after creation in New Zealand and probably also in countries following the rule of the shorter term.
context_page_description: Brigadier James Hargest, CBE, DSO & Two Bars, MC, ED was an officer of the New Zealand Military Forces, serving in both the First and Second World Wars. He was a Member of New Zealand's Parliament from 1931 to 1944, representing firstly the Invercargill and then the Awarua electorates.
  Born in Gore in 1891, Hargest was a farmer when he volunteered for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. Commissioned as an officer, he served in the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915 and was seriously wounded. Following his recovery from his wounds, he returned to active duty on the Western Front. He commanded an infantry battalion during the later stages of the war and received several awards for his leadership. After the war, he returned to New Zealand to resume farming. In 1931 Hargest entered the Parliament of New Zealand as the member for Invercargill. Initially an independent, he was one of the strongest supporters of the National Party that was formed in 1936, and held an executive role in the party hierarchy.
context_section_description: Within a matter of weeks, the brigade, as part of the 2nd New Zealand Division, was in Greece and manning defences on the Aliakmon Line in preparation for the anticipated invasion of the country by the Germans. Following the invasion, Hargest's brigade mounted a spirited defence of its positions at Olympus Pass from 14 to 16 April before it had to withdraw to provide cover neighbouring New Zealand brigades conducting their own retreat. The brigade was eventually evacuated on the night of 24 April to Crete.
  Hargest and his brigade took part in the subsequent Battle of Crete in May. The 2nd New Zealand Division was under the command of Brigadier Edward Puttick due to Freyberg taking command of Creforce, which consisted of all the Allied troops on Crete. Puttick gave Hargest's brigade the task of defending the airfield at Maleme and its easterly approaches. The 22nd Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Andrew, guarded the airfield itself and a neighbouring hill, Point 107, with the other two battalions of the brigade positioned further east while Hargest situated his headquarters at some distance from the airfield. Within days of arriving on Crete, the Allied positions began to be the subject of strafing and bombing attacks by German planes as a precursor to an airborne invasion mounted by German paratroopers of the 1st Parachute Division. The bombing triggered in Hargest an occurrence of his shell shock, rendering him lethargic and confused.
  When gliders containing paratroopers began landing around and to the west of the airfield on 20 May, Andrew became cut off from several of his platoons and companies with some being overrun by the German forces. Unable to gauge how the situation was unfolding, his communications with Hargest back at brigade headquarters also became disjointed. Andrew stressed the seriousness of the situation to Hargest and requested reinforcements from the other battalions, which were more than holding their own. Hargest incorrectly advised that there were no available troops. This left Andrew with his own small platoon-size reserve, which was used in a failed counter-attack. Eventually, Andrew sought permission to withdraw from Point 107; Hargest replied "Well, if you must, you must."  Although well aware of the importance of Maleme Airfield to the defence of Crete, Hargest made no effort to dissuade Andrew or see the situation for himself. Despite the belated arrival of a reinforcing company of infantry sent by Hargest that evening, Andrew decided his position was not defensible in daylight and withdrew his units to join the other battalions of the brigade. The Germans took both the airfield and Point 107 early on the morning of 21 May. The capture of the airfield allowed German reinforcements to be landed directly on Crete and establish a strong foothold on their otherwise tenuous positions.
  A counterattack to take back the airfield and Point 107 was organised for the following day at Hargest's headquarters. He was exhausted and had to take a quick nap before a conference to work out detailed plans for the counter-attack, much to the disgust of some of the other participants. Afterwards, he became pessimistic of the chances of success and unsuccessfully sought to have the attack called off. The attack did fail but Hargest, still well behind the frontlines, mistakenly believed it to be going well until he found that his brigade had returned to their starting positions. His pessimism began to affect Puttick, who asked Freyberg to allow the 5th Infantry Brigade to withdraw, which it duly did. This began an eventual retreat and evacuation from Crete on 31 May, with Hargest flying out for Egypt by seaplane, his brigade following by sea.
  Once he was back in Egypt, Hargest was critical of Freyberg's conduct of the fighting on Crete in a meeting with General Archibald Wavell, commander of the Allied forces in the Middle East. He expressed similar views in a meeting with the New Zealand Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, who was in Egypt at the time on a visit to the New Zealand forces. He also voice
caption: Hargest, centre front, with Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Andrew (left) and Major General Bernard Freyberg, Egypt, July 1941.
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