Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Official War Correspondent Kenneth Slessor

After his Kittyhawk had belly-landed on Barce airfield, two days before the advancing Eighth Army reached that area, Sergeant Pilot Keith Marrows of Melbourne had to walk home.
Many other pilots have done the same thing but few have overcome more hazards on the way.
Detailed to strafe Barce airfield as preparation for the infantry's arrival, Marrows set off in a formation of six led by Sergeant Pilot Andy Taylor of Brisbane, veteran fighter with more than 250 operational hours in his logbook.
The airfield was duly blitzed but while making a last destructive run a burst of small arms fire from the ground smashed Marrows's engine and he landed wheels up on the edge of the airfield.
Seeing this Andy Taylor turned the rest of Kittyhawks back to the field again and continued strafing in the hope that it would distract attention from Marrows's plane.
These tactics were successful, despite the fact that an armoured car
was already racing towards the crashed aircraft.
By the time it had reached his plane Marrows had disappeared.

Chased by Nazis

Crawling and running through the scrub towards the hills behind Barce he looked back and found that the armoured car had picked up his tracks and was following them.
To defeat this Marrows took off his boots and socks, slung them
around his neck and increased his speed towards the hills.
That night it rained heavily but fortunately he found a single blanket of questionable cleanliness.
For three days he played hide and seek in this way waiting for the Eighth Army to arrive.
Reports from natives as to the occupants of Barce were confusing and unreliable.
Marrows decided to keep on the move rather than risk capture.

Anxious Wait

Twice he stole back into Barce to spy out the nationality of the transport moving through it — but it was still bearing the Axis cross.
Two days of this and his boots were done and still the Axis were in
Barce.
To escape the drenching rain he crept one night into Barce and
slept in a ruined house. When he woke up the engines of
motor transport moving past seemed to be singing a different tune.
He peeped through a hole in the wall and then yelled with joy.
An American ambulance returned him to his squadron.

Sergeant Pilot J. D. Oakley, of Melbourne , and Sergeant Pilot E. P.
Gleeson, of Brisbane were in the pilots' mess when he arrived.
"Where do you think you've been?" they asked, glancing at his
beard and borrowed army boots.
"Walking about a bit," he told them.

Published in the Daily News (Perth, WA) on 17th February 1943