[Pyros]

A Troop of the 5th Field (4x 25-pounders) has been assisting the 21st Maori Bn in the defense of Platamon (Greece) against an attack of the I/3 Panzer Regiment of the 2nd Panzer division [100 tanks+)

....The Germans thought even next morning that the position was only lightly held. They therefore attacked with only a motor-cycle battalion and it was soon pinned down by infantry fire and by the guns. A Troop was busy. One shoot was conducted on targets that could only be seen by the infantry on the left flank, and an infantry officer corrected the fall of shot in rough-and-ready fashion, though to good effect. By the afternoon a tank battalion had reached the front and tried to attack; but the going was bad and it made slow progress. The guns harassed all movement below, including that of the tanks, and they were joined in this by the battalion mortars, anti-tank rifles and machine guns. At dusk, however, a medium troop or battery opened fire on the OP and guns, killing one gunner and wounding four others.14 A Troop returned this fire until shellbursts cut communications with the OP.

Defensive fire by night had been provided for and when enemy tanks passed through the ‘SOS night lines’, as they were called, A Troop brought down fire on the prearranged plan. Had the gunners been more certain that their targets were armoured they would have left the cap on their HE 117 fuses, thereby imposing a delay which, though very slight, would have made penetration of armour more likely. As it was they took the cap off; but even so the infantry reported next morning that several tanks and armoured cars had been put out of action. They caught the German force moving out towards the left flank and again when it returned.

A heavier attack started up soon after dawn on the 16th, above the tunnel and away to the left on the mountainside. A Troop was soon in difficulties. It was heavily outgunned and enemy tanks, mortars and artillery brought heavy fire to bear on the hill from which the OP was trying to operate, wreathing the ruined castle in smoke. Tanks came up the rough mule-track which ascended the hill, but several shed tracks or suffered other damage from the rocks, and others ran on to mines laid by the sappers (whose demolition of the tunnel itself had created less of an obstruction than had been hoped). Ammunition for the 25-pounders was running low and many tempting targets had to be neglected....