Jack Hinton - World War Two

World War Two

At the outbreak of war he enlisted in Colonel Howard Kippenberger's 20th Battalion 2nd NZEF (The Canterbury Regiment), and rapidly rose to the rank of sergeant. He was sent to the Middle East with the 2nd New Zealand Division under General Bernard Freyberg.

Shortly after the division arrived in Egypt, Hinton was commanding a squad practising shooting when visited by Freyberg, who asked him how the men were shooting. 'How would you expect them to bloody well shoot?', replied Hinton, '—not enough bloody rations, stinking heat and sand'. Freyberg asked him to repeat the comment, which he did word for word. Hinton was not disciplined and a ration increase was announced that evening.

The 20th battalion deployed to Greece to support the Greek resistance to Italian and German invasion, seeing action at Thermopylae before falling back. On 29 April 1941 the unit was preparing to withdraw by sea when the New Zealand troops heading for the port of Kalamata to await evacuation were attacked by enemy machine-gun fire and self-propelled 6-inch guns. While organising a counter-attack Hinton was ordered to retreat and evacuate from the port. He dismissed the order with the words; "Fuck that, who's coming with me". He later explained his action as being because "I didn't like the way things were going". However it should be stated he met up with and had the full support of his immediate commanding officer for most of the action. Sergeant Hinton rushed forward to the nearest gun and, hurling two grenades, killed the crew. He continued towards the quay, clearing out two light machine-gun nests and a mortar with grenades, then dealt with the garrison of a house where some of the enemy were sheltering. He then assisted in the capture of an artillery piece, but shortly after was shot in the stomach, immobilised and captured.

While a prisoner of war Hinton twice escaped, and made several other attempts. He was told he had been awarded the VC as he lay in hospital recovering from a beating given after one of these attempts. Jack Hinton received his Victoria Cross from King George VI on May 11, 1945, at Buckingham Palace.