John Desmond Peck

1 June 2021 marks the 80th anniversary of the last evacuation boat leaving Crete during the Second World War; 12,000 Allied soldiers, including 3,000 Australians, were stranded on the island.

To commemorate this anniversary the Memorial has digitised the papers of John Desmond Peck [PR03098] and made them available online as part of the Memorial’s Digitisation Project. You may view the collection here.

Located on this page is a series of articles detailing the heroism of Lieutenant John Desmond Peck.

Follow on social media using #JohnPeckAWMSeries

The Australian War Memorial's collection of Lieutenant John Desmond Peck consists of certificates, documents, reports, photographs, newspaper cuttings and service records relating to his experiences serving with the 2/7th Battalion in Crete and as a prisoner of war and partisan in Italy during the Second World War. 

The collection contains documents about his trial for espionage at Vercelli, Italy, 1944. It also includes correspondence with his family, a postwar memoir called 'Captive in Crete' c.1995, and photographs 1940-c.1990.