Plaque: Private Robert Ernest Thomas Grieve, 2/1 Australian Machine Gun Battalion

Two brass plaques mounted on wood. The top plaque reads 'PRESENTED TO THE A.I.F. BY H. G. FOLETTA AND CO. & FRIENDS IN THE RETAIL HOSIERY AND LINGERIE TRADE R.A.C.V. APPEAL'.

The smaller bottom plaque is engraved: 'Christmas 1940. Two Ambulances donated to A.I.F. BY H. G. FOLETTA & CO. PTY. LTD. April 1942. Plate from one of these Ambulances, returned by PTE. R. E. GRIEVE, 1st Aust. Machine [Gun] Battalion A.I.F. THIS AMBULANCE, after having rendered service to the A.I.F. wounded in Greece was finally the means of enabling Pte Grieve and several other Australian Soldiers to escape from Greece after the Nazi occupation.'

The top plaque was removed from an ambulance in Greece by NX41109 Private Robert Ernest Grieve after he and several other soldiers used the vehicle to escape the Nazi occupation.

Grieve was suffering from a foot wound and another in their party was seriously wounded when they came across the abandoned and bullet riddled ambulance 80 kilometres north of Athens. They used the ambulance to take their wounded comrade to Athens hospital. On arrival they found the Australian military hospitals had already left and they were forced to leave their comrade in a local hospital.

The small party continued south, picking up Greek and British stragglers. At one time the ambulance held 12 men escaping the advancing Germans. When they arrived at Kalamai Beach, the party disabled the ambulance and Grieve pried this plaque off with his bayonet, still evident in the bent corners of the plaque, before he was evacuated. He carried the plaque in his tunic's breast pocket through Crete and on to Egypt.

'I now present this plaque back to H G Folletta and Co', 'wrote Grieve to the donor, '...I would like to say that had it not been for this ambulance there would have been at least four more prisoners of war in Greece and we would not have had the opportunity of placing our wounded friend in the Athens hospital.'