By Mathew Dearnaley
Wally Smith just could not accept being a prisoner of war. Captured by the Germans in Crete in 1941, the young Dargaville man escaped a dozen times - once in drag - before ending up in Russia.
Now some fellow prisoners of war have seen him off for the
last time. Lloyd Esmond Smith, known to all as Wally, died last week at 81, leaving his mates to wonder how his prison camp nickname of The Saint might serve him in the next life.
Mr Smith was too restless to wait for clearance from escape committees in the succession of POW camps that tried to contain him.
Long-time friend and fellow prisoner Aubrey Aiken said Mr Smith was always on the go and when things got a bit quiet he would take his chance.
Mr Aiken, who grew up with Mr Smith and farmed down the road from him after the war, recalls that bewildered German guards did not bother inquiring who was missing when prisoner numbers did not tally. They already knew and "Wo ist der Schmidt?" (Where is Smith?) was their exasperated refrain.
"It used to make our day - we didn't have to go to work while they were searching for him," chuckled Mr Aiken, a medical orderly who was captured with Mr Smith and 2178 other New Zealanders.
Despite the trouble he caused the Germans, Mr Smith seemed to avoid the beatings usually meted out to escapers. "Perhaps it was that charming smile or winning personality of his, but the guards didn't see fit to punish him too severely."
But when he finally managed to break free of the Germans, it was into the hands of the Russians, who interned him until well after the war.
"It was a bit unfortunate for him," said Mr Aiken. "Some of us got flown out [of Germany] but he went out the rough way."
Mr Smith eventually took up a soldier's rehab loan for a farm near Dargaville, before raising a family and moving to Matakana near Warkworth.
After retiring from farming, he and his wife, Mavis, settled at nearby Pt Wells, where they ran a small shop until several years ago.
Mr Smith is survived by Mavis and their three children.
