Rank: Sergeant
Unit: 20th Battalion, 2nd N.Z.E.F. Canterbury Regiment, New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
Awarded: 11th May 1945
Nationality: New Zealander
The citation in the London Gazette of 14th October, 1941, gives the following particulars:
On the night of 28th-29th April, 1941 during the fighting in Greece, a column of German armoured forces entered Kalamai; this column, which contained several armoured cars, 2" guns and 3" mortars, and two 6" guns, rapidly converged on a large force of British and New Zealand troops awaiting embarkation on the beach. When the order to retreat to cover was given, Sergeant Hinton, shouting "To Hell with this, who'll come with me", ran to within several yards of the nearest gun; the gun fired, missing him, and he hurled two grenades, which completely wiped out the crew. He then came on with the bayonet followed by a crowd of New Zealanders. German troops abandoned the first 6" gun and retreated into two houses. Sergeant Hinton smashed the window and then the door of the first house and dealt with the garrison with the bayonet. He repeated the performance in the second house and as a result, until overwhelming German forces arrived, the New Zealanders held the guns. Sergeant Hinton then fell with a bullet wound through the lower abdomen and was taken prisoner.
Additional Information
Shortly after arriving in Egypt Hinton was in charge of some men practising shooting when visited by General 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.
Although disobeying a direct order to retreat and launching a counter-attack on the enemy positions himself when asked why he refused to retreat he said, ‘I didn’t like the way things were going’. He did however meet up with his OC for most of the action who apparently supported his actions after the event.
Apparently Hinton said, ‘F**k this…’ but for obvious reasons the wording was changed to, ‘To hell with this…’ in his citation.
While a PoW Hinton escaped twice and made several more attempts. He was told about being awarded a VC whilst he was recovering in hospital from a beating he received for trying to escape.