Whistling Dixie over find

A long time returning: Leuts Paul and Steven Cottier, their father Harry and a memento of their grandfather and father. Sheer good luck resulted in the return of the dixie after a long Cretan holiday.

Wartime memento: Infantryman Nicholas Cottier with wife, Alma, and son, Harry.

A CHANCE meeting has seen a 65-year-old mystery solved, and a personalised piece of kit returned to a veteran’s family.

Michael and Dimi Frantzeskakis visited Crete in late 2005 without knowing that they would be instrumental in a reunion of sorts.

Michael’s cousin Spiros Panesakis showed them a Pans Set Messing, or dixie, that his mother-in-law had found after soldiers evacuated Galata following the Battle of Crete in 1941.

The dixie was in excellent condition and had the soldier’s Army number VX11339 and the initials NJC engraved on it.

Included was a service history starting from enlistment in Melbourne and the names of all the places the owner had been in up to that time.

These included Colombo, Aden, Suez, Kamtara, Biet Jirga, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Gaza, Haifa, Helwan, Cairo, Alexandria, Ikingi Marot, Sidi Henish, Mearsa Matruh Bardia, Tobruk, Derna, Slonta, Barce, Oberdan, Benghazi, Giovani Berta, Bugbug, Amriya and Athens.

Michael and Dimi became fascinated by the dixie and, on their return to Australia, decided to do some detective work. Research on the Internet confirmed that the soldier was indeed an Australian, Nicholas James Cottier of Heywood, Victoria, who had joined the Australian Army in 1940 as an infantry soldier.

The Heywood RSL Club provided Dimi with a contact for Harry Cottier of Casterton, near Heywood, in the hope that he could assist.

When a nervous Dimi rang Harry and asked him if he knew of a Nicholas James Cottier, Harry replied, “Nicholas is my father.”

Michael and Dimi organised for the dixie to be sent from Crete. On March 19, Harry, his wife Shirley and their son Paul visited the Frantzeskakis family where Michael presented Harry with his father’s dixie.

“It is amazing that one of my father’s service possessions has been returned to Australia after 65 years,” said Harry.

“I would like to thank Michael and Dimi and the Panesakis family in Crete for making this incredible event happen,” he said.

Harry and Shirley have four children, of which three sons have served, or are currently serving, in the RAN as musicians. Harry’s father Nick, the owner of the dixie, was also a musician playing drums in the 2/6 Bn Band.

After Nicholas fled Crete in 1941 he served in the Middle East and PNG before returning to Australia and discharging from the Army on October 22, 1945. He died in 1977.