O'RORKE, FORBES Rank: Lieutenant Service No: 11760 Date of Death: 28/04/1941 Age: 34 Regiment/Service: New Zealand Infantry 20th Bn. Grave Reference 13. D. 6. Cemetery PHALERON WAR CEMETERY Additional Information: Son of Edward Dennis O'Rorke, and of Amy Clifford O'Rorke (nee Rhodes); husband of Letty M. O'Rorke, of Waipukurau, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/2022200/PHALERON%20WAR%20CEMETERY
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2-20Ba-c4.html So died the last fire of Allied resistance in Greece. The Germans counted Kalamata a victory and no doubt it was; but of the many thousands taken there only a small group was equipped to fight. There had been plans for two companies to defend the road entrances to the town, but there seems to have been a hitch somewhere and the brunt of the fighting fell on little assorted groups who hurtled into the fray as they came down from the hills in response to the sound of firing that so irresistibly called them. Whatever the final result may have been, 20 Battalion is proud of those who fought at Kalamata, and glad that the defiant heroism of Jack Hinton, fittingly rewarded with a Victoria Cross, the reckless courage of men like Alan Jones, and the fighting spirit of quiet chaps like Doug Patterson, Pat Rhind, Jim Hesson, and Bob O'Rorke so ably upheld its honour in the field. The battalion's casualties in killed and wounded for the whole of this ill-fated campaign had not been heavy. Four officers—Captain Ayto, Lieutenants Dawson, O'Rorke, and McLaren & 20 men had been killed or had died of wounds; 2 officers and 43 men had been wounded. As prisoners it had lost 4 officers—Major MacDuff, Captain Yates, Lieutenants Curtis and Rhind, all from its reinforcements - and 76 men, of whom 11 had been wounded. All but three of these prisoners survived the war. Some later escaped, one of these, Corporal Jack Denvir of A Company, fighting for two years in Yugoslavia with the partisans, being wounded three times, and rising to command a partisan battalion.
