POW in Italy and Poland the New Zealand Herald wrote in 2004. : The Tikorangi farmer fought with the New Zealanders in Crete when the Germans, using paratroops, captured the island in World War II. Peter Winter was captured and as a POW escaped and was recaptured by the Germans 12 times.

In later life he was involved in conservation issues in the Taranaki region and served as chairman of the local Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society and trustee of the Taranaki Tree Trust (NZHerald).

M. Hutching (ed) 'A Unique Sort of Battle': New Zealanders Remember Crete, Auckland, 2001. Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War: Crete by D.M. Davin. On 1 June the troops who had been left behind faced either surrender to the Germans or escape into the hills if they could. Some who escaped were captured almost immediately, though others were able to stay away for the duration of the German occupation. Lt-Col Colvin's orders were to capitulate. The following is a description of events at the time by C. Farley "'God Almighty! What a blow. A Prisoner of War. Me, I had had visions of wounds, death from various causes, including a fight to the finish in the event of a hand to hand go, but a prisoner, never. It was something that I had never reckoned on. The realisation was stupefying, dumbfounding. In all my previous experience and I had then nearly 35 years of it, [never] had I received news that had knocked me all of a heap as this had. Well, the next thing was what to do now. Stay and take the consequences or bugger off into the hills. One could not go straight back into the hills as the Germans were coming down towards us from there. The only safe exit was along the coast towards the East. But then there was the problem of food. The majority of us by this time were thoroughly undernourished and now we had to depend on our captors to supply us with food. There was nothing left in the food dump and what little I had collected was not going to carry me far.' (Sourced from Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War: Crete by D.M. Davin, page 454).26 April 1941- Petrol Company reaches Crete and land on Suda AWMM