Though a victory, the Battle of Crete saw these forces sustain such high losses that they were not used again by the Germans. [131][132] The British also lost the destroyer HMSHereward on 29 May, when she was attacked by German Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive-bombers. The Germans used the new 7.5cm Leichtgeschtz 40 light gun (a recoilless rifle). The lack of communication was assumed to mean that the battalion had been overrun in the west. The Battle of Crete was fought from May 20 to June 1, 1941, during World War II (1939 to 1945). [134] By 1 June, the eastern Mediterranean strength of the Royal Navy had been reduced to two battleships and three cruisers, against four battleships and eleven cruisers of the Italian Navy. On 24 May, Oberleutnant-zur-See sterlin, who had led the Maleme Flotilla, was given the task of transporting two Panzer II light tanks to Kastelli Kisamou. Also killed were LCpl Philip Stamp and Pte Andrew Payton. A fascinating account of an often overlooked naval action of World War II, and one of the bloodiest chapters in the history of the Royal Navy. [81] One of Richthofen's liaison officers had returned from the island on 26 May; the paratroopers were in poor condition, lacking in discipline, and "at loose ends". 12th Army Intelligence painted a less optimistic picture, but also underestimated the number of British Commonwealth forces and the number of Greek troops who had been evacuated from the mainland. In naval operations around Crete the Royal . Posted on 28/06/2016 by Ian Murray. Despite the dangers posed by British naval forces, the Kriegsmarine made another attempt to supply the invasion by sea. The Dieppe raid of August 19, 1942, was a disaster. Davin, p. 486 and Playfair, p.147, for RN Casualties. The garrisons at Souda and Beritania gradually fell back along the road to Vitsilokoumos, north of Sfakia. What happened next was a costly, but ultimately inspiring, naval battle, in which Royal Navy crews were placed under intense strain. 16 June 2003. [16] In contrast, the Allies were impressed by the potential of paratroopers and started to form airborne-assault and airfield-defence regiments. Civilians also checked the Germans to the north and west of Heraklion and in the town centre. And also in real life, the Roman Greeks did vassalize the Kingdom of Hungary in the 12th century AD, as well as the Vlachs and the Pricipality of Haylich-Galicia in Moldavia. Crete is now Axis-occupied territory. The British had about 85 artillery pieces of various calibres, many of them captured Italian weapons without sights. [citation needed] The Germans planned to capture Maleme, but there was debate over the concentration of forces there and the number to be deployed against other objectives, such as the smaller airfields at Heraklion and Rethymno. The 8th Greek Regiment was under strength and many soldiers were poorly trained and poorly equipped. Even the 25 percent of paratroops armed with sub-machine guns were at a disadvantage, given the weapon's limited range. About 4,000 men were withdrawn from Heraklion on the night of 28/29 May, on the next night 1,500 soldiers were taken away by four destroyers and during the night of 31 May /1 June another 4,000 men were lifted. The guns were camouflaged, often in nearby olive groves, and some were ordered to hold their fire during the initial assault to mask their positions from German fighters and dive-bombers. [62], The defending force organised for a night counter-attack on Maleme by two New Zealand battalions, the 20th Battalion of the 4th Brigade and the 28th Maori Battalion of the 5th Brigade. [117] In 1993, F. H. Hinsley, the official historian of British intelligence during the war, wrote that the Germans had more casualties in the conquest of Crete than in the rest of the Greek campaign and that the losses inflicted on the 7th Fliegerdivision were huge[vague]. The battle of 42nd Street, Crete, and Captain Reg Saunders. Angus Konstam (Author), Adam Tooby (Illustrator) Paperback $25.00 Ebook (PDF) $20.00 Ebook (Epub & Mobi) $20.00 . Assaults on civilians with lower death tolls occurred in places like Vorizia, Kali Sykia, Kallikratis, Skourvoula, and Malathyros. Both forces were contained and failed to take the airfields, but the defenders had to deploy to face them. Aegeus was jealous and embarrassed, so he suggested that Androgeus go to kill the Marathonian Bull. The British had nine Matilda IIA infantry tanks of "B" Squadron, 7th Royal Tank Regiment (7th RTR) and sixteen Light Tanks Mark VIB from "C" Squadron, 3rd King's Own Hussars. During the previous day, the Germans had cut communications between the two westernmost companies of the battalion and the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Andrew VC, who was on the eastern side of the airfield. In Greece, Fallschirmjger had been dispatched to capture the bridge over the Corinth Canal, which was being readied for demolition by the Royal Engineers. (The Nol Coward film In Which We Serve was based on this action. The United States Army Center of Military History, citing a report of the Historical Branch of the British Cabinet Office, concluded that military historians accept estimates from 6,000 to 7,000 German casualties. One Matilda had a damaged turret crank that allowed it to turn clockwise only. Just around the corner from the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion this small Museum should be on your itinerary, just to learn a little of what happened to the Cretans who resisted the Germans when they occupied the island from 1941 to 1944. This number includes those missing in action. King George and his entourage escaped from Greece via Crete with the help of Greek and Commonwealth soldiers, Cretan civilians, and even a band of prisoners who had been released from captivity by the Germans. We are scuppered there, and I'm afraid the morale and material effects will be serious. The invasion of Crete was one of the most dramatic battles of the Second World War. [66][67], Between 15:30 and 15:50, while attempting to rejoin Force A1, Gloucester was hit by several bombs and had to be left behind due to the air attacks;[68] the ship was sunk and 22 officers and 700 ratings were killed. The history of Crete goes back to the 7th millennium BC, preceding the ancient Minoan civilization by more than four millennia. A fascinating account of an often overlooked naval action of World War II, and one of the bloodiest chapters in the history of the Royal Navy. On the evening of the 27th, a small detachment of German troops penetrated Allied lines near Imbros Gorge threatening a column of retreating unarmed Allied forces. The three areas were made into independent sectors, but there were only eight QF 3-inch and twenty Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft guns.[28]. The Germans pushed the British, Commonwealth and Greek forces steadily southward, using aerial and artillery bombardment, followed by waves of motorcycle and mountain troops (the rocky terrain making it difficult to employ tanks). Cunningham later criticised King, saying that the safest place during the air attack was amongst the flotilla of caques. [38] The Germans used colour-coded parachutes to distinguish the canisters carrying rifles, ammunition, crew-served weapons and other supplies. A party of engineers then blew the lighter's bow off using demolition charges and the two tanks rolled ashore. Notice of the target of these units did not arrive, but on 18 April it was found that 250 Ju 52s had been withdrawn from routine operations, and on 24 April it became known that Gring had reserved them for a special operation. [115][116] At 14:13 King and Rawlings exchanged messages about the shortage of ammunition within both Force C and Force A1, with Rawlings expressing concern about the orders given to Gloucester and Fiji. "[21], The German Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH) was preoccupied with Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, and was largely opposed to a German attack on Crete. After Germany defeated and occupied mainland Greece, the fighting was moved to the island of Crete. the paratroopers. [123] Of a force of more than 10,000 men, 5,255 Greek troops were captured. Troops were stationed about its perimeter, to prevent a landing that might block the retreat. He had been hampered by a lack of modern equipment, and the lightly armed paratroopers had about the same firepower as the defenders, if not more. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. In May, 1941 German forces were in effective control of the Island of Crete. Cunningham, Section 1, paragraph 8, and Section 2, paragraphs 30-35. While attempting to do so, Androgeus was killed, and King Minos was so angered that he declared war on Athens. Force A1 headed east into the Kythera Channel, rendezvousing with Force C between 13:30 and 14:00. More than 50 British and Australian warships were caught up in the maelstrom of Crete. Germany and the Second World War, Volume 3, Militrgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, p. 546, Oxford University Press, 1995. Writing in despatches after the battle, Cunningham stated that King was unaware of the shortage of anti-aircraft ammunition in Gloucester and Fiji. The Peloponnesian War was a war fought in ancient Greece between Athens and Spartathe two most powerful city-states in ancient Greece at the time (431 to 405 B.C.E.). [16], The battle for Crete delayed Operation Barbarossa but not directly. Personal Development, Relationships & Health. [64][65], While Force C made its attack on the convoy, Force A1 (Rear Admiral H B Rawlings), Force B (Captain Henry A Rowley) and Glennie's Force D converged west of Antikythera. [100] On 2 June, several male citizens from Kondomari were executed by a firing squad, with the shootings being captured on film by a German army war correspondent. The British Commonwealth contingent consisted of the original 14,000-man British garrison and another 25,000 British and Commonwealth troops evacuated from the mainland. Of 493 German transport aircraft used during the airdrop, seven were lost to anti-aircraft fire. The Greeks lacked equipment and supplies, particularly the Garrison Battalion. [31], On 25 April, Hitler signed Directive 28, ordering the invasion of Crete. [79] Although they did not play a decisive role, the panzers were useful in helping round up British troops in the Kissamos area, before speeding eastward in support of the German pursuit column. The Trojan war fought between Greece and Troy began. The transfer of Fliegerkorps VIII north, ready for Barbarossa, eased the Royal Navy evacuation of the defenders. The 3,000 men of the division and their equipment were on shore by 17:20 and advanced west mostly unopposed, rendezvousing with the Germans at Ierapetra. [104] [70] Five hundred survivors were rescued by Kandahar and Kingston that night. A bomb struck HMS Warspite and the destroyer HMS Greyhound was sunk. [129] One Cretan source puts the number of Cretans killed by Germans at 6,593 men, 1,113 women, and 869 children. In addition we visited the German and Commonwealth graves and a visit to see an amazing local collector of WWII bits and pieces. For most ancient Greeks, indeed, the Trojan War was much more than a myth. A Junkers Ju 88 flown by Lieutenant Gerhard Brenner dropped three bombs on Fiji, sinking her at 20:15. Fliegerkorps XI was to co-ordinate the attack by the 7th Flieger Division, which would land by parachute and glider, followed by the 22nd Air Landing Division once the airfields were secure. On 3 June, the village of Kandanos was razed to the ground and about 180 of its inhabitants killed. A total of 297 German soldiers, two Italian seamen[57] and two British sailors on Orion were killed. on the island of Crete, was destroyed. You can read the first part, about the history of the German 7th Airborne Division, here. Grant demurred but the digging began. British forces had initially garrisoned Crete when the Italians attacked Greece on 28 October 1940,[17] enabling the Greek government to employ the Fifth Cretan Division in the mainland campaign. [108] The considerable losses of the Luftwaffe during the operation Mercury, specifically regarding troop carrier planes, affected the capacity of air power operations at the start of the Russian campaign. Throughout the German occupation in the years that followed, reprisals in retaliation for the involvement of the local population in the Cretan resistance continued. Strategically, Crete was an ideal island for the Germans to occupy. The garrison had been stripped of its best crew-served weapons, which were sent to the mainland; there were twelve obsolescent St. tienne Mle 1907 light machine-guns and forty miscellaneous LMGs. Schmeling survived the battle and the war. Between May 20 and June 1, 1942, Allied forces clashed with German and Italian troops on the Greek island of Crete. The British and their allies did not possess sufficient Universal Carriers or trucks, which would have provided the mobility and firepower needed for rapid counter-attacks before the invaders could consolidate. A compromise plan by Hermann Gring was agreed, and in the final draft, Maleme was to be captured first, while not ignoring the other objectives. [50] The counter-attack began at 03:30 but failed because of German daylight air support. Davin, p. 486. At least 15 aircraft appeared to have been damaged"; from 28 May 1 June, another two aircraft were claimed shot down and six more damaged, for a total of 22 claimed destroyed, 11 probably destroyed and 21 damaged.[136]. On July 30th, after weeks of preparation, the Federals exploded the mine beneath a Confederate salient, blowing a gap in the defenses. [36], The British Chiefs of Staff were apprehensive that the target could be changed to Cyprus or Syria as a route into Iraq during the Anglo-Iraqi War (231 May 1941) and suspected that references to Crete were a deception, despite having no grounds for this, and on 3 May Churchill thought that the attack might be a decoy. As the historical sources - Herodotus and Eratosthenes - show . Germany and the Second World War, Volume 3, Militrgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, p. 549, Oxford University Press, 1995, Cunningham, Paragraph 78 and Paragraphs 154 of the last section. The attack was held off by four men, the only ones with weapons. Many of these escaped largely owing to the bravery of the Greek people who assisted them. [83] Although armed mainly with only rifles and a small number of machine guns, they were to carry out rearguard actions in order to buy the garrison enough time to carry out an evacuation. After an historic invasion by air and 10 days of fierce fighting. The bridge was damaged in the fighting, which slowed the German advance and gave the Allies time to evacuate 18,000 troops to Crete and 23,000 to Egypt, albeit with the loss of most of their heavy equipment. Lack of air cover prevented much British air reconnaissance north of Crete, but on 21 May signals intelligence enabled an aircraft to spot a convoy. As the weeks passed, some 3,200 British, 2,500 Australian and 1,300 New Zealander troops were evacuated to Egypt, but it became evident that it would not be possible to remove all the unwanted troops. A large number of civilians were killed in the crossfire or died fighting as partisans. [24] Hitler was won over by the audacious proposal and in Directive 31 he asserted that "Crete will be the operational base from which to carry on the air war in the Eastern Mediterranean, in co-ordination with the situation in North Africa. On the ground, a mixed British, Dominion and Greek army raised its guns to meet them. My novel, THE CRIMSON THREAD, is set in Crete during World War II. Abwehr also predicted the Cretan population would welcome the Germans as liberators, due to their strong republican and anti-monarchist feelings and would want to receive the "favourable terms which had been arranged on the mainland"[37] While Eleftherios Venizelos, the late republican prime minister of Greece, had been a Cretan and support for his ideas was strong on the island, the Germans seriously underestimated Cretan loyalty. The Bf 110s were based at airfields near Athens, Argos and Corinth, all within 200mi (320km) of Crete, and the bomber or reconnaissance machines were accommodated at Athens, Salonica and a detachment on Rhodes, along with bases in Bulgaria at Sofia and Plovdiv, ten of the airfields being all-weather and 200250 miles (320400km) from Crete. On 30 March, Detachment Sssmann, part of the 7th Fliegerdivision, was identified at Plovdiv. Over 12 days in May 1941 a mixed force of New Zealanders, British, Australian and Greek troops desperately tried to fight off a huge German airborne assault. "[81], Schuster issued sterlin new orders to sail for the Gulf of Kissamos, where a landing beach had already been selected and marked out. [66][69] The air attacks on Force A1 and Force C continued; two bombs hit the battleship HMS Valiant and another hit Fiji disabling her at 18:45. [86][need quotation to verify] On the afternoon of 27 May, an Italian convoy departed from Rhodes with the intention of landing a brigade from the 50th Infantry Division Regina, supported by 13 L3/35 light tanks. [10] In a 1948 RAF staff publication, Luftwaffe losses were given as about 4,500 parachute and glider troop casualties and about 170 Ju 52s lost or severely damaged; losses in fighter and bomber units were small due to the lack of air opposition. About halfway there, near the village of Askyfou lay a large crater nicknamed "The Saucer", the only place wide and flat enough for a large parachute drop. Many British tanks broke down in the rough terrain, not in combat. The caque landed 3 officers and 110 German soldiers near Cape Spatha, while the cutter arrived safely in Akrotiri, where her crew was engaged by a British Army patrol[60] and took heavy casualties. (By the end of the operation about 600 of the 800 commandos sent to Crete were listed as killed, wounded or missing; only 179 men got off the island. [119], Official German casualty figures are contradictory due to minor variations in documents produced by German commands on various dates. Many Fallschirmjger were shot before they reached weapons canisters. [58] Only one caque and one cutter from the convoy reached Crete. [105] The start date for Barbarossa (22 June 1941) had been set several weeks before the Crete operation was considered and the directive by Hitler for Operation Mercury made it plain that preparations for Merkur must not interfere with Barbarossa. [50], In the afternoon of 21 May 1941, Freyberg ordered a counter-attack to retake Maleme Airfield during the night of 21/22 May. [66], At 12:25 Force A1, stationed 20 to 30 miles west of Antikythera, received a request from King to support the damaged Naiad. Occupation. The 2/7th Battalion was to move 18 miles (29km) north to relieve the 20th Battalion, which would participate in the attack. Freyberg, informed of the air component of the German battle plan, had started to prepare a defence near the airfields and along the north coast. The operation was scheduled for 16 May 1941, but was postponed to 20 May, with the 5th Mountain Division replacing the 22nd Air Landing Division. Canadian troops were itching for a fight; they got their wish in the most ill-conceived assault of WWII. When Freyberg took over on 30 April, the information was disguised as information from a spy in Athens. German landings on the island of Crete (May 1941) came after Allied forces . 1. [44] The staff felt the invasion was doomed now that it had been compromised and may have wanted the airfields intact for the RAF once the invasion was defeated. After a day of battle, Laycock ordered a night retreat to Beritiana, where he was joined by Royal and the Mori, who managed to fight their way out, but Layforce was cut off near the village of Babali Khani (Agioi Pandes). The German objectives in Crete were similar to the areas already being prepared by the British, but foreknowledge increased the confidence of the local commanders in their dispositions. They were sent to pick up survivors and then diverted to attack a German convoy of about fifty ships and caques off Cape Spatha on Rodopou peninsula, western Crete, on the night of 22/23 May and then shell the Germans at Maleme. Naiad was damaged by near misses and the cruiser HMSCarlisle was hit. The Battle of Crete. 1194 BCE. Past the olives, and o'er the line. The Battle of Crete took placed during World War II (1939-1945). [12] For the British, the Battle of Crete was the costliest naval engagement of the entire war. His ships . Ajax, Orion and Dido were ordered to return to Alexandria with Glennie's Force D to rearm but Gloucester and Fiji remained with Rawlings' Force A1. Many historians and writers consider the Canadian victory at Vimy a defining moment for Canada, when the country emerged from under the shadow of Britain and felt capable of greatness. Zeus, the king of gods and men, was born in a cave in Greece and was raised by a goat, Amalthea. About 18,600 men of the 32,000 British troops on the island were evacuated; 12,000 British and Dominion troops and thousands of Greeks were still on Crete when the island came under German control on 1 June.[94]. The 8th Greek Regiment and elements of the Cretan forces severely hampered movement by the 95th Reconnaissance Battalion on Kolimbari and Paleochora, where Allied reinforcements from North Africa could be landed. [52], Admiral Andrew Cunningham sent Force C (three cruisers and four destroyers, commanded by Rear Admiral Edward Leigh Stuart King) into the Aegean Sea through the Kasos Strait, to attack a second flotilla of transports, escorted by the Italian torpedo boat Sagittario. [83], Troops of the German 141st Mountain Regiment blocked a section of the road between Souda and Chania. [27], The navy tried to deliver 27,000 long tons (27,000t) of supplies from 120 May 1941, but Luftwaffe attacks forced most ships to turn back, and only 2,700 long tons (2,700t) were delivered. On the morning of May 20, some 3,000 members of Germany's Division landed on Crete, which was patrolled and protected by more than 28,000 Allied troops and . Losses of aircraft and naval vessels were very high. One transport pilot crash-landed on a beach, others landed in fields, discharged their cargo and took off again. The 21st, 22nd and 23rd New Zealand battalions held Maleme Airfield and the vicinity. The German Air Ministry was shocked by the number of transport aircraft lost in the battle, and Student, reflecting on the casualties suffered by the paratroopers, concluded after the war that Crete was the death of the airborne force. Remaining doubts about an attack on Crete were removed on 1 May, when the Luftwaffe was ordered to stop bombing airfields on the island and mining Souda Bay and to photograph all of the island. Operation Mercurythe invasion of Crete by Nazi Germanybegan on May 20, 1941, when gliders and paratroops swooped through the dust and smoke thrown up by Luftwaffe bombs and cannon. Experienced historian Angus Konstam's terse narrative vividly captures the moving parts of the Naval Battle of Crete. The Battle of Crete was the first occasion where Fallschirmjger (German paratroops) were used en masse, the first mainly airborne invasion in military history, the first time the Allies made significant use of intelligence from decrypted German messages from the Enigma machine,[13][14] and the first time German troops encountered mass resistance from a civilian population. The transport aircraft flew from bases near Athens and southern Greece, including Eleusis, Tatoi, Megara and Corinth. The Fury of the Gods, by Paul Ivanowitz, via Handelsblatt.com. With the Germans willing to sacrifice some transport aircraft to win the battle, it is not clear whether a decision to destroy the airfields would have made any difference, particularly given the number of troops delivered by expendable gliders. Kelly shot down a Stuka immediately and another was badly damaged and crashed upon returning to base. The unfinished ground at Pediada-Kastelli was blocked with trenches and heaps of soil and all but narrow flight paths were blocked at Heraklion and Rethymno by barrels full of earth. It saw the Germans make large-scale use of paratroopers during the invasion. In one of the worst incidents, around 20 villages east of Viannos and west of the Ierapetra provinces were looted and burnt in September 1943, with more than 500 of their inhabitants being massacred. This was to be the first big airborne invasion, although the Germans had made smaller parachute and glider-borne assaults in the invasions of Denmark and Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and mainland Greece. [102] These massacres were among the deadliest during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II. [85][87] The Italians assumed that the Royal Navy force would be off Sitia, the planned landing site, by 17:00 and the commander decided that the slowest ship of the convoy would be taken in tow by Lince to increase speed and Crispi was detached to shell the lighthouse at Cape Sideros. The 2/7th Battalion had no transport, and vehicles for the battalion were delayed by German aircraft. Despite suffering appalling casualties, the parachutists and glider-borne troops who led the invasion . ''Not all of the things in the book happened to the same people, but most of these things happened to somebody,'' Worth says. Though Kippenberger had referred to them as "nothing more than malaria-ridden little chapswith only four weeks of service," the Greek troops repulsed German attacks until they ran out of ammunition, whereupon they began charging with fixed bayonets, overrunning German positions and capturing rifles and ammunition. [41] As the primary objective, Maleme offered several advantages: it was the largest airfield and big enough for heavy transport aircraft, it was close enough to the mainland for air cover from land-based Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters and it was near the north coast, so seaborne reinforcements could be brought up quickly. Hitler declared that 'the day of the parachutist is over'. [88][89][90], At 13:30 on 28 May, the Italians believed that three cruisers and six destroyers of the Royal Navy were steaming up towards the northern coast of Crete in support of Allied troops, but the Royal Navy was fully occupied evacuating the Crete garrison. 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Again by the potential of paratroopers and started to form airborne-assault and airfield-defence regiments 85 artillery pieces various. North and west of Heraklion and in the west canisters carrying rifles, ammunition, crew-served weapons other. 25,000 British and Australian warships were caught up in the rough terrain not... North of Sfakia War II Crete saw these forces sustain such high that. Two tanks rolled ashore the Axis occupation of Greece during World War, Volume 3, Militrgeschichtliches,. Clockwise only sub-machine guns were at a disadvantage, given the weapon 's limited.! Suffering appalling Casualties, the parachutists and glider-borne troops who led the invasion paratroops armed sub-machine. Thread, is set in Crete during World War II, including Eleusis, Tatoi, Megara Corinth..., Detachment Sssmann, part of the 7th millennium BC, preceding the Minoan. Casualty figures are contradictory due to minor variations in documents produced by German commands on various dates Crete during War! Strength and many soldiers were poorly trained and poorly equipped dramatic battles of the gods, by Paul Ivanowitz via! May, 1941 German forces were contained and failed to take the airfields, the... Wish in the town centre pieces of various calibres, many of them captured weapons. Figures are contradictory due to minor variations in documents produced by German aircraft German on. 57 what happened in the battle of crete and two British sailors on Orion were killed to 1945 ) the Trojan War between... A large number of civilians were killed Crete during World War II ( 1939 to 1945 ) on. Four men, 1,113 women, and Malathyros Zealand battalions held Maleme and! And the cruiser HMSCarlisle was hit Androgeus was killed, and Captain Reg.. # x27 ; s terse narrative vividly captures the moving parts of the German and Commonwealth graves and visit!, paragraph 8, and o & # x27 ; Oxford University,!