Battle of Crete

battle_name=Battle of Crete

Prelude

Allied forces had occupied the island of Crete when the Italians had invaded Greece on October 28, 1940. Though the Italians were initially repulsed, the subsequent German intervention drove the 57,000 Allied troops from the mainland. The Royal Navy evacuated many of them, some to Crete to bolster its 14,000-man garrison.

Related Topics:
Crete - Italians - October 28 - 1940 - Allied - Royal Navy

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Winston Churchill would later write in his The Second World War:

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:"To lose Crete because we had not sufficient bulk of forces there would be a crime."

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In fact, at the outset, the allies had the advantage of numerical superiority and naval supremacy. Their German foe had air supremacy and greater mobility, which allowed them to concentrate their forces more effectively.

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Allied forces

By May 1941, the defence consisted of approximately 9,000 Greeks: three battalions of the 5th "Crete" Division of the Hellenic Army, which had left behind when the rest of the unit had been transferred to the mainland to oppose the German invasion; the Cretan Gendarmerie (a battalion-sized force); the Heraklion Garrison Battalion, a defence battalion - made up mostly of transportation & logistics personnel; and remnants of the 12th and 20th Hellenic Army divisions, which had escaped to Crete and were organised under British command. There were also cadets from the Gendarmerie academy and recruits from the Greek recruit training centres in the Peloponnese which had been transferred to Crete to replace the trained soldiers being sent to fight on the mainland. These troops were already organized into numbered recruit training regiments, and it was decided to use this existing configuration to organize the Greek troops, supplementing them with experienced men arriving from the mainland.

Related Topics:
5th "Crete" Division - Hellenic Army - Cretan Gendarmerie

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The British and Commonwealth contingent consisted of the original British garrison and another 25,000 Commonwealth troops evacuated from the mainland. The evacuees were the typical mix found in any contested evacuation — there were substantially intact units under their own command, scratch units hurriedly brought together by leaders on the spot, stragglers without leaders from every type of unit possessed by an Army, and deserters. Most of these men lacked heavy equipment.

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The key formed units were the New Zealand 2nd Division (less the 6th Brigade and division headquarters, which had been sent on to Egypt), the Australian 19th Brigade Group and the British 14th Brigade. Allied armour resources consisted of 16 obsolescent Cruiser Mk I tanks. There were approximately 85 artillery pieces of various calibres — many of them captured Italian pieces without sights.

Related Topics:
New Zealand 2nd Division - Egypt - Australian 19th Brigade Group - Cruiser Mk I - Italian

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On April 30, Major General Bernard Freyberg — a British general commanding the New Zealand forces — was appointed commander of the Allied forces on Crete.

Related Topics:
April 30 - Bernard Freyberg

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Possession of the island provided the Royal Navy with excellent harbours in the eastern Mediterranean. From Crete, the Ploie?ti oilfields in Romania were within range. Also, with Crete in Allied hands, the Axis south-eastern position would never be safe, a vital necessity before starting Operation Barbarossa. The Germans responded by starting a constant bombardment of the island which eventually forced the Royal Air Force to remove its planes to Alexandria, giving the Luftwaffe air superiority over the island. However, the island remained a threat and would have to be taken eventually.

Related Topics:
Mediterranean - Ploie?ti - Romania - Axis - Operation Barbarossa - Royal Air Force - Alexandria - Luftwaffe - Air superiority

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Axis forces

On April 25, Adolf Hitler signed Directive Number 28, ordering the invasion of Crete. The Royal Navy's forces from Alexandria retained control of the waters around Crete, so any amphibious assault would be quickly decided by the nature of an air-versus-ship battle, making it a risky proposition at best. With German air superiority a given, an airborne invasion was decided on.

Related Topics:
April 25 - Adolf Hitler - Royal Navy - Amphibious assault

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This was to be the first truly large-scale airborne invasion, although the Germans had used parachute and glider-borne assaults on a much smaller scale in the invasion of France and the Low Countries, Norway and even mainland Greece. In the latter instance German airborne troops they had been dispatched to capture the bridge over the Corinth Canal which was being readied for demolition by the Royal Engineers. German engineers were landed near the bridge on gliders, while parachute infantry attacked the perimeter defense forces. 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 an additional 23,000 to Egypt, albeit with the loss of most of their heavy equipment. {{ref|autonumber}}

Related Topics:
Corinth Canal - Royal Engineers

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The intention was to use Fallschirmjäger (Luftwaffe paratroopers) to capture key points of the island, including airfields that could then be used to fly in supplies and reinforcements in the usual way. The XI Fliegerkorps was to co-ordinate an attack by the 7th Air Division, which would insert its paratroopers by parachute and glider, followed by the 22nd Air Landing Division once the airfields were secure. The assault was initially scheduled for 16 May; it was postponed to 20 May and the 5th Mountain Division replaced the 22nd Division.

Related Topics:
Fallschirmjäger - Paratrooper - XI ''Fliegerkorps'' - 7th Air Division - 22nd Air Landing Division - 16 May - 20 May - 5th Mountain Division

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Strategy, tactics, intelligence, weapons and equipment

Intelligence

British intelligence & the Ultra intercepts

By this time, Allied commanders had become aware of the invasion through Ultra intercepts. General Freyberg was informed of their battle plan, although in some roundabout terms in order to hide the nature of the data, and started to prepare a defence based near the airfields. However, he was seriously hampered by a lack of modern equipment, and was faced with the reality that even the lightly armed paratroopers would be able to manage about the same firepower as his own troops — if not more.

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German intelligence

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the German Abwehr, originally reported that there were a mere 5,000 British troops on Crete and there were no Greek forces. It is not clear whether Canaris, who had an extensive intelligence network at his disposal and was of part-Greek extraction, was misinformed or was attempting to sabotage Hitler's plans (Canaris would later be executed for participating in the July 20 Plot]]. The Abwehr also predicted that the Cretan population would welcome the Germans as liberators, due to their strong republican and anti-monarchical feelings, and would want to join the "...favourable terms which had been arranged on the mainland..."{{ref|autonumber}} While it is true that the late republican prime minister of Greece, Eleftherios Venizelos had been a Cretan, and support for his ideas was strong on the island, the Germans seriously underestimated the depth of patriotic feeling on the part of the Cretans. In fact, King George and his entourage escaped from Greece via Crete with the help of Greek and British soldiers, Cretan civilians, and even a band of prisoners that had been released from captivity by the advancing Germans. (see below.)

Related Topics:
Wilhelm Canaris - Abwehr - Republican - Eleftherios Venizelos

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German Twelfth Army Intelligence painted a less optimistic picture, but still believed the British & Commonwealth forces to be much fewer than they actually were, and also underestimated the number of Greek troops who had been evacuated from the mainland. General Löhr, the theatre commander, was convinced that the island could be taken with two divisions, but decided to keep the 6th Mountain Division in Athens as a reserve. Events would prove this to have been a prudent precaution.

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Weapons

German

The Germans were deploying a new weapon on Crete: the LG40 Panzerabwehrwerfer 7,5, a 75 mm recoilless rifle. At 320 pounds, it weighed only a tenth as much as a standard German 75 mm field gun, yet had two-thirds its range. The new gun could fling a 13-pound shell over three miles. Adding to the airborne units' firepower was the fact that one-quarter of the German paratroopers jumped with an MP40 sub-machine gun, often carried in addition to a powerful bolt-action Mauser K98k. Moreover, almost every German squad was equipped with an MG42 light machine gun.{{ref|autonumber}}

Related Topics:
LG40 - Recoilless rifle - MP40 - Mauser K98k - MG42

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The Germans used color-coded parachutes to distinguish the canisters carrying rifles, ammunition, crew-served weapons and other supplies. Heavy equipment like the LG40 was dropped with a special triple-parachute harness designed to bear the extra weight.

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The troopers also carried special strips of cloth which could be unfurled in pre-arranged patterns to signal low-flying fighters to coordinate air support and supply drops.

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One hitch in the Germans' otherwise meticulous planning was the decision to drop the bulky Mauser K98k rifles in canisters instead of having the troops jump with them. While this facilitated exit from the aircraft and prevented loss and damage to the rifles, it left the paratroopers armed only with their sidearms and fighting knives in the critical few minutes after landing. Even the twenty-five percent of paratroops armed with machine pistols were at a distinct disadvantage given the weapon's limited range. Many falling parachutists were picked off in the air by rifle fire, and many more were shot attempting to make it to their unit's weapons canisters.

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Greek

Greek troops were armed with the Mannlicher-Schönauer 6.5 mm mountain carbine or with ex-Austrian 8 mm Steyr-Mannlicher M1895 rifles, the latter part of post–World War I reparations. About one thousand of the Greek troops were armed with Gra rifles. The garrison had been stripped of its best crew-served weapons, which were sent to the mainland. There were twelve obscolescent Saint Etienne light machine-guns and forty other light machine-guns of various manufactures at the Greek troops' disposal. Many of the Greek troops had less than thirty rounds of ammunition left, and could not be resupplied by the British, who had no stocks in the correct calibers. This affected their placement in the battle; those with insufficient ammunition were posted to the island's eastern sector, where the Germans were not expected in force. The Greeks made up for the lack of equipment with intensity of spirit; historian Christopher Buckley described their fight as one of "...extreme courage and tenacity." (154).

Related Topics:
Mannlicher-Schönauer - Steyr-Mannlicher M1895 - World War I - Gra - Saint Etienne - Courage

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British & Commonwealth

British and Commonwealth troops carried the .303 Lee-Enfield and used the Bren and Vickers machineguns. The Allies on Crete did not possess any Bren gun carrier tankettes, which would have provided the extra mobility and firepower needed for rapid-response teams to hit paratrooper units before they had a chance to dig in.

Related Topics:
Lee-Enfield - Bren - Vickers - Bren gun carrier

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Anti-aircraft defenses consisted of one light AA battery with 20mm Bofors cannon, split between the two airfields. The guns were carefully concealed, often in nearby olive groves, and some were ordered to hold their fire during the initial assault so that they would not immediately reveal themselves to German fighters and dive bombers.

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There were also a total of fifteen Cruiser Mk I tanks, but most of these were in a very poor state of repair, having just gone through the fighting on mainland Greece. The engines, especially, were worn and could not be overhauled with the limited resources available on Crete. Most of the tanks were used as mobile pillboxes to be brought up and dug in at strategic points.

Related Topics:
Cruiser Mk I - Pillboxes

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Strategy & tactics

Operation Mercury

There was much debate in the German high command concerning the operational plan for Crete. Though all were agreed on the necessity of taking Maleme, there was some debate over the concentration of forces there and the number to be deployed against other targets, such as the smaller airfields at Heraklion and Rethymnon. The Luftwaffe commander, General Alexander Löhr and the naval commander, Counter-Admiral Karl-Georg Shuster favored a heavier concentration against Maleme; Major General von Student wanted to disperse his paratroops more widely. Maleme had several advantages: it was the largest airfield, capable of supporting heavy transports bearing reinforcements; it was near enough to the mainland to allow air cover from land-based Bf 109 fighters; and it was near the northern coast, so seaborne reinforcements could be brought up quickly. A compromise plan was forced by Herman Goering and the final plan heavily emphasized securing Maleme first, while not ignoring the other Allied assets.

Related Topics:
Alexander Löhr - Karl-Georg Shuster - Herman Goering

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The final plan was codenamed Merkur in German, after the swift Roman god Mercury. German forces were divided into three battle groups, Centre, West and East, each with a special codename following the classical theme established by Mercury. A total of 750 glider troops, 10,000 paratroops, 5,000 airlifted mountain troops, and 7,000 seaborne troops were alloted for the invasion. The largest proportion of the forces were in Group Centre.

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For more complete information on the disposition of forces, see Crete order of battle

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German airborne doctrine was based on parachuting in a small number of forces directly on top of enemy airfields. This force would capture the perimeter and any local anti-aircraft guns, allowing a much larger force to land by glider. Freyberg was aware of this after studying German actions of the past year, and decided to render the airfields unusable for landing. However, he was countermanded by the Middle East Command in Alexandria. They felt the invasion was doomed to fail now that they knew about it, and possibly wanted to keep the airfields intact for the RAF's return once the island was secure. This is held by some to have been a fatal error. It is not clear whether this is the case, for the Germans proved they were able to land reinforcements without resort to fully-functioning airfields. One German pilot crash-landed his transport on a deserted beach; others landed on empty fields, discharged their cargo and took off again. With the Germans willing to sacrifice some of their numerous transport aircraft to win the battle, it is not clear whether a decision to destroy the airfields would have made any difference in the final outcome. The gliders, were, of course, designed to be expendable and consequently their pilots were even more daring in their landings choices.

Related Topics:
Anti-aircraft - Middle East Command - Alexandria

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