battle of Crete

Crete, battle of (1941), the first airborne assault on a major island. The defenders, mainly Commonwealth forces withdrawn from the Greek mainland at the end of April, outnumbered their attackers, but of Lt Gen Freyberg's 42, 460 men, barely half were properly formed and equipped. The New Zealand Division was deployed west of Canea up to Maleme airfield, the British 14th Infantry Brigade defended Heraklion airfield, and two Australian battalions covered Rethymnon airfield. The attack was no surprise. Likely dropping zones had been identified in November 1940. ULTRA intelligence confirmed them as targets two weeks before the invasion. Freyberg's defence plan was distorted by his fixed idea that a seaborne invasion would follow rapidly behind the airborne assault. MERCURY, planned by Gen Student, was spearheaded by 7th Airborne Division on 20 May. From well-prepared positions, the British and Commonwealth forces killed or wounded nearly two-thirds of the division. A total of over 3, 000 paratroopers were killed. Student's superiors believed the battle lost. In a last-ditch attempt early on 21 May, Student sent reinforcements to the Maleme area. The New Zealand commander, still expecting a seaborne invasion, delayed sending in a counter-attack and the battalion responsible for the airfield withdrew. Student dropped his last paratroop reserves, then started to land the 5th Mountain Division. That same day, 21 May, Freyberg misread ULTRA message OL 15/389. He took it to mean that the Germans were going to land troops by sea near Canea. In fact only a small convoy of caiques, bearing a single battalion of mountain troops, was headed for Maleme, not Canea. Freyberg concentrated his best forces close to Canea and insisted that Australian troops replace those New Zealanders earmarked for the counter-attack due that night against Maleme airfield. This delayed its start fatally. Shortly before midnight, a Royal Navy force intercepted the flotilla and destroyed much of it. Freyberg went to bed convinced that Crete had been saved. But the two understrength battalions, all that had been allocated for the counter-attack on Maleme, had started so late that they were caught in the open at daybreak on 22 May by Gen von Richthofen's fighters. Freyberg's son later claimed that his father had acted as he had only to protect the secret of ULTRA.

At Heraklion and Rethymnon the airfields had been saved through prompt and vigorous counter-attacks. But once Student had secured Maleme, he was able to fly in the rest of his mountain troops. The Commonwealth forces, exhausted from continual air attack, pulled back. Freyberg gave the order to retreat south over the White Mountains to the tiny port of Sphakia, where Royal Navy warships from Alexandria evacuated 15, 000 men. Those left behind surrendered on 1 June. The Axis had conquered Crete, but at such a cost that Hitler forbade any further airborne operations.

Bibliography

• Beevor, Antony, Crete—The Battle and the Resistance (London, 1991).
• Davin, Dan, Crete (Oxford, 1953).
• Freyberg, Paul, Bernard Freyberg VC: Soldier of Two Nations (London, 1991).
• Stewart, Ian, The Struggle for Crete (Oxford, 1955)

— Antony Beevor